From: Jonathan Davis (jonathan.davis@lineone.net)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 02:52:07 MDT
Thanks Kharin, Hermit and Blunderlov for nailing this article. Good work.
What struck me when I read the headline of this article was: Because
scientists are human too. We know that there is fairly strong and growing
evidence that religious experiences are biologically explicable. The
irrationality that drives it is easily explained in terms of uncontrolled
impulses from the sub-neocortex. Personally it would not change my belief if
every scientist (including Hermit) were to suddenly announce their
commitment to God.
Regards
Jonathan
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Hermit
Sent: 09 September 2003 18:47
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re:virus: Why do so many scientists believe in God?
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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