Nuns Donate Their Brains to Alzheimer's Research

Many Catholic religious orders are participating in a long range Alzheimer's disease study. Rush University's Religious Orders Study began in 1993 and tracks the participants' mental abilities through yearly memory testing. In addition to the annual tests, the study subjects agree to donate their brains. From the article: "The researchers sought members of religious orders, hoping they would be willing to donate and would not have children or spouses interfering with that arrangement at the last minute. More than 1,100 nuns, priests and brothers across the country representing a wide range of ethnic groups are taking part."

Comments

Re:As someone who has worked with Religious Folk.

[sjames]

I'm going to have to call 'citation needed' on you there. Einstein was quite clearly a believer in God. Many others have some sort of spiritual belief outside the realm of science. It's not uncommon for a physicist to accept on faith that there is some great intelligence out there and that through physics they may better understand it. I've heard that from mathematicians as well.

They may simply be far less likely to talk about it openly to avoid a bias against anyone in the academic world that professes a religious belief.

Naturally they're not going to bring up religion or faith where it doesn't belong, such as in a scientific paper.

There's a nice list of Nobel Laureates and other influential scientists who are known to have been religious. I'm sure you'll recognize a few.