Statistical dynamics of religion evolutions

Marcel Ausloos and Filippo Petroni ()

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2009, vol. 388, issue 20, 4438-4444

Abstract: A religion affiliation can be considered as a “degree of freedom” of an agent on the human genre network. A brief review is given on the state of the art in data analysis and modelization of religious “questions” in order to suggest and if possible initiate further research, after using a “statistical physics filter”. We present a discussion of the evolution of 18 so-called religions, as measured through their number of adherents between 1900 and 2000. Some emphasis is made on a few cases presenting a minimum or a maximum in the investigated time range—thereby suggesting a competitive ingredient to be considered, besides the well accepted “at birth” attachment effect. The importance of the “external field” is still stressed through an Avrami late stage crystal growth-like parameter. The observed features and some intuitive interpretations point to opinion based models with vector, rather than scalar, like agents.

Keywords: Dynamics; Opinion formation; Religion; Sociophysics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:388:y:2009:i:20:p:4438-4444

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2009.06.051

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