The prevalence of Atheism amongst Scientists

[Inquisitive Lurker]

Amongst the general global population, atheists and non-religious total 14.09% (Source: CIA World Factbook)

In the United Kingdom, that number rises to 23.1% (Source: CIA World Factbook)

Amongst Scientists in the UK, 40% identified themselves as atheists (not just non-religious) (Source: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins)

In the Royal Academy of Sciences, a staggering 80% identified themselves as either non-religious or atheists. (Source: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins)


Something to think about.

[Robespierre Richard]

Not really, no. Religion is a social phenomenon, not one based on logic or anything, so saying "oh look a lot of scientists don't believe in god" wouldn't mean much to the average person..

[Comrade J]

Makes complete sense really. The closer you are to the 'frontline' of scientific research, and acquiring data via solely empirical means, the less subsceptible you are to believing ancient myths formed several millenia ago about the universe.

[Inquisitive Lurker]

Marxist-Leninist Jihad, you don't find it interesting that the more one looks at the world scientifically the less one looks at it superstitiously?

I have numbers for education levels and non-religion/atheism as well but I'm misplaced them. Guess what they show?

Caveat: These second set of numbers are only for the UK and US.

[Octavian]

Obviously the more educated someone is the less likely they are to be religious. But that doesn't matter if someone is indoctrinated because no matter how much you try to make them see the logical problems with their beliefs they will always retreat to "it's true for me and that's all that matters".

[Robespierre Richard]

Marxist-Leninist Jihad, you don't find it interesting that the more one looks at the world scientifically the less one looks at it superstitiously?

I have numbers for education levels and non-religion/atheism as well but I'm misplaced them. Guess what they show?

Caveat: These second set of numbers are only for the UK and US.

Yeah but it's not "something to think about." It's an obvious fact, sure, but it really doesn't help me or anybody else. A religious person won't go "oh so smart people don't think god exists, they must be right!" and bullying them with stuff like this will only make them turn away from you and your views even more.

[Inquisitive Lurker]

Here's a chart showing the correlation between intelligence and atheism:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/LynnHarveyNyborg-CountryBelieveGod-Intelligence.svg/800px-LynnHarveyNyborg-CountryBelieveGod-Intelligence.svg.png
What I find odd about this graph is that it old goes from 60 (mildly retarded) to 110 (slightly gifted). I would like to see the graph extend higher into the genius area of IQ.

[Manic Impressive]

I'm shocked that the numbers are so low. World wide kind of makes sense but seeing as it comes from the same place as the UK stat it's questionable. The UK stat is totally unbelievable to be honest and it probably comes from the UK census. When most people fill them out they'll just write Catholic or Jewish or C of E out of tradition or habit I highly doubt that 76.9% of the UK actually believes in god especially amongst the under 60's.

[Inquisitive Lurker]

Yeah but it's not "something to think about." It's an obvious fact, sure, but it really doesn't help me or anybody else. A religious person won't go "oh so smart people don't think god exists, they must be right!" and bullying them with stuff like this will only make them turn away from you and your views even more.

Not if you can get them to ask themselves the most important question: "Why?"

[Inquisitive Lurker]

I'm shocked that the numbers are so low. World wide kind of makes sense but seeing as it comes from the same place as the UK stat it's questionable. The UK stat is totally unbelievable to be honest and it probably comes from the UK census. When most people fill them out they'll just write Catholic or Jewish or C of E out of tradition or habit I highly doubt that 76.9% of the UK actually believes in god especially amongst the under 60's.

This is the phenomenon of someone being "culturally" religious. They may not believe a word of it, it's just part of their culture.

Here's a chart for the UK.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4f/Bsa-religion-question.svg/800px-Bsa-religion-question.svg.png

[Manic Impressive]

This is the phenomenon of someone being "culturally" religious. They may not believe a word of it, it's just part of their culture.
Ah yeah I agree which is why the stat doesn't really mean anything. I mean culturally I'm Catholic, I was christened and confirmed into the catholic church and in the eyes of the church I'm a Catholic until I'm excommunicated. But I'm also also an athiest and against all forms of organized religion. A much better way of judging who actually believes in god would be to take the figure of church attendance.



The average weekly attendance in 2008 fell to 1.145 million from 1.16 million in 2007, while the average Sunday attendance fell from 978,000 in 2007 to 960,000 in 2008.
The statistics showed that fewer people went to church during religious festivals, notably Christmas and Easter, and that there were fewer weddings and blessings. But the average number of children and young people at services each week rose to 225,000, from 219,000 in 2007.But that's just for the C of E
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/church-of-england-attendance-falls

[Inquisitive Lurker]

In the US, there are people called Twice a Year Christians, who only go for Christmas and Easter.

[Inquisitive Lurker]

in the eyes of the church I'm a Catholic until I'm excommunicated.

Actually you are still Catholic after excommunication. Excommunication is much misunderstood. It means you can no longer participate in the sacraments or the liturgy or any evangelism or teaching. You can still go to church (just no communion) and still go to confession.

[hatzel]

I highly doubt that 76.9% of the UK actually believes in god especially

Indeed, you have identified an issue. Colonel Lurker's figure is taken from the religion section of the census, by adding the 15% who answered 'none' to the 8% who didn't answer at all. Because I'm a stickler for actual statistics that are comparable to those statistics they are being compared to: according to the good ol' Eurobarometer, 38% of people in the UK explicitly believe there is a god, by answering 'yes' to the question 'do you believe there is a god'...

Now, as only around 2% answered with 'I don't know', it logically follows that about 60% of the population must be atheists, in as much as they say outright that do not believe that there is a god. I don't really want to be the one to say that this is actually considerably more than the 40% of scientists Colonel Lurker has talked about, but...yeah...it's quite interesting why this thread is 'something to think about', given the fact that the numbers provided aren't necessarily accurate, and those which are accurate and applicable (if we believe that Dawkins's are) don't seem to show that much discrepancy between scientists and the general populace :) Of course we still can't really compare them, though, because we don't know how the criteria for Dawkins's classification of an 'atheist' compare to those in the other survey, which had a third option, 'I believe there is some kind of spirit or life-force'...it's not clear to me whether Dawkins would class that opinion as atheistic or not for the purposes of his little statistic there, or how he even gathered that piece of information...

I'd also be interested to know what Colonel Lurker puts all this down to. That is, does being a scientist make one more likely to be an atheist, or does being an atheist make one more likely to be a scientist? Or, in fact, is it being a scientist which makes you less likely to be a theist, or being a theist which makes you less likely to be a scientist? Subtle differences in all of these explanations. I mean, if we just assume that his claim is accurate, even though the numbers available suggest it's not actually as cut-and-dry as he seems to think it is, we must be able to explain it in exacting terms...

If I wanted to come at this whole thread from a psychoanalytical perspective I could also be really kinda mean and suggest that this is a sign of some kind of inferiority complex from our favourite Colonel, who has yet to make a single post outside of attacking religion, but who has shown himself to be quite incapable of being remotely coherent and consistent, understanding numbers, anything like that. Some kind of 'hey, look, I am clever, and this proves it!' thing. Actually, it's more likely that the obsession with posting about religion all the time and nothing else and being one of those well-loved 'outspoken atheists' who are sooo outspoken that they support imperialism to fight religion stems from this desire to convince oneself and others that one is intellectually superior, as some form of comfort for what one perceives as a personal short-coming...until he makes a single solitary post which isn't just attacking religions, I'll have to assume he has a bee in his bonnet about it for some reason. Threads like this, however, give clues as to the possible reason...

[Inquisitive Lurker]

As most people are raised in their parents' religion, it stands to reason that more atheists are grown than are made. An inquiring mind could lead one to both science and atheism. Atheism can not lead to science (except out of curiosity), but science can lead to atheism.

[Inquisitive Lurker]

...a whole lot of crap...

1. Dawkins cites his sources.
2. I cited my sources in this thread. I didn't use the UK census. I used figures from a consistent independent source. I could have used a source that said >50% atheist/non-religious.
3. I post in religion because it is one of my areas of expertise. Next month, I may move to DIY, and share my ammonium nitrate recipes (I'm done with urea nitrate, even if it is easier to get). But you'll have to suffer me for a few more weeks until I get bored with this sub-forum.

[Robespierre Richard]

Not if you can get them to ask themselves the most important question: "Why?"

"Because they are elitist assholes who think they're better than us."

[smk]

...but science can lead to atheism.

orly? it would be great if you could show me how science points to the fact that there is no god. you're parroting worn out talking points with nothing to back you up.

[CommunityBeliever]

There are two things to consider about these statistics:


The "in the closet" atheists
The "cultural" atheists

[hatzel]

I think there's something we can pull straight out of school, concerning the effects of stereotypes on the performance of pupils in a classroom environment, that is to say, the effect of what is called 'stereotype threat'. I'll give you a brief overview:

Here in Europe, as well as in America, black students are often stereotyped as underachievers, disruptive in class, generally inferior to their white counterparts. Of course we could go on discussing potential reasons why black students might be disadvantaged, but that's a whole other discussion; the only important thing to know is that teacher and student alike are aware of this stereotype. From that, even if entirely subconsciously, the teacher will be more attentive to the behaviour of black students in class, under the impression that they are more likely to be disruptive. This, of course, means that the teacher is more likely to notice black students misbehaving in class, as they are the focus of their attention, which justifies paying still more attention to those students who have been 'proven' to be disruptive by their track-record of disruptive behaviour, whilst disruptive white students are less likely to be noticed, being in the periphery of the teacher's attention. This is nothing surprising.

Of course the next stage, with the stereotype that they underachieve when compared to white students, perhaps backed up by 'solid' 'evidence' of disruptive behaviour, often associated with the less able students in a class, their work will suffer. A teacher marking some homework essay, subconsciously expecting it to be sub-par, given the stereotypical underachievement of black students, is, again, more likely to notice the shortcomings. An essay written by a student the teacher knows (or, we should say, considers) to be able and intelligent will attract a higher mark than the exact same essay written by a student the teacher knows (or, once again, considers) to be less able, if the teacher is aware of who wrote the essay. This is one of the reasons why major exams and coursework pieces are now marked anonymously, sometimes even by external markers, so that the teacher's preconceptions about the student will not colour their judgement, by making them more likely to notice the good or the bad elements of the essay, depending on what they expect from the student. This is probably a manifestation of the confirmation bias, in that one searches for information to confirm ones preconceptions. Of course all of this only applies to work marked subjectively; maths, for example, which is usually either right or wrong, can't be affected by the preconceptions of the teacher in the same way that an essay can.

The issue, though, is that the stereotype doesn't only work in that direction; it isn't merely the 'interpreter' of the data (in this case the teacher / marker) who has their perception coloured by their preconceptions and existing stereotypes. The producer of the data (in this case the student) also underperforms because of the stereotype. This is the basis of stereotype threat. It has been shown that, even if the test is a multiple choice paper marked by a machine, with absolutely no chance for subjectivity in the perception of the data, somebody who suffers from a negative stereotype suggesting that they will underperform on a given test will underperform. If the paper asks for the student's race, 'for statistical purposes' or whatever reason they may have for asking, the black student, having been reminded of his social group, which stereotypically underperforms in such tests of knowledge, will perform worse than he would have had he not been asked. The stereotype doesn't even need to be pre-existing; if such a multiple choice paper is handed out, perhaps with logic questions on, accompanied by the words 'boys are generally better at this than girls', perhaps because of some claims of a difference in the make-up of the brain or such, the girls, now cast as a less-able social group, will perform worse, in comparison to the boys, than they would have had they been told that girls were better at the test than boys, or if they were told nothing at all.

This drags us back to the issue at hand: the prevalence of atheism amongst scientists. Seems to me that there's quite a stereotype going round at the moment that religious people make worse scientists. That is to say, as scientists, it is assumed that religious people underachieve, compared to their atheist counterparts. All sides of the divide are aware of this stereotype, theist and atheist alike. It is possible to believe that a religious scientist suffer in a peer-review of his work, thanks to their subconscious preconceptions of him as an inferior scientist on the basis of his religious beliefs, just as the teacher more readily notices the shortcomings in a black student's essay. Equally possible, though, is that the budding religious scientist himself underperforms, because of the stereotype that he is, for some reason, less 'able' at science than an atheist. It could well be that the prevalence of atheism amongst scientists is a direct result of the presupposed notion that there will be a prevalence of atheism amongst scientists, due to atheists being 'better suited' to the task. Think about that!

[Inquisitive Lurker]

orly? it would be great if you could show me how science points to the fact that there is no god.
Science teaches critical thinking. Science teaches rational thought. Religion opposes both of these. Science teaches you to ask questions and look for evidence. Religion tells you not to do this. The more scientific your mind is, the less power religion has over it. Science kills religious myths, like creation epics. It whittles away at religion until there is nothing left. Consider the "Lazy God" proof. What would God have to do to create and maintain the universe? One by one, science takes away every task until there is nothing left for God to do.