Fear of Death Makes People Into Believers (of Science)

sciencehabit writes "Nothing, some say, turns an atheist into a believer like the fear of death. 'There are no atheists in foxholes,' the saying goes. But a new study suggests that people in stressful situations don't always turn to a higher power. Sometimes, they turn to science. Both athletes preparing for a big race and students asked to write about their own death showed a 15% stronger belief in science than those under less stressful situations (abstract). 'In stressful situations people are likely to turn to whatever worldviews and beliefs are most meaningful to them,' says study co-author, Anna-Kaisa Newheiser, a psychologist at Yale University. And many people find the scientific worldview more compatible with their own."

Comments

Re:Belief in science?

[PRMan]

Science IS a matter of belief, or at least what passes for science today. There is little proof that the dinosaurs died 65 (66?) million years ago, but it's been repeated enough that it's popular now (even won a popularity contest to "become" the truth). The amount of evidence is appallingly low for something so commonly held. And look at the Oort Cloud, which has no evidence at all. People believe in it because comets would otherwise make the Solar System too young for evolutionary processes, not because of the evidence for it.