Exactly how religious are scientists? The typical assumption is that they aren’t terribly religious at all. Further I think most people assume this is a relatively recent change – say around the time of the second world war. It’s always a difficult question since there’s debate about who is or isn’t a scientist. Are doctors? Are people with computer science degrees? Are people with degrees in science but not practicing in the field? There’s also the question of significance. For instance I’m almost certainly insignificant and especially compared with a Nobel Prize winner. When making these studies do you give more weight to people who’ve published significant articles or who are in academia versus private facilities? <\/p>\n
It gets complex fast. Any study attempting to answer these questions should be taken with an eye of skepticism. It is interesting though that 100 years ago a survey was sent to 1000 scientists asking them about their belief in God<\/a>. Around 30% of “greater” scientists believed in a personal god and about 48% of “lesser” scientists did. The numbers were remarkably close to what a 2006 Pew study found with 33% of scientists believing in God. Back at my old personal blog (now sadly neglected) I’d discussed a few issues of the religiosity of scientists<\/a>. I was primarily discussing a survey released in 2014 about the religious beliefs of scientists<\/a>. About 1.7% of scientists self-identified as Mormon. That’s slightly higher than what ARIS finds for national Mormon self-identification but about on par with past Pew numbers. Unsurprisingly Jews, atheists, and eastern religions were represented at higher rates.[1]<\/p>\n The more interesting question of course is about how religiosity is manifest. Only 15% of the scientists surveyed considered themselves very religious. Also only 18% attended religious services regularly. That’s a bit more in keeping with what I suspect most people expect from the religious practices of scientists. Yet quite surprisingly a full 36% of scientists said they know<\/i> God exists and have no doubts. That’s pretty high.<\/p>\n
\nNow of course there is a certain apples to oranges nature to that comparison. It is interesting though that things don’t appear to have changed that much.<\/p>\n