You all know that scientists are less religious than the general population, but contrary to most people's assumptions, the reason for this has little to do with either the study of science or with peer pressures to conform.
"Our study data do not strongly support the idea that scientists simply drop their religious identities upon professional training, due to an inherent conflict between science and faith, or to institutional pressure to conform," said Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist at the University at Buffalo and co-author of the study.
Basically, the researchers found that the best predictor of religiosity for anyone -- scientist or not -- was whether one grew up in a religious home.
Of course, there are certainly exceptions to these findings. For example, I was raised by religious parents who might conveniently be described as religious zealots, or perhaps as wackos, yet I am not, and never could be, described as being religious.
These findings were based on a survey of 1,646 researchers specializing in physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, economics, political science, psychology and other fields at 21 elite research universities and in-depth interviews with 271 of these scientists. Ecklund compared these data to the the 1998 and 2004 General Social Survey (GSS), which is a national survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Among the study's findings:
- 52 percent of scientists surveyed said they had no religious affiliation, compared with only 14 percent of the general population.
- Of the religious scientists, however, 15 percent identified themselves as Jewish compared to 2 percent of the religious general population.
- 14 percent of the general population described themselves as "evangelical" or "fundamentalist." Less than 2 percent of scientists, however, identified themselves as either of these.
This study was published recently in the journal, Social Problems.
Cited story.
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Shouldn't that be "not to credit"? ;)
Basically, the researchers found that the best predictor of religiosity for anyone -- scientist or not -- was whether one grew up in a religious home.
And further, the best predictor of someone's religion is the religion of their parents. Sorta lays waste to the idea of rationally derived belief.
Well I would guess that scientists are people who have retained their questioning minds and so ask questions and seek answers.
Asking questions is frowned upon and often even forbidden in many religious groups and the answer "'cause God says so" isn't very enlightening nor convincing so they seek elsewhere for their answers.
So, if intelligent enough & having the wherewithal, they study/work in an area with a proven track record of answering questions about how the universe works; within which the possibility of intervention of non-natural inputs is discounted (can't do science if God keeps on poking her finger in and changing the outcome) and nature follows consistant stable laws that we can understand; oh and that the Universe actually exists in a positivist sense (no last Thursdayism).
So scientists work in an Agnostic set of disciplines and so I'm not suprised to see that influence their beliefs.
Even most non-scientists live their lives based on these assumptions and, guessing from their actions, the majority of westerners believe in God in a rather casual way (go to church on Sunday, sin the other six days).
I was raised by my devoutly religious mother, and the devoutly religious members of my father's extended family. I'm an atheist. So, like you GS, I'm an exception to the predictive model those researchers built.
I remember reading that Einstein believed in a higher power.-I was not brought up religously, but it's hard for me to believe that we are here by accident.-Just because you believe in science does not mean that you can't believe in "God".
The thing that bothers me about the religion vs science argument, (I refer solely to Christianity here), is that the approach of the Bible and those who believe in it doesn't waver, but scientists change their minds on a fairly regular basis. Of course this isn't the place for deep studies and arguments, but as a born again Christian I emplore anyone to read the story of creation and find evidence to categorically dispute it.
Ive sworn off low hanging fruit.
Grrl- Did you find the title of this study? I hate it when science journalists (SciAm, LifeScience, whoever) doesnt state the title and first author of the findings theyre reporting!
Amy; I'm not sure which sect of christianity you are refering to (no insult intended by the use of the term sect, some are big sects like the Catholics, some small like the Southern Baptists); but not all the christian sects affirm the inerrancy of the Bible nor do all hold to Sola Scriptura (especially so as most consider the KJV Bible to be just another translation of earlier writings and not especially inspired).
That said:
If God is honest and isn't deceving us then the creation story; especially the flood and 6 or 10,000 year young earth stories in Genesis simply aren't physically true, nature is meant to reveal the glory of God not her duplicity.
Of course, if God exists then she can do what she wishes to confuse and lead astray her creation but I don't believe that such a God is what you would claim to believe in.
I wonder if the study includes a breakdown by field. I wouldn't have included "political scientists" and economists in a study of scientists.
Is that the same Einstein who didn't believe in quantum mechanics?
I would have to agree with the inclusion of poli sci folks and economists in any category of "scientist". They simply are not scientists at all; I think any survey like this should stick to the experimental sciences.
I also have never seen any survey address what might be a better explanation/correlation for the fact that scientists, as defined above, are less religiously inclined than the general populace. It would be a hard survey to design, but I think that scientists, in general, are more prone to question authority, ask questions, and generally forge their own path.
In my own case, I was raised in a religious setting, and even went to a religious school for the first 8 years of my education. But I never fell for it; I was always asking questions that made my teachers uncomfortable (because they had never asked themselves those questions, and they were obvious enough that a third grader could generate them!). I think that questioning attitude starts you on the path to becoming an experimental scientist, and also starts you on the path away from dogmatic irrational religious beliefs.
Larry, you've been lied to:
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly." - Albert Einstein
Don't make the same mistake. Further, no one believes we are here "by accident" as in "a box of atoms was shook and out popped us". The accepted scientific model is one of tiny slow gradual change into what we are now. That too might be hard for you to believe, but whoever said reality had an obligation to arrange itself into an easy-to-understand package? Is quantum physics easy for you?
Amy, it is a strength of science that its theories change as new evidence comes to light. The alternative religions offer is to steadfastly cling to old beliefs, like a 6,000 year old earth, in the face of mountains of independent evidence to the contrary. Loyalty to bad ideas is no virtue.
Larry is right: you can believe in gods and still accept modern scientific findings. You cannot, however, reconcile those findings with a literal reading of Genesis. It has been categorically refuted at every turn.
One interesting thing that I have always considered, having grown up and traveled all over the world, was the lengths to which religious scientists go to scientifically prove the fundamental truths of their own religion. Since religion-based research bases its starting premises on articles of faith, the questions being asked may seem ludicrous, nonsensical, or meaningless to one that is "outside" that faith.
For example, would the average American scientist (who is heavily seated in a Christian social landscape) take seriously the work done in Japan to see if the movements of salamanders actually do cause earthquakes? What about looking for geological evidence of a stone bridge connecting India with Sri Lanka, created by the Monkey King Hanuman as it is written in the Mahabharata? What about Indian scientists conducting investigations to find the healing properties of the Ganges River? What about the intrinsic "memory" of water? I know the list stretches much longer than this, and makes me wonder a few things:
1) Are the above studies as valid as searching for Eden, Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the existence of a Christian God or any other scientific research that was conducted from a Christian belief origin?
2) Are sacred religious beliefs (of any religion) and mundane/material scientific understandings (of any branch of science) philosophically compatible?
3) Are scientists who pursue scientific research on doctrines of faith doing a service or disservice to others of their religion (since a scientific discovery disproving a religious certainty could not easily be met with objectivity)?
Political "science" is not science, any more than the computer "science" that I studied in college, and so it and economics should not have been included in a study of scientists.
Science and atheism are certainly correlated, but it seems to me that the hypothesis that science leads to atheism is backwards, or rather sideways: the ability to question leads to atheism, and the ability to question leads to (or is) science. Does anybody know of any data to support this hypothesis? Does this at least match your personal experience?
I have sometimes heard it said that all kids are natural scientists (i.e., ask questions), but that most have it trained out of them as they grow up so that the few who become scientists as adults are the few whose ability to question is strong enough to survive this training. Does anybody know of any actual evidence for this view? Anecdotally, I know that the grade schools I went to worked very hard to train us out of any ability to ask questions or think for ourselves or even believe that there is any objective truth (rather than whatever the authority stated as the "right" answer), but the plural of anecdote is not data.
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
Anatole France
Oy! Margaret, watch the cracks about computer science!
What makes you think that computer science isn't a science?
Luna_the_cat: What makes you think it is a science? I have a BS, MS, and PhD in CS. It's engineering & math, not science, at least by the definitions of science I know. And sadly, folks in fields like engineering and computer programming seem to be much more likely to believe in nonsense like creationism, alternative medicine, and religion than scientists. I have a scientific outlook, but I am not a scientist.
Yes.
In my experience - as student of both theology and science - is that people tend to question their religious beliefs not when they think about science, but when they think about their religion.
You can learn all about the science related to photosynthesis, nuclear fusion or digestion in whales, and easily attribute all the wonders and compexity to a designer god.
It's only when you start to ask yourself about biblical contraditions, theological vagueness and the bloodstained history of your own church that you realise how unsupportable your religious beliefs are.
It's not necessary to be a good scientist in any field to have thought deeply about your own nonscientific beliefs.
And further, the best predictor of someone's religion is the religion of their parents. Sorta lays waste to the idea of rationally derived belief.
To the extent that they claim their religious beliefs are a matter of reason, yes. Usually, though, religious people appeal to "faith" as well as, or instead of, reason. But the fact that a person's religion is so strongly correlated with the religion of his parents shows that religious faith too is largely just a matter of upbringing and socialization. An accident of the circumstances of one's birth.
Chris' Wills: Please tell me how you would square your religion's sacred beliefs (e.g., salamanders cause earthquakes) with the mundane findings of the scientific (there is no correlation between earthquakes and the movement of salamenders)? If you can do so without all the historic contortions that, say, the Church used to justify the movements of planets under the Church-stated "Truth" of geocentrism leading up to the trials of Galileo, then I commend you.
However, I would say that you cannot do so without either denying the mundane scientific evidence (i.e., by saying that only certain motions of salamanders cause earthquakes, and that the scientific observations did not take this variable into account) or modifying religious doctrine(i.e., by saying that while salamanders have caused earthquakes in the past, maybe they are incapable of doing so anymore). Basically, I think that the way science informs us of the world is philosophically incompatible with the way through which religion informs us of the world. Scientific explanations and religious explanations are as different as two lines skewed from each other. They will not intersect. They are not parallel. However, they are both lines, with a set of coordinates that tell the "truth" of each line's condition. (To all you mathematicians out there, this is an analogy, and is not - by any means - perfect.)
You cannot use (imho) scientific explanations to justify religious understandings. Similarly, you cannot use religious understandings to make scientific explanations. Using the previous example, the movement of salamanders can be described by science, however science cannot describe why salamanders choose to cause earthquakes. Similarly, having the religious understanding that salamanders cause earthquakes does not mean that you have any idea or ability to accurately describe any one salamander's physical movements.
Of course, you (the individual) can choose to believe whatever you want. You can even choose to fervently hold a religious belief in the face of scientific evidence running contrary to that belief. You might even be a person who believes what your religion tells you is "true" and also accept what scientific observation tell you is "true" without having a philosophical conundrum. This does not negate my stated position in the previous paragraphs. My statements above are that science (as a philosophy; a way of thinking/viewing the world) is fundamentally different than religion (as a philosophy). However, you can choose to believe two different things are "true", but each based on different philosophies of "truth."
Margaret said: I have sometimes heard it said that all kids are natural scientists (i.e., ask questions), but that most have it trained out of them as they grow up so that the few who become scientists as adults are the few whose ability to question is strong enough to survive this training. Does anybody know of any actual evidence for this view?
I dispute the premise. Asking questions is the first step of science, but it is not science. After all, creationists ask questions all the time: how did the eye evolve, where are the transitional forms, if we evolved from monkeys then why do we have Larry King? None of this is science.
What seperates science from other epistemologies is the insistence on setting up falsifiable experiments to answer those questions, and doing so in a way that others can replicate. This is decidedly NOT the way children think. Children do tend to ask questions, but they ask them of whatever authority they trust, and often accept the answer at face value. When they don't, they reason it out for themselves, as far as they are able. What they rarely do is go perform experiments to validate their theories.
I'm of the opinion that growing up, if you will, from this rationalistic mode of thinking, to doing real science is what is lacking from pseudoscientists of all ranks. Whether it is IDers/creationists, UFOlogists, or moonlanding conspiracy theorists, the common thread is rationalization, not science. In a sense, they never grew up, and still think like children.
The budding scientist isn't the kid asking you lots of questions, it's the kid digging in the ant mound to see what's there.
Hi Shaw:
1) I don't have a religion.
2) Your question asked about any religion and any branch of the sciences, so I'll ignore the salamanders as I don't know how they are meant to work.
3) As you bring up the Church & Galileo; can I ask for a justification of the Communists in the USSR oppressing scientists who disagreed with the communist ideology and banning scientists from teaching evolutionary theory when Lysenkoism was the state approved belief? Just because people in power claim knowledge they don't have or believe that they can bend nature to their will and forcibly impose their will/beliefs on others isn't a crime unique to religious authorities nor unique to theists.
I'll have to work on my reply when I get back to the bungalow; but http://www.answersincreation.org/ claim to do it from a christian perspective. Please note this is not an ID, YEC or inerrant bible believer site; they actually are attempting a concordance with the facts revealed about the natural world by science given priority.
You may not agree with their reasoning, some of it seems a bit forced from my perspective, and they actually have a number of different rationals depending on how literally they take the Bible, but some of it seems reasonably sound.
Hi Shaw:
I apologise for the length and somewhat rambling nature of my reply. I was likely trying to cover too many bases at once. The main bit is at the end.
I'll start by naming some religious beliefs that I am not talking about.
Aesir/Vanir, Ancient Roman, Ancient Greek type pantheons are not creator Gods; the ruling Gods in these pantheons deposed the elder Gods who gave them existence and in some case killed their parents and are part of the "natural world" rather than outwith it and didn't create it, they can also die just as mortals can (they are immortal in potential).
The Aesir/Vanir Gods are an exemplar of this type of God as the universe of man & gods and even the first God was created where Ice met Fire in the Ginnungagap and the first God wasn't the first lifeform (http://www.stavacademy.co.uk/mimir/heroicnorse.htm).
I am also not talking about philosophical systems that do not include the concept of a creator God or Gods at all such as Platonism, Buddhism or Jainism (Jains, like Buddhists, are agnostic (some are atheistic believing in Nirvana rather than God(s)). The gods and idols in their temples are not real in themselves, rather symbols of human attitudes, aspirations and fears, so that worship is really about one's own integration in oneself and with the world around. Purity, right living and service of others are hallmarks of their faith.) but are often classed with religions. Nor Confucianism, which is more a social contract.
Shintoism is more interesting though as it has the Gods appearing spontaneously from the a pre-existing chaos its Gods are similar in type to the Aesir/Vanir. They are part of the natural universe, not separate from it, and can only mold what already is.
Also, I am ignoring all the Animist and Shamanist philosophies/religions; mainly because I don't know them all, those I have read about tend to be nature based though many have a spiritual plain separate from our material plain though often still part of one universe.
So, we are left with the God created the material universe and is not part of the material universe religions and their numerous sects.
These are Hinduism (Brahman), Judaism (God), Christianity (God), Islam (Allah). Aplogies to any I've missed.
Judaism & Islam have a Unitarian God without separate aspects.
Hinduism & Christianity have a Trinitarian God who is Three in One.
(please note: I do know that this is a very simplified rendition of the class of beliefs under discussion; especially given the vast variety of Hindu, Muslim and Christian sects)
All of these claim that One God created the Universe and all that is in it. So how can they rationalise their religious writings/beliefs when these appear to conflict with the findings of modern Science?
Well, in the first instance, only the Muslim's holy book affirms its own inerrancy so the other three have no a-priori requirement to hold that what is written in their books is meant to be a scientific description of the physical Universe.
The Hindus don't have central books as the other three do and also they mostly hold that the physical universe is maya (illusion). Brahman has thought the Universe into existence, modern science may show how the universe works and so reveal part of Brahman's thought but there can be no conflict. If an ancient sage wrote one thing and modern science shows another there is no problem, one of them is wrong and modern science will normally be preferred.
This religion comes from the same people who discovered zero the number (as distinct from a place marker or nothing) and have had advanced mathematics and medicine for a long time.
What is rational? I use the word to mean logical deductions from a set of axiom/predicate/belief set; if it is internally consistent it is rational. It may not match to what we think we know about the Universe we reside in, but it isn't irrational as long as it is consistent though it may be wrong in some sense; so please do not claim things are irrational just because they don't match your belief set.
Science is a method of learning about the material/physical universe (the most successful one yet found), it is not a philosophy of life nor is the ability to follow the scientific method limited to one type or group of people with a particular.
Given the variety of beliefs held by people who have advanced science this should not need to be said, however some affirm the need for cognitive dissonance in religious people who practice science and this is plain silly as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam the scientists have mostly done their investigations Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
The rational is that God gave people intelligence so that they could learn, remaining ignorant isn't Gods desire in their view.
Some religious leaders obviously do wish their flock to remain ignorant, but this is no different than some politicians and for the same reasons.
Mathematics and Science are separate activities; of course scientists may use mathematics and may be great mathematicians as well as scientists however they are distinct activities. Mathematics is based on axioms and logic; science is based on hypothesis, predict, test, refine hypothesis.
So a mathematician can prove beyond any doubt a theorem in mathematics, based on the axiomatic set used. A scientist can not prove in this absolutist sense, she can prove absolutely the falsity of an hypothesis and after repeated successful tests may infer acceptance of the hypothesis in its domain, the more successful tests the higher the confidence in the validity of the hypothesis especially those hypothesis that predict something unknown and even better something counter intuitive or different from the existing ruling hypothesis. This repeatability of tests irrespective of who or where the test is done (as long as the person is competent and there isn't a totally dissimilar environment, same test set up required) is one of the hallmarks of science.
Engineers use the results of the mathematicians & scientists to make things. :o)
Science limits its explorations to the natural universe; it says nothing about the existence or otherwise of what is non-natural/super-natural nor (at present) anything that may be outside our universe. Science examines what is within the physical universe and that which is subject to test/checking using whatever resources we can bring to bear in a repeatable way. So Matter, Energy (Dark Matter & Dark Energy could also be included) and those things composed of them are subject to scientific investigation. There is of course speculative science, but I would say that until testable predictions can/are made it isn't yet science; though of course the people doing the speculation may be scientists).
So let's compare religions and sciences pre-suppositions, referring to the mainstream of the religions rather than outliers such as Wahhabi muslims or Ken Ham and his ilk.
Religion:
God created the Universe and is not contained by it (i.e. is supernatural)
God created a lawful universe
God, being outside our time which is part of the Universe knows the outcome as from her viewpoint it has already happened.
God caused intelligent life to come into existence
God granted free will to the intelligent life.
God is honest
God can intervene if she wishes, though normally doesn't do so, and if she does intervene will normally do so in a lawful way.
Plus a lot of other attributes starting with Omni.
Science:
We exist, well at least I do and I'll assume that you do too.
A physical universe exists independent of us and we are part of the universe.
The universe is lawful.
The laws of the universe are understandable by humans.
Humans are intelligent.
Humans can make choices.
Induction is a valid method.
Confirmation by testing is a valid method for determining how the physical universe works.
Science approaches the truth of how the physical universe works, but never knowingly reaches it.
The intervention of God is excluded as an explanation, otherwise anything is possible; this also excludes teleology as an explanation as well.
Science explains how things are; it doesn't address why things are as they are.
Science doesn't seek to address moral/ethical issues.
Others I've missed
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So let's assume that the interpretation of the translation, of the writings, of an oral tradition doesn't match what the agreed results of scientific testing reveal to us. There are six possible outcomes I can think of.
1)The science is wrong and will be superceded as more data is collected and more testing done. Always possible; vitalism, phlogiston & radium treatment were once considered part of the scientific common knowledge. As with the age of the Earth and the Universe further investigation showed that their age was longer than previously thought possible by such the then scientific consensus including such eminences as Lord Kelvin.
2)The original writing is wrong. Always a possibility giving that it is the transcription of an oral record, though hard for a religion to accept.
3)The translation is wrong. Often an easy out, translation often depends on the person doing the translating, especially when the word/phrase being translated can have various meanings (Lucifer comes to mind in the KJV Christian Bible as compared to its use in St Jerome's translation of the Bible into Latin). There are also cases of phrases, verses and even entire books being left out.
4)The interpretation is wrong. Very much depends if the interpreter is alive or dead (dead is easier to deal with than alive) and how senior they are/where in the institution. However, changing the interpretation from literal to allegorical can resolve a lot of conflicts.
5)Call it different truths. This is sort of like the allegory solution, but often makes claims as to viewpoint.
6)The religion is wrong in its entirety.
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Well I think we can discount 6 as a likely result; except possibly for some individuals, people invest too much of themselves in their world views/belief sets to discount it entire and adopt another set of beliefs.
5) calling it different truths is, to my mind, simply waffle and most people know this. Though given some of the verbiage echoing from some parts of the POMO adherents the idea that all viewpoints are equally valid does appear to have some traction in academic circles.
4) Wrong interpretation is often used. i.e. The horned one referred to in the Koran isn't Alexander the Great even though earlier Islamic scholars said that it was.
3) Incorrect translation. i.e. The word/phrase in the original language can have various meanings and we picked the wrong one. This bit was added later (always a goody) and the adversary beguiled us. We translated from a translation and that previous translation was in error.
Not literal meaning: The section/book is allegorical and is explaining in understandable ways to less sophisticated people why they are like they are and/or the power of God. i.e. Job
2) Accepting the original writing to be in error is almost as hard as accepting the religion to be wrong in its entirety. Though as some books/verses have been expunged/lost from most religious writings this isn't impossible and again "the adversary beguiled us" is normally an acceptable out.
1) The science is wrong! This is probably the first recourse (the religious may not always be wrong in not accepting scientific consensus, their example is often steady state universe hypothesis as opposed to Big Bang).
It is only possible for a religion to do this as long as the conflict isn't extreme; by this I mean doesn't adversely affect the lives of the communicants. So, if those who are YECs or IDists or Flat Earthers don't feel themselves to be socially or materially damaged by their beliefs then the religion can hold to its disbelief without damaging itself.
The other solution to when science says something is not-possible or highly improbable is either to invoke a miracle which is obviously not a scientific claim or to say that God allowed/made a very improbable thing occur without breaking the laws of the universe and that given the low probability it may never happen again and so isn't subject to test (one off events are very hard to test).
So, to answer your question, either religions have no problem with science or can adjust their claims to suit without breaking their belief set.
Religions don't have to conform at all times to what the latest scientific consensus says. Most religious people would suggest that their religion is more to do with those things nor addressed by science. They aren't materialists and so don't have to conform to a materialist worldview.
Chris' Wills - Thank you for a very well-laid-out track. It was a really nice read when I came in this morning. I hope you didn't spend too much time on it (since it shows you posted at 7:42AM).
With all that you wrote, I cannot help but make one (small) poke to your exclusion of religions: what about Zoroastrianism? (Admittedly, I don't know much about that religion, and so may actually be under one of your categories of exclusion.)
The only (possibly rhetorical after your extensive commentary) point that I wanted to make is that some religious people forget (possibly conveniently) that science is a fundamentally different way of interpreting the material/mundane world and try and directly compare the two, as if they were the same thing.
Again, thanks for the discussion!
Shaw
ps, I only mentioned salamanders in my previous comment because it is unlikely that people reading the post are Shinto and share that belief. (I only know that it is purportedly a mythic explanation in Shintoism as to the reason why earthquakes occur.)
Shaw - Thank you.
I really shouldn't have forgotten Zoroastrianism, it may be the earliest one creator God religions and fascinating in how much it influenced christianity & islam. It has a creator God and a Devil (it is also why Mazda was used as a trademark for some light bulbs, Ahura Mazda is their name for God).
I would group it with Judaism, it has a general rule not to accept none Aryans (original name for natives of Persia) as converts as it says each tribe/race of man has a religion of its own, so like Judaism it doesn't seek converts.
The time stamp is EST and I'm at EST+7h so not a problem.
It would be interesting to test the salamander idea, though given the prevelance of earthquakes in Japan it might be difficult to test with great confidence. Perhaps take Japanese salamanders to Australia and test it there.
I would guess that science has been so effective & productive that some people wish to have it on side with their belief set.
Science Avenger said: Asking questions is the first step of science, but it is not science.
Good point. I agree. I guess I was more thinking about how grade school (or at least the 8 years of hell that they called grade school when I was there) seems geared mainly toward training kids out of any ability to even think a question, much less ask it. And without that first step, you can never get to the next step of being able to ask a question in an adult rather than just a childish way. But you are certainly right in that merely asking a question is not nearly enough for science, you also have to try to find out Nature's answer, not just accept the first "answer" some authority (or your imagination) comes up with.
Science is in the finding out, and questioning is necessary but not sufficient for that.