Thursday, January 28, 2010
Religiosity amongst scientists
My interest in the link in the previous post had to do with the fact that the numbers that were cited in the apologetics website were very different from the ones provided in this piece by Sam Harris, where he says 93% of people in the NAS were unbelievers. I did note the apologetical bias of that link, and was hoping to get a little more detail on the full story.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
The Harris numbers are based on a different survey of National Academy of Science members, and he includes agnostics in saying that 93% do not believe in God (72% expressed disbelief, while 21% expressed 'Doubt or agnosticism'). You can find the results here.
Note it was clear you weren't advocating the numbers at the apologetics site, and that was clear from your post when you gave the caveat.
The NAS is some of the best scientists in the country/world. They will tend to be a bit harder-headed, skeptical, and tenacious bunch than the random sample in the other study. Much less patience for silly kookiness. Hence I'm not surprised to see the numbers so much higher than in the general scientific populace.
Science is methodologically naturalistic. The best scientists are the ones that have made their life out of explaining how nature works (in its own terms). It doesn't surprise me that they tend to be suspicious of spooky stuff.
If there were some kick-butt evidence for gods, this would change quickly. Evidence is the key nourishment for a scientist.
Note these arguments that 'Scientists believe XYZ' as if that is evidence for XYZ are sort of lame.
If there were good evidence for XYZ, but a bunch of scientists didn't believe it, then I would think they were wrong.
This coming from atheists reminds me of those silly lists of "scientists" (usually engineers) that are creationists put out by the creationism evangelists.
It would probably be better to use professional philosophers as an authority to appeal to, as at least most of them have thought quite a bit about the topic.
There, there will still be a majority of nonbelievers. Of course getting good stats is really hard here, as for example online surveys like chalmers recently did on these issues have a big selection bias problem.
OTOH, I could be an agnostic but believe in God. I'd just say I can't prove it either way, or even claim to have knowledge (True Justified Belief), but I believe still, and that's why I am awesome. Hence Hutchins isn't really right to pull agnostics in with nonbelievers.
(Though in practice agnostics tend to be doubtful skeptic types)
Solid points BDK...Out of curiousity, what is that in your pic.
"Science is methodologically naturalistic. The best scientists are the ones that have made their life out of explaining how nature works (in its own terms). It doesn't surprise me that they tend to be suspicious of spooky stuff.
If there were some kick-butt evidence for gods, this would change quickly."
Historically most of the important scientists were also theist and I don't think much of the relevant evidence has changed since the rationalists. Rather what counts as evidence is dependent on certain theoretical assumptions, what Michael Rea calls a "research program". My guess is that this research program has changed and is responsible in the change of the number of theistic scientists.
Anon: it's a famous pic from a psychological experiment that tracked eye movements in the picture on the left, the eye tracking results are on the right.
You are right that at one point most great scientists were theists. For some reason, nowadays that isn't the case, and they seem to integrate the epistemology of science into their everyday life a bit more (e.g., if there isn't good evidence for X, they don't believe X, whether X is about gods, prions, or whatever).
On the other hand people like Newton didn't have the sciences of evolutionary biology, cosmology, neuroscience, and such to help them see the promise of a naturalistic viewpoint even on what were then considered theological questions. Back then there were a lot more gaps.
But those sciences themselves do nothing to speak against theism. At most they speak against a specific claim associated with theism (YEC, for example). There's very little in actual science detached from philosophical presumption that favors naturalism. And if we're going to attach philosophical presumption, science verifies some fundamental claims of theism now more than ever.
On the other hand, the most consistent naturalists don't believe that people change their minds due to things like "reasons" anyway. So the views of even the most celebrated science would best be described as unintended accidents.
"they seem to integrate the epistemology of science into their everyday life a bit more (e.g., if there isn't good evidence for X, they don't believe X, whether X is about gods, prions, or whatever)."
I wonder whether it has much to do with following the evidence. The kind of evidence that led Maxwell to theism is still available and people like Swinburne still think it constitutes evidence. But many others dispute its status as evidence. My guess is that contemporary scientists don't depend more strictly on evidence, rather they changed their views about what constitutes evidence.
"On the other hand people like Newton didn't have the sciences of evolutionary biology, cosmology, neuroscience, and such to help them see the promise of a naturalistic viewpoint even on what were then considered theological questions. Back then there were a lot more gaps."
I guess many laymen thought that the gaps constitute evidence. But I'm sceptical whether this applied to the scientists as well. Origen said, way before evolutionary theory, that nobody would be so silly to think that genesis is a literal story about how the world came into being. This means he gave up the gap argument before there was any sign of the gap being closed by scientifit discoveries.
But those sciences themselves do nothing to speak against theism.
Sure they do, insofar as the complexity of life furnished the most powerful argument for theism around back then. Knock that one out, and many would consider theism to be significantly less motivated.
And if we're going to attach philosophical presumption, science verifies some fundamental claims of theism now more than ever.
Hmm, what do you have in mind? The Big Bang? Fine-tuning?
who is a scientist with a dangerous idea besides galileo and darwin who have impacted todays world?
Post a Comment