From: Hermit (virus@hermit.net)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 11:47:21 MDT
I suggest that this is a highly misleading title, and should read, "Why do so many scientists not believe in gods?"
After all, given the articles own dubiously sourced and I would suggest, seriously suspect numbers, four times as many "scientists" reject belief in godsas in the "general public". But the sources are not named and run counter to studies even in the very religious United States, where repeated analysis has shown that published scientists (i.e. those recognized by their peers) contain at most 20% believers, almost the inverse pattern to the general public, and among the members of the National Acadamy of Sciences (leading peer recognized scientists), the percentage drops to below 10%*.
I changed it from "God" to gods" as disbelief is not culturally bigoted. In other words, disbelievers tend to reject belief in all gods, not just the moderm monotheistic gods of a small cultural minority.
Interesting though how despite ostensibly rejecting science, religion continuously appears to find it importartant to claim the support of "scientists" no matter how dishonest a definition of that community is required to show such reports.
Hermit
*The latest survey involved 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences; half replied. When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism." Belief in the concept of human immortality, i.e. life after death declined from the 35.2% measured in 1914 to just 7.9%. 76.7% reject the "human immortality" tenet, compared with 25.4% in 1914, and 23.2% claimed "doubt or agnosticism" on the question, compared with 43.7% in Leuba's original measurement. Again, though, the highest rate of belief in a god was found among mathematicians (14.3%), while the lowest was found among those in the life sciences fields -- only 5.5%. http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/atheism1.htm
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