I voted "religious." For those who happen to be taking data, I would categorize myself as a conservative Christian. I could go into a long explanation about creeds and confessions, but for those who like easy categorizations, this basically means I believe the Bible is true, and that there is a God who sends people to hell for not believing in him (figure I'd state the most "offensive" belief first and get it out of the way). I'm part of a denomination called the Presbyterian Church in America (there are two churches in America that call themselves Presbyterian, the PCA is the conservative one).
I'm also a grad student in a physics department, in case you're wondering.
Daniel Y. said:
This is the correlation I intend to show in my paper; in fact, the general idea of providing samples of specialized forums (Scientific vs. Paranormal for example), as you might have guessed, is to show the general consensus among the individuals in the sample. I would venture to say the paranormal forum would contain an abundance of religious persons, but one might be surprised by the results.
I would say that this is an accurate correlation. The proportion of atheists and agnostics in the scientific community is, in my experience, larger than the general population. To first order, about 80% of Americans claim to be Christians, and most of the minority associates with various other religions. In my physics department, I know four other people who are religious. Not a lot, given the size of my department.
~christina~ said:
Oh wow..many are ...atheists.
Is this what happens, when you're into science?
(I guess I'm the exception then, since I love chemistry and yet I still believe in some higher power
)
Not necessarily. There are a few different theories about this. Some people believe that learning more science causes one to rely on naturalistic explanations in general, leading them away from religion. The key assumption here is that the purpose of religion is to explain natural phenomena. Others believe that there is an atheistic bias in science, which indoctrinates scientists into atheism. I'm not so sure about this one either. Most of the "scientific" arguments I've seen for atheism come out of the mouths of non-scientists who have no clue what they're talking about. I've never had a professor or fellow grad student tell me that science disproves the existence of a deity, or that good scientists ought not to be religious. Usually scientists are good about not letting their personal beliefs dictate their science unless the belief has some scientific backing. Finally, there's the view that people who do not believe in a deity are naturally more inclined to science, because science can fulfill a role in their lives which religion fulfills in most other peoples'. This, I think, is the most likely case.
Anyway, you certainly don't need to be an atheist or agnostic to be a fruitful scientist. There are plenty of religious people in science. There just happens to be plenty more non-religious folks.
