> > Although professors, scientists, and other highly educated
> > Americans
> > >are less religious than the general population, the magnitude of this effect
> > >is similar to those associated with gender, race, and other demographic
> > >traits. Moreover, "hard" science faculty are more often religious than
> > faculty
> > >in the humanities or social sciences.
> >
>
> Really?
In my experience, yes.
> The following appeared in Nature recently (can't work out how I
> got access to it now, otherwise I would have posted the url)
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Leading scientists still reject God
>
> Sir -- The question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated
> since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top
> natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever -- almost total.
>
> Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba
> and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly
> selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God,
> and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists
> within his sample1. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20
> years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85,
> respectively2.
>
> In 1996, we repeated Leuba's 1914 survey and reported our results in
> Nature3. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally,
> with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the
> second phase of Leuba's 1914 survey to gauge belief among "greater"
> scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever -- a mere 7% of
> respondents.
[snip]
This "study" was discussed a few months ago. I don't remember if it was
on this listserver or another.
I'll ask again what I asked then: Did Larson et. al. control for the very
simple factor of the scientists' age? (Has anyone read their methodology?)
There is a generational change going on in the natural sciences.
Religious beliefs seem far more common among younger scientists than older
scientists. (There is certainly a lot less hostility towards religion
among younger scientists.) And the "greater scientists" --- members of
the NAS --- would tend to be older-generation scientists.
Loren Haarsma