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What Scientists Really Think About Religion
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post has a book review of Science and Religion: What Scientists Really Think by Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund, who spent four years doing a detailed survey of 1,646 scientists at elite American research universities. The study reveals that scientists often practice a closeted faith, worrying about how their peers would react to learning about their religious views. 'After four years of research, at least one thing became clear: Much of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. The '"insurmountable hostility" between science and religion is a caricature, a thought-cliche, perhaps useful as a satire on groupthink, but hardly representative of reality,' writes Ecklund. Unsurprisingly, Ecklund found that 64% of scientists are either atheists (34%) or agnostic (30%). But only five of the 275 in-depth interviewees actively oppose religion; and even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves 'spiritual.' 'According to the scientists I interviewed, the academy seems to have a "strong culture" that suppresses discussion about religion in many areas,' says Ecklund. 'To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.'"
Why focus on fervently opposing religion when there are so many more interesting scientific things to do?
This shouldn't absolutely be a 'don't ask don't tell' thing, but if the guy does his job properly leave him be...
Also, several nutcases in science have nothing to do with religion, like the MMR "controversy", HIV denialists, etc, etc
how long until
it's when you start believing that an imaginary being created everything, and when you start brainwashing others to believe it, that I have a problem. All the money that is given to the church could be used to eliminate homelessness or other social problems.
To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.
The surest path to atheism is open discussion of religion.
I smell the templeton foundation.
"and even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves 'spiritual.'"
What does the word "even" mean in this sentence? Spirituality is a part of the human psyche. Although we often connect the two, spirituality has little to do with faith. In fact, science is a great source of awe and wonder, feelings that we might call "spiritual" feelings.
Science can tell you "why" also, such as why the Earth is round. I don't see why can can't just leave questions unanswered and we have to make up an answer for them. Perhaps in thousands of years science will progress to the point where it is possible to answer some questions previously thought impossible. A "God of the gaps" is a silly god.
> Science is purely objective
But scientific community is far from. And you need publications and grants.
scientists, in general, do not have strong views against religion. Scientists are used to politely disagreeing with people that do not share their views, and having their views challenged and proven wrong.
it is the uneducated that have complete certainty in their opinions want to kill everyone that disagrees with them.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
My experience in the community is just that no one cares unless it starts effecting your science or hypotheses. Theist or atheist, if you're good at what you do no one cares. If you go around preaching to other scientists, yeah, you're opening yourself up for ridicule. But I think that is true in any field outside of the more religious areas of the US.
I see nothing wrong with there being a stigma against religion in science. These people have been trained their entire lives to make their positions based on factual evidence and experimental certainty. Believing in a religion, which is by its nature unprovable, flies right in the face of everything science is built upon. What OTHER things do these religious "scientists" take "on faith"?
I'm not calling for a witch hunt of religious scientists, but I do not see any reason that religion should be tolerated, in science of all places. Faith has no place in determining the truth of our universe, because it is by its nature subjective. I would seriously question findings by anyone holding a religion beyond the most basic "there might be some kind of creator," because honestly, buying into dogmatic systems of mass delusion do not show you are of sound mind.
Religion is overly tolerated in our society. We need to move towards questioning and ridiculing it, not "removing stigma" surrounding it.
Just my two cents.
Great Intellect...
They don't, though. Thats the thing. God's all about war and violence and punishment and judgement, and Christianity worships fear more than love. Maybe there are still some out there, but the idea of the true Jesus Christian who is a pacifist and loves thy brother is extinct in my part of the US.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Open mindedness is only a virtue when it comes to being open to examining evidence for a proposition. It's not a virtue if it means accepting a proposition without evidence.
What if 36% of scientists said they believed there was a teapot in orbit around mars? 30% said they didn't know? And 34% said there couldn't be one?
Would the scientific community be justified in thinking less of the 36% of scientists that believed there was such a teapot, despite there being no evidence for it? Of course they would. Such people would rightly be considered to be cranks, not scientists. Belief in a god without any evidence for one is no different.
(Which you find more praiseworthy of the other two groups is open to debate.)
I think there are two kinds of spiritual people:
1) Those that believe in religion in addition to science
2) Those that believe in religion instead of science
I mean, science does not prove or disprove whether there is a soul or if there's an afterlife or any of those things that means we're more than flesh and blood who doesn't have any other purpose than our own. These people may call themselves spiritual but they're not threatened by scientific discovery because the divine exists outside time and space and the realm of science.
Then there are the people who care very much about worldly "facts" or perhaps "axioms" are the word since they exist without proof only by Holy Scripture, like that the world is 6000 years old, all men come from Adam shaped of mud and Eve shaped from a rib, the earth is the center of the universe and so on. They are hostile to science because science is dangerous to their religion, every time evidence builds that these facts are wrong it threatens their religion as a whole. To them the Bible or Qur'an can't be wrong, where science and religion clash science must yield.
I think a very nice follow-up question to that study would be: "If something that is established religious doctrine in your belief was contradicted by observational evidence, what would you be more inclined to believe?" That is where I think scientists and many religious folks would go their separate ways.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If there is a discrimination problem, what should be done about it? The usual answer is education, but scientists are already educated. I was often taught that education was an effective remedy for small-mindedness, and the uneducated are far more inclined to be closed-minded.
Fortunately, the article suggests that it is more of a perception of discrimination than actual discrimination. There are a few, talkative scientists who make it seem like it is horrible to be a religious scientist, but most scientists just don't talk about it at all, leaving the talkative ones to do all the talking. So it is mostly a matter of people who want to talk about it gaining more confidence to be themselves.
Qxe4
Because scientists don't live in a societal vacuum. Personalities DO matter.
People haven't advanced much. 700 years ago, you either believed in the bible or you were burned at the stake. 70 years ago in Germany or the Soviet Union, you "believed" in Hitler or Stalin respectively, or you were sent to the concentration camp. 7 years ago, you went "hoo-rah!" with invading Iraq, or you were person non grata some places.
Even today there are these cherished beliefs you CANNOT question. They are all over society. Not just in third world, in first worlds you get ostracized all the time from these little factions or even jailed for voicing the wrong thing. People love their fucking little beliefs and love even more making sure that you believe the same thing they do or at the least you STFU if you don't. Hell, it happens at places like /. or Digg if you go against groupthink - it's one of the fundamental truths about humanity.
From the summary:
And you know why this is? Because there is nothing to be gain and a lot to be lost in actively opposing religion. Just go to someplace relatively mainstream like the Hannity forum and look at some of the extreme nutters on there. There are people in this country that will kill you because you think abortion is okay, fundamentalism isn't a purely middle east thing. Maybe the repercussions aren't as bad, but a scientist who actively opposes religion in this country where the money still says "In God We Trust" and after every speech the President has to say "God Bless America" still has some balls.
It's not at a level of going "**** Allah" in Afghanistan to be sure, but I'm sure real obstacles would be put in that person's path by someone with both faith and power.
there was a penn and teller 'bullshit' tv episode that joked about 'taking a vote' about the sex of some animal (I think it was a rabbit but that's not important). lets 'vote' on whether we think or 'believe' this rabbit is male or female. tally up our votes. how did we do?
WHO CARES! its not a votable thing. no amount of 'we all collectively decided' is going to change facts.
it was a good convincing way to illustrate their point and in an entertaining way.
and again, it does not matter how much of the mass population is collectively deluded by notion of sky daddies. they don't exist and any amount of 'popular concensus' or even duration-based ("its been believed for 2000+ yrs!") is going to change a thing.
if you are a scientist and believe in sky daddies, your thinking processes are suspect. pretty simple. not like rocket science.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I haven't read the books, but that article is crap. The entire thing just says "evolution is clearly happening, so we should reinterpret the bible to say that God just got he ball rolling." It is an exercise in altering religious views to conform to modern science, not an exercise in scientific thought. It is just arguing that we should modify religion to become a "God of the gaps", which is a silly argument indeed.
I dont think that's it. Whilst scientists should be open to any evidence that comes along one way or another, that doesn't mean they shouldn't have working hypotheses until such evidence does arrive. For example If I tell a scientist that I have an invisible friend called Harvey the Rabbit, and he's standing in the room, I don't expect a scientist to be agnostic to that claim. I expect him to believe that I'm talking nonsense, unless and until I can provide evidence for my claim.
I'll tell you why - the magical mystical god of the various books is hugely inconsistent and fails the basic logical challenges a scientific analysis demands.
Science and religion are diametrically opposed in one specific thing - religion insists on telling us "it is so", while science will treat us like adults and tell us "we don't know - here is our best guess so far"....
Now here come the flame mods :-)
You'll pretty much deserve the flame mods though. Pretending that there's one "god" portrayed differently by the various religions isn't helping your case. "Logical challenges a scientific analysis demands" suggesting that a divine being (perhaps the source of the universe), is somehow subject to science, is a curious argument at best. You don't appear to be in a good position to be saying "it is so" to all those with religious beliefs.
There's diversity out there, which is why the conversation is worth having : how do different beliefs interact with people's way of understanding science ? Scientists throughout history have had various beliefs which may have helped or hindered their quest for knowledge. They're part of the discussion
Another problem with being an openly religious scientist is that it can odd a very strong stigma for several different reasons. The main source of opposition to many scientific theories are religious groups. Take for example the controversies surrounding stem cell research, genetic engineering, cloning, some aspects of quantum physics (LHC for example), and then the general evolution/creationism stuff. Being a scientist who is opening religious can bring a (possibly unfair) stigma against you from other scientists who do work in any of these areas, or who generally agree with the work being done in these areas. The reason being that the religious side of all of these arguments hold little to no water in any logical or scientific way. So, anyone associated with such religious beliefs may very well be viewed as illogical (and thus untrustworthy in a scientific sense) by their peers.
Say for example a scientist involved in stem cell research is also a practicing Christian (the main group opposing stem cell research). Even if the scientist does not oppose stem cell research his/her peers may very well assume that he/she does if they learn of the scientist's beliefs.
So, in other words, updating science to better correspond with reality is good science. Updating theology to better correspond with reality is bad theology.
Kind of "heads I win, tails you lose" situation.
They don't, though. Thats the thing. God's all about war and violence and punishment and judgement, and Christianity worships fear more than love.
Maybe there are still some out there, but the idea of the true Jesus Christian who is a pacifist and loves thy brother is extinct in my part of the US.
Do you mean Faith, Hope, and Love/Charity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_virtues
Or perhaps Prudence, Justice, Restraint/Temperance, and Courage/Fortitude?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues
Just because you can't reach your ideals doesn't mean you're not striving for them. It's called imperfection/the human condition, sometimes referred to in theological circles as "original sin". It's the striving that's important, even if you fall flat on your face.
Of course people do forget these things in the general grind of life.
I would be more interested in the percentages per field. You can't classify all scientists under one banner as some fields are 'softer' than others so people with religious views are able to function. Other fields are strongly incompatible with religious views. Also, there will likely be a strong impact from the population in general so in a country like the US where almost everyone is religious, this will mean that there will be a significant population of scientists who hold religious views albeit lower than the population in general. In other countries where religion is less strongly entrenched the percentages are likely to be significantly lower.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
This one single study is quite fascinating! I can't wait to see other, corroborating studies. Until then, of course, I'm going to withhold acceptance of any conclusions claimed by the study.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I would be interested in your basis of information which supports that statement. It appears that you are making assumptions about dead scientists [Newton, Copernicus, etc.] without any possible valid source of information. You base this on your understanding of the beliefs of the general population when they {Newton, et al] were alive, perhaps? Less than rigorous.
It's not a silly argument at all. It's the difference between delusion and a sunny disposition. Choosing to believe what a religion says even when there's clear incontrovertible evidence to the contrary is more or less mental illness, not a legitimate religious belief. One can legitimately claim that there's a god for the simple reason that we can't prove that there isn't to any reasonable certainty.
It's that viewpoint which tends to cause scientists to clam up about religion rather than necessarily any reason to hide it. I went to a very liberal school and a significant number of my professors were practicing Catholics. Perhaps it's a biased sample, but I can't imagine them saying they were at such a liberal institution if they were feeling it would damage their careers.
Hardly.
Geopolitics and realities of war answers those questions, and at least if our experience of last 60 years say anything, in the affirmative (do you really believe 20th century would've been more peaceful if U.S. didn't develop nukes by the end of WWII?).
As a believing physicist, I really can't see how religion answers "is it a good idea to develop weapons of mass destruction". Since no figure in Bible built nukes or any such things, no lessons can be drawn from anywhere. Killing in itself is rather an ambiguous practice, as personified in David (a good king whose good deeds were mostly in the battlefield, and yet, forbidden from building the temple because he shed blood). So, unless you somehow perceive yourself as God in building these weapons of apocalypse, all but extremely pacifist religions (Hinduism and Buddhism, perhaps?) are silent on this question.
OTOH, Why focus on defending religion since you can't prove it right?
It seems to me that everyone would be much better off if we entirely forgot everything about religion.
Too much blood, too much terror, religion is not how we want to live at all.
Atheism is much more common among scientists than among the general population, as is agnosticism.
Or maybe "scientists" are more honest about it?
The truth is that most people that claim to be Christians are not able to discuss any particular point of the primary source document, and probably haven't been to a church service in years. So while many people claim to be Christians, in a factual sense it really isn't true since in a very real way they can not describe any of the things that define Christianity.
I can say I'm a brain surgeon all day long (hey, I took a biology class once), yet I know nothing at all about brain surgery.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The numbers given there are roughly accurate, so I'm not sure what point you are making about 2% as opposed to 3.7%. The basic point stands that the theist fraction of US scientists doesn't look the US general pop but much closer to the general world population. I agree that your point about scientists in the US coming from other countries is likely strongly impacting these results. As to why one would expect the majority of scientists to be atheists, I have no idea, but it is very clear that even with her data and the spin, the fraction of scientists which are atheists is much higher than the general population, even of the world population. Moreover, the fraction which are theists is much lower than the general fraction of the population that is theistic. Trying to make a big deal about the fact that one doesn't have a majority who are atheists is totally missing the point.
you can still prove that certain forms of religion are wrong and self-contradicting
The core principles of science are that you can NEVER PROVE a single thing.
Why do you assume the poster meant he would use science to prove "that certain forms of religion are wrong and self-contradicting", rather than mathematics? If a religious book makes factual statements, then those statements can be mapped onto the symbols of a predicate logic system. By manipulating those symbols, you could probably prove that at least some really are contradictory.
It's about learning, using science as a technique that has most bearing on the physical world, and using other tools (including religion, social science, literature, and art) on the non-physical world.
(Yes, for any being with senescence, a non-physical world exists).
Ah, so that is the religion you would like to see. I can respect that (even while thinking it unrealistic).
Unfortunately, the religions we do have on this earth do not aspire to or approach such idealism. Not the major ones, anyway (how many followers does Taoism have?).
So, in other words, updating science to better correspond with reality is good science. Updating theology to better correspond with reality is bad theology.
Umm, yes. Exactly.
What, did you think you said something silly or controversial, there?
The *entire point* of religion is to provide an end-all-be-all explanation for our existence. By it's very nature, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. Either the bible is the immutable, unchanging truth handed down by god, or it's not. If you morph those beliefs every time reality comes barging in, then what the hell *do* you believe in?
But there are those questions which are impossible to answer even with cutting edge science, which is where religion comes in: to answer the "why."
You are making the god of the gaps argument. Religion doesn't provide an answer to "why". It never has. Religion soothes the insecure but it doesn't provide actual answers.
Either God doesn't heal the sick in the first place, or He's a douchewidget who will refuse to heal the sick if they're part of a study.
At least, assuming a strong/strict reading of "God listens to prayer and will heal the sick if we pray for them."
In practice, I suspect the experiment you're describing isn't testing actual religious claims. Most religious adults won't claim that God heals any sick person every time any person prays for them, but will instead state there may be number of factors involved, including the faith and/or conduct of the person praying, the faith/conduct of the person being prayed for, and some larger ineffable plan or "God's will." It isn't as if there no believers who've ever noticed that even well-prayed-over adherents suffer misfortune, injury, and death.
Now, you can say that their justifications are non-falsifiable, and speculate that they're post-hoc, and that's true, and people who tend towards rationalist epistemologies will probably take that route. But it remains the case good rationalist can't say that the experiment you're describing really thoroughly examines hypotheses other than the strict one.
In other words, possibility 3 -- that God sometimes heals individuals according to criteria unaccounted for by the study -- is outside the bounds of the experiment.
Tweet, tweet.
"I'm not interested in moral values, to each his own."
You are aware the murder, rape, theft, among other things are "moral values".
Most atrocities have been perfectly legal under the laws of the nation perpetrating them. But, to each his own.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Go to another place - say Slashdot - and say you're a christian and see what happens when some of the nutters there insist that you should be sterilized for "believing in a magical sky wizard" or locked up for child abuse if you take your kids to church. Hell, despite being an atheist, I've been harassed and flamed by people because I'm not willing to go farther than saying people who believe - despite copious evidence to the contrary - in the literal truth of the bible are anything other than mentally ill; because I'm not willing to demonize or dehumanize them, I've gotten flamed.
We need to get rid of assholes of whatever stripe, whether they believe in god or not. I know plenty of religious people who are good people and good scientists. I know plenty of atheists who are raging assholes and REALLY bad scientists. I also know plenty of religious people who are raging dickbags and horribly ignorant, and plenty of atheists who are among the finest human beings I've ever met, and are also good scientists. And any other combination of traits.
Now, what I'll say is this: Of the 275 interviews, the likely reason that only 5 people actively oppose religion is because - wait for it - most people aren't fucking insane. I'm sorry, but anyone who makes a habit of roaming the earth and picking fights because they oppose other people's beliefs is not going to be all that mentally stable. In an environment like a university, people who are mentally unstable will, over time, tend to weed themselves out because they won't be able to perform.
I imagine that in religious organizations the numbers would be different, but that's mainly because, other than persuading people to come to church or give you money or do whatever, the metrics for evaluating performance as a cleric will be different, and being unstable might lead to better performance. But, this is not to say that religious people are more inherently flawed, just that the arenas of academe and church are very different.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.