percentage of religious scientists/professors?

[crozell]

It seems that there is a perception that people with advanced education (especially scientists and professors) are less likely to subscribe to an organized religion than society as a whole. For instance, I have heard it said that Nobel prize winners are much more likely to be atheists than the general population.

But, I’ve never seen any real research about this. Does anyone know of recent polls done in this area? I am specifically interested in knowing what percentages of scientists and/or university faculty claim a religious faith?

I’ve tried Googling on this, but I’m mostly turning up webpages for faculty in religion departments (and rantings from extremists on both sides of the religion issue arguing about who is smarter). There is one older GQ thread about a similar subject here, but it doesn’t contain much data, and none specific to scientists or university faculty. Thank you in advance for anyone who can help!

[bonzer]

There’s Edward Larson’s 1997 survey of members of the US National Academy of Science. (The link’s to an atheist site, but the numbers were widely reported and discussed in many places at the time, and Larson’s a respected academic.)

[glee]

I don’t have any statistics, but I would expect less believers.
Science is about careful observation and a single resulting theory. Religion is a belief without any evidence, plus there are many incompatible faiths.

Depressingly, Newton believed in astrology, despite being one of the greatest scientists ever.

[Doctor_Jackson]

Nitpick -

Religion is a belief without any evidence…

Not so. Religion (or more appropriately faith) is defined as “belief without proof”, not “belief without evidence”. Evidence can exist without proof, proof cannot exist without evidence.

[crozell]

Thank you bonzer, I need to read it more carefully, but it looks like that link is exactly the type of thing I am looking for. Anyone know of similar studies for university faculty?

Thank you!

[Revtim]

@glee

I don’t have any statistics, but I would expect less believers.
Science is about careful observation and a single resulting theory. Religion is a belief without any evidence, plus there are many incompatible faiths.

Depressingly, Newton believed in astrology, despite being one of the greatest scientists ever.

He was pretty wacky on several accounts, at least by today’s standards. From Bill Bryson’s “A Short History Of Nearly Everything”:

 Newton was a decidedly odd figure—brilliant beyond measure, but solitary, joyless, prickly to the point of paranoia, famously distracted (upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head), and capable of the most riveting strangeness. He built his own laboratory, the first at Cambridge, but then engaged in the most bizarre experiments. Once he inserted a bodkin—a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather—into his eye socket and rubbed it around “betwixt my eye and the bone as near to [the] backside of my eye as I could” just to see what would happen. What happened, miraculously, was nothing—at least nothing lasting. On another occasion, he stared at the Sun for as long as he could bear, to determine what effect it would have upon his vision. Again he escaped lasting damage, though he had to spend some days in a darkened room before his eyes forgave him. Set atop these odd beliefs and quirky traits, however, was the mind of a supreme genius—though even when working in conventional channels he often showed a tendency to peculiarity. As a student, frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented an entirely new form, the calculus, but then told no one about it for twenty-seven years. In like manner, he did work in optics that transformed our understanding of light and laid the foundation for the science of spectroscopy, and again chose not to share the results for three decades.

 For all his brilliance, real science accounted for only a part of his interests. At least half his working life was given over to alchemy and wayward religious pursuits. These were not mere dabblings but wholehearted devotions. He was a secret adherent of a dangerously heretical sect called Arianism, whose principal tenet was the belief that there had been no Holy Trinity (slightly ironic since Newton’s college at Cambridge was Trinity). He spent endless hours studying the floor plan of the lost Temple of King Solomon in Jerusalem (teaching himself Hebrew in the process, the better to scan original texts) in the belief that it held mathematical clues to the dates of the second coming of Christ and the end of the world. His attachment to alchemy was no less ardent. In 1936, the economist John Maynard Keynes bought a trunk of Newton’s papers at auction and discovered with astonishment that they were overwhelmingly preoccupied not with optics or planetary motions, but with a single-minded quest to turn base metals into precious ones. An analysis of a strand of Newton’s hair in the 1970s found it contained mercury—an element of interest to alchemists, hatters, and thermometer-makers but almost no one else—at a concentration some forty times the natural level.  It is perhaps little wonder that he had trouble remembering to rise in the morning.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@glee

Science is about careful observation and a single resulting theory. Religion is a belief without any evidence

No, it would be more fair to say that religious belief is based on a different kind of evidence. Different disciplines do rely on different types of evidence: that of an experimental scientist is different from that of a historian or a literary critic, for example. It would be interesting to know if/how the religious beliefs of professors in different disciplines are colored by the approaches they use to those disciplines.

Also worth noting is that scientists and professors like coming up with their own theories about things; in many cases that’s their job! So I wouldn’t be surprised to find that academics hold unconventional religious views rather than accepting traditional dogma.

[Angua]

@glee

Depressingly, Newton believed in astrology, despite being one of the greatest scientists ever.

However, if I recall correctly, astrology was considered a science during Newton’s time, as opposed to the quackery we know it as today.

[APB]

@glee

Depressingly, Newton believed in astrology…

Er, no.

Isaac Newton and Astrology

[glee]

@Doctor Jackson

Nitpick - Not so. Religion (or more appropriately faith) is defined as “belief without proof”, not “belief without evidence”. Evidence can exist without proof, proof cannot exist without evidence.

Well of course I agree with your last sentence.
I suppose I am being a bit tough on religion, but I don’t know of any religion that has anything better as evidence than some ancient writings or people claiming ‘experiences’. Not a shred of physical evidence (plus the major religions contradict each other anyway.)

@Thudlow Boink

No, it would be more fair to say that religious belief is based on a different kind of evidence. Different disciplines do rely on different types of evidence: that of an experimental scientist is different from that of a historian or a literary critic, for example.

I agree that a historian has to largely rely on written sources (though there can be supporting evidence of battles, buildings and cultural changes too.)
But religion makes fantastic claims, so needs far better support than e.g. sources written by believers 30+ years after the events.

Surely literary criticism is artistic, not scientific?

APB,
thanks for the cite!

[crozell]

Sorry…I was trying hard not to start a GD thread. I’ve heard many of the reasons why educated types might tend to not hold a religious faith. If anyone has knowledge of any polling data from university faculty, please let me know.

Thanks!