Scientists and atheism.

[Lord Kenneth]

Are most scientists atheists?

Is there any statistic on this?

What about pysicists, biologists in particular?

Or is the ratio between atheist/scientist and atheist/common joe larger or smaller, as well?

 

[B.P.]

No true scientist says no god

True scientists never prove something is true or false. They tend to look for facts that lend support or that fail to support their hypotheses – they never really claim to KNOW things. Therefore, a true scientist will never say that they know there is no god. He/she may instead say something about how likely it is that there is a god. That being said, I remember reading once that most (over 50%) scientists find no reason to believe in god and choose not to spend their limited resources on the things of religion. I’ll see if I can find the reference and post it later today.

 

[arcticpenguin]

Are most scientists atheists?

Is there any statistic on this?

What about pysicists, biologists in particular?

Or is the ratio between atheist/scientist and atheist/common joe larger or smaller, as well?

I don't have any numbers for you at present. I believe the percentage of scientists who are atheistic is higher than for the general population. I don't know about "most", that would depend on the specific numbers.

 

[zakur]

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/atheism1.htm

The follow-up study reported in "Nature" reveals that the rate of belief is lower than eight decades ago. The latest survey involved 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences; half replied. When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism." Belief in the concept of human immortality, i.e. life after death declined from the 35.2% measured in 1914 to just 7.9%. 76.7% reject the "human immortality" tenet, compared with 25.4% in 1914, and 23.2% claimed "doubt or agnosticism" on the question, compared with 43.7% in Leuba's original measurement. Again, though, the highest rate of belief in a god was found among mathematicians (14.3%), while the lowest was found among those in the life sciences fields -- only 5.5%.

 

[arcticpenguin]

Re: No true scientist says no god

True scientists never prove something is true or false. They tend to look for facts that lend support or that fail to support their hypotheses – they never really claim to KNOW things. Therefore, a true scientist will never say that they know there is no god. He/she may instead say something about how likely it is that there is a god. That being said, I remember reading once that most (over 50%) scientists find no reason to believe in god and choose not to spend their limited resources on the things of religion. I’ll see if I can find the reference and post it later today.

You're saying a couple things here that are kinda shaky.

1) When you talk about "true" scientists, you come dangerously close to going true Scotsman. I think for the purpose of the present discussion, we should stick to people who actually pursue scientific research for a living. I will leave it up to Dark Cobra what level that should include: PhDs in science, or do you want to count lab techs too? Everyone in the research community, or the elite such as Nobel winners?

2) Some things are so well supported by evidence that it is perfectly reasonable to say we "know" them. For example, I would be willing to say that I "know" that genetic information is encoded in the DNA double helix in our chromosomes.

3) Please do not confuse "know" and "believe". I see no conflict for a scientist either believing in a god or believing there is no god, so long as he/she understands that it is just a belief. In science it is OK to make assumptions, but one should never lose track of what assumptions one has made.

Some religions are more compatible with science than others. I personally know a grad student in molecular biology who is a Biblical literalist and young earth creationist. I just don't get it, if all the answers are in the bible, what's the point in doing research to learn new things?

 

[arcticpenguin]

Zakur,

Thanks for the numbers. I would like to point out that members of the National Academy of Sciences is a pretty elite group, and the numbers may differ if you widen the field.

 

[arcticpenguin]

DC,

Here's a link with some interesting stuff:
http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/hri/newsweek.html

 

[B.P.]

arcticpenguin,

Thanks for the thoughts but I respectfully disagree. A scientist ALWAYS accepts a degree of doubt. No matter how strong the evidence, there is always a chance that new evidence or information will change the way we think about things. Scientists know this. It is part of the self-correcting mechanism that makes science work.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Dark Cobra,

From my experience, I would say it depends on the field.

Most Physicist I know are atheists. A few are Deists. Very few physicists are religious, or buy into any kind of belief system that actually claims to know something about God. Likewise beliefs like dualism and idealism are very rare amongst them. I would say this is probably due to the degree of logical thought and skepticism required for modern physics. In order to understand modern physics, you must be prepared to question even the most intuitively obvious and self-evident of assumptions. Once you abandon the intuitive constructs of classical physics, abandoning belief in things like Gods and an afterlife is pretty easy.

Among Chemists, and particularly Biologists, Theism is more common, although it usually a very vague form of theism that they just don't give much thought to. Mostly it just seems to be a matter of the religious beliefs they picked up when they were young lingering on. Any aspect that clearly contradicts something they know, they abandon, and anything else, they just don't think about.

B.P.

Two things to consider.

1) Most atheists define the term to mean lack of belief in God, and not active belief that there could not possibly be any sort of God.

2) Most common conceptions of God are things that a scientist can, and probably will, say doesn't exist. You are correct that in science there is no absolute knowledge, but there is knowledge. I know that the God described in the Bible does not exist. This knowledge is based on empirical evidence. I am as certain of that as I am of things like gravity. That isn't 100%, but it is pretty darn close. Now when it comes to things like the Deistic conception of God, I have no certainty either way. The concept is defined in such a way that there can never be any evidence either way.


Dr. Stupid

 

[B.P.]

Semantics

Stimpson J. Cat,

I see your point. I think it is a matter of semantics. Some define atheism as a lack of a belief in a deity. Others say that that is agnosticism. It all depends on how you define your terms.

I wish I had your certainty about the God of the bible (or of other books). It would make life a lot easier to have a greater degree of certainty – one way or the other. Every time I think I’m leaning in one direction, doubts and new possibilities come to mind. Truthfully, I don’t really care which is correct – I’d just like to know. Sadly, it is difficult to test matters of faith in a laboratory.

 

[c4ts]

Re: No true scientist says no god

True scientists never prove something is true or false. They tend to look for facts that lend support or that fail to support their hypotheses – they never really claim to KNOW things. Therefore, a true scientist will never say that they know there is no god. He/she may instead say something about how likely it is that there is a god. That being said, I remember reading once that most (over 50%) scientists find no reason to believe in god and choose not to spend their limited resources on the things of religion. I’ll see if I can find the reference and post it later today.

Was Einstein a true scientist or not?

 

[Guest]

Re: No true scientist says no god

Is your "true scientist" anything like a "true Christian" or "true Muslim", etc. ?

 

[B.P.]

Dark Cobra's Reference

Dark Cobra,

I found the reference but it looks like zakur beat me to it (see post above). Here is the reference if you would like to read the article for yourself:

Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham. Leading scientists still reject God. Nature 394, 313 (23 Jul 1998).

c4ts & Whodini,

I like the way Carl Sagan put it in The Demon-Haunted World. When talking about proving the existence of an invisible dragon in someone’s garage, and finding no proof, he says, “the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same delusion.” Note that he does not say there is no dragon. He essentially takes the stand that it has not been proved.

Sagan further says that science whispers, “Remember, you’re very new at this. You might be mistaken. You’ve been wrong before.” We should doubt (test) the atheist’s view as much as the thiest’s.

Also, Albert Einstein (and most scientists for that matter) very often find that their hypotheses are not correct. Einstein often changed his mind (consider his notion of a cosmological constant). He later called this the greatest mistake of his life. To me, this admission made him a hero. He did the best he could and always kept his eyes open to see better ways.

Consider also Richard Feynman’s philosophy of science. He was well known for his position that we never know the answers and that we should change our position if new information comes along. He was thrilled to drop old ideas (even if he had invested years in them) if it looked like a new idea was better.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Dark Cobra's Reference

Dark Cobra,

I found the reference but it looks like zakur beat me to it (see post above). Here is the reference if you would like to read the article for yourself:

Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham. Leading scientists still reject God. Nature 394, 313 (23 Jul 1998).

c4ts & Whodini,

I like the way Carl Sagan put it in The Demon-Haunted World. When talking about proving the existence of an invisible dragon in someone’s garage, and finding no proof, he says, “the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same delusion.” Note that he does not say there is no dragon. He essentially takes the stand that it has not been proved.

It seems to me that only the less intelligent theists and all atheists have such a conception of "God" as an existent existing amongst other existents. Sagans analogy is therefore completely misplaced, unless you are only interesting in attempting to refute either atheists conceptions of "God", or stupid theists conceptions of "God"?

 

[DialecticMaterialist]

I believe Shermer made a study on this and found something like 60 percent of scientists adhered to some religion and/or spirtuality while the rest were not religious. However Shermer also found that among TOP scientists(NAS and Nobel Prize winner level) about 95 percent did not adhere to any belief in a God or a religion.

 

[synaesthesia]

Re: Re: Dark Cobra's Reference

It seems to me that only the less intelligent theists and all atheists have such a conception of "God" as an existent existing amongst other existents. Sagans analogy is therefore completely misplaced, unless you are only interesting in attempting to refute either atheists conceptions of "God", or stupid theists conceptions of "God"?

"He's not existant, he's mega-uber-existant."

Ian, first of all, metaphysical sleight of hand can't save God. It's bad theory, it's shot through and through, as epistemologically holy as is possible.

Secondly, you have not demonstrated that the most intelligent theists share your metaphysical presuppositions. Nor, I would venture, have you even bothered to find out for yourself. You have merely presumed it out of your egotism.

What has been shown is that amongst those who's job is to systematically and accurately understand the universe, fewer believe in God. That's all. The tacit suggestion that this owes to the inferiority of the theory is naturally there. While it is wise to reject God-theory on the force of it's own failings, I find these statistical facts rather telling.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Re: Re: Dark Cobra's Reference

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
It seems to me that only the less intelligent theists and all atheists have such a conception of "God" as an existent existing amongst other existents. Sagans analogy is therefore completely misplaced, unless you are only interesting in attempting to refute either atheists conceptions of "God", or stupid theists conceptions of "God"?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



"He's not existant, he's mega-uber-existant."

Ian, first of all, metaphysical sleight of hand can't save God. It's bad theory, it's shot through and through, as epistemologically holy as is possible.

Jesus, give us a break Syn! I haven't even addressed your other post in that other thread yet. (Basically I haven't been able to be bothered since it completely ignored the points in my previous post)

Now you can argue against the existence of X as much as you like. But since I do not believe in X either, but in fact believe in Y, it is all rather pointless! Do you understand??

Oh yes, as I have mentioned before, God is not a theory. It is a metaphysical hypothesis (just like materialism is). Further evidence (if more were needed), that you do not have a clue about my conception of God.

Secondly, you have not demonstrated that the most intelligent theists share your metaphysical presuppositions.

Intelligent theists would provide intelligent arguments, yes? Now perhaps you or anyone else could provide an intelligent argument for the "god of the gaps" (which is essentially the type of god implied by invisible dragons, unicorns etc).

Nor, I would venture, have you even bothered to find out for yourself. You have merely presumed it out of your egotism.

What has been shown is that amongst those who's job is to systematically and accurately understand the universe, fewer believe in God. That's all.

So what? Appealling to authority is an informal logical fallacy. You need to provide actual arguments. Moreover you need to provide arguments against my conception of "God", not a strawmans.

The tacit suggestion that this owes to the inferiority of the theory is naturally there. While it is wise to reject God-theory on the force of it's own failings,

God is not a theory as I have informed you on innumerous occasions. The hypothesis of an appropriately defined God has no failings as far as I can see apart from arguably the problem of evil.

I find these statistical facts rather telling.

Can you not understand that simply because the majority of people believe something, this does not make it more likely to be true? Besides, if scientists went blabbing on about the existence of God and an afterlife they'd probably never have got their positions in the first place!

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Ian,

Did it ever occur to you that the reason that atheists primarily argue against these "stupid conceptions of God", is because those are the ones that the majority of the people we have to deal with believe in?

I am perfectly happy to debate any conception of God that you, or anyone else, feels like presenting. It is not reasonable for you to pop into a debate on one conception of God, and say "aha, that is not my conception of God, so you are just making strawman arguments". If the argument does not apply to your conception of God, then you can usually safely assume that the argument was not intended to apply to your beliefs. Unless the person making the argument is trying to claim that his argument is applicable to all conceptions of God, you have nothing to complain about.

Dr. Stupid

 

[Q-Source]

.
In 1916, Leuba found that among Scientists, 42% of them believed in God, many years later, other people replicated the same study and found that the percentage was 40%. So, it seems that there is a high percentage of Scientists who believe in God.

The study has many shortcomings (one of them is the sample).

I wonder, how is it possible that people who work everyday with the scientific method cannot apply the same scrutinity and logical reasoning to the God question?

Among Chemists, and particularly Biologists, Theism is more common, although it usually a very vague form of theism that they just don't give much thought to.

This is true.

I just met a PhD in Chemistry. We were talking about God and I asked him, how he -being a Scientist- could believe in something like God?. He told me that in Chemistry, there are some events that Science cannot explain, some chemical reactions that are amazing, out of any rational explanation. So, he implies that they have to be super natural phenomena, created by God.

What a fool...

Q-S

 

[arcticpenguin]

.
In 1916, Leuba found that among Scientists, 42% of them believed in God, many years later, other people replicated the same study and found that the percentage was 40%. So, it seems that there is a high percentage of Scientists who believe in God.

The study has many shortcomings (one of them is the sample).

I wonder, how is it possible that people who work everyday with the scientific method cannot apply the same scrutinity and logical reasoning to the God question?

But among the theists, they presumably don't all agree on the same god.

The ability of the human brain to compartmentalize things is impressive.