UK scientists are ‘significantly less religious’ than Brits in general

[Politesse]

Either way, Jesus isn't copying Dionysus when it comes to wine/bread divinity.

Who gives a shit?

Atheist apologists do bring up that old canard a lot.

 

[ronburgundy]

UK scientists are ‘significantly less religious’ than Brits in general | Barry Duke
noting
Are the late Stephen Hawking’s religious beliefs typical of U.K. scientists?
noting
The Religiosity of Academic Scientists in the United Kingdom: Assessing the Role of Discipline and Department Status - Ecklund - 2018 - Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion - Wiley Online Library

From the second link,

In a new study, researchers from Rice University, Baruch College and West Virginia University find that U.K. scientists are indeed significantly less religious than the U.K. general population.

In addition, U.K. scientists at elite universities are more likely to never attend religious services than those at less prestigious schools. The study also indicates biologists are more likely to never attend religious services than physicists.

...
The researchers found that while only 18 percent of people in the U.K. said they do not believe in God, 45 percent of U.K. scientists responded the same way. In addition, the researchers discovered that scientists in elite departments (a categorization based on the number of publications per department, published department rankings and insider knowledge) are about twice as likely to never attend religious services than scientists in nonelite departments.

The authors of that study speculated that this could be in part from social reasons, like pressure to satisfy some social norm. But why some social norm and not another?

Agreed. Those scientists still grow up around, are usually raised by, and still spend most of their social time around theists.
If anything, the social pressure is likely keeping the number of scientists who say "don't believe" at only 45%. It's likely many more don't actually believe in a anything that would qualify as God, but don't say that in order to fit in with their larger, and more socially important, non-scientific community.

I suspect intellectual reasons, because biologists get closer to the nature of humanity than physicists. This may explain other trends in religiosity among scientists.

Agreed, though I think part of that may also be related to whether the scientists work in fields with more uncertainty and "messier" data that require complex reasoning and comparative theory evaluation based upon incomplete or indirect data.

 

[ronburgundy]

View attachment 19525

Trigger warning - post contains discussion of hypothetical Pearly Gates and Higher Being.
May provoke irrational fear.

Show

What is Zeus' criticism of these three people who - unlike uber intelligent atheists - can rightfully appeal to Zeus that despite getting the name wrong, they at least reverently understood the concept of afterlife, divinity and that humans are not the Highest beings in the uni/multi/megaverse.

That's vastly different to the person who says Zeus (God) is an irrational unscientific lie and/or a delusion and that people who worship a psychopath like Zeus (God) are uneducated, boot-licking, ass-kissing, morons with a slave mentality

You are doubling down on Pascal's wager, and Pascal was an idiot whose irrational bets would gets his kneecaps broken by his bookie.

Like Pascal, you are assuming that God would prefer people who believe in and worship him. But that would mean that God prefers morons, cowards, and people with no respect for evidence-based reasoning, which is the trait most unique among humans. This requires the assumption that God is like a pathetically insecure adolescent in desperate need of attention.

Any God that exists would, by definition, be the greatest intellect, who made the effort to imbue humans with his most unique part of creation, the ability to engage in evidence based reasoning to understand the rest of creation. Also, any God would be one who chose to leave no evidence of his existence, and made it so anyone who actually applied his greatest gift of intellect would not believe in him. So, he clearly did not want people to believe in him and would likely view those who do as ungrateful assholes who threw away his greatest gift.

 

[Lion IRC]

Pascal was a scientist.

I bet there are a LOT of religious scientists in India and Indonesia. (Tens of Millions)
Would there be a million atheist scientists in the UK?

If you added up all the religious scientists in the world and compare with the total number of atheist scientists, I'm sure the ratio would be about the same as for the general population.

 

[bilby]

Pascal was a scientist.

I bet there are a LOT of religious scientists in India and Indonesia. (Tens of Millions)
Would there be a million atheist scientists in the UK?

If you added up all the religious scientists in the world and compare with the total number of atheist scientists, I'm sure the ratio would be about the same as for the general population.

I am sure it wouldn't be. Studies of religiosity have almost always found that scientists are at least slightly less likely to be theists than non-scientists. Your confidence is both misplaced and unfounded in evidence. So nothing new there, then.

You also seem to struggle with mathematics; The absolute numbers of theists who are scientists in Indonesia is not relevant to your claim - what matters is whether or not Indonesians who are NOT scientists are more or less likely to be theists than those who are. The millions of Muslim scientists in Indonesia are massively outnumbered by the millions of Muslim non-scientists.

The same applies to Hindus in India - there may be close to a billion of them, but that tells us nothing about whether Indian scientists are more or less religious than the general population. The smart money is on 'less religious'.

 

[Gun Nut]

...There's a pretty well demonstrated correlation between high IQ and atheism.

It's important that those who reject God, do so with confidence, arrogance and conceit thereby leaving no doubt as to their position and no wiggle room when they find themselves standing at the Pearly Gates.

You wrote that with an impressive amount of confidence, arrogance, and conceit... and you did it without even rejecting God. Congrats... I guess that makes you worse than an Atheist.

 

[Gun Nut]

Christian mythology shares themes with plenty of ancient folklores and religions; they're all derivative. It's one of the biggest clues that it's all just made up.

"just made up", or "took this long to get it right".. you decide for yourself.

But yes, in my experience, the second something appears to imply that Christianity didn't think of it first, there are these types of folks that lock target on it for dear life. Being first to something is evidence of truthiness of it. It's human nature across many different things, not just religious ideas. First to report is first to be believed.

Edit... I quoted the wrong part of what I was commenting on, and I just don;t have the energy to fix it... so whatever.

 

[bigfield]

Christian mythology shares themes with plenty of ancient folklores and religions; they're all derivative. It's one of the biggest clues that it's all just made up.

"just made up", or "took this long to get it right".. you decide for yourself.

Yeah, I already did.

How do you know that a particular religion is the one that got it right?

 

[Gun Nut]

Christian mythology shares themes with plenty of ancient folklores and religions; they're all derivative. It's one of the biggest clues that it's all just made up.

"just made up", or "took this long to get it right".. you decide for yourself.

Yeah, I already did.

How do you know that a particular religion is the one that got it right?

Me? I don't. Some think they do. My point is that many use "first" to indicate it was rightest (righteous, ha)... so not being "first" is fighting words.

 

[bigfield]

Yeah, I already did.

How do you know that a particular religion is the one that got it right?

Me? I don't. Some think they do. My point is that many use "first" to indicate it was rightest (righteous, ha)... so not being "first" is fighting words.

I'm not saying Christian's beliefs are wrong because Christianity didn't think of those things first; I'm saying Christianity is just another branch on the evolutionary tree of religion.

 

[ronburgundy]

Pascal was a scientist.

And there are rapists who are scientists. Does that make rape scientifically valid? His argument had no science in it. I don't mean his science was bad, but rather there was nothing even attempting to be science in his argument. He made a logical argument that rested upon implausible premises that he merely assumed without any justification. And it turns out his premises logically require that one view God as a petulant insecure child who punishes people simply for applying the most unique trait he created them with.

I bet there are a LOT of religious scientists in India and Indonesia. (Tens of Millions)
Would there be a million atheist scientists in the UK?

First, Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, which means it does not suffer from as many logical absurdities and internal contradictions as monotheism does. For example, polytheism does not have to accept the absurd self contradicting notion that a single God who is omniscient and omnipotent and knowingly created the world to be exactly what it was and is, but also loves us. Hinduism also doesn't share the pathetically obvious self-serving egocentrism of Abrahamic monotheism which puts Earth and humans and then center of the Universe and God's concerns.
IOW, while polytheism and Hinduism still require some rather baseless beliefs, they require significantly less suppression of logic, rational thought, science, and and is required to maintain polytheism than monotheism. And most forms of Buddhism are not theistic at all. Also, b/c those polytheistic religions do not push theism itself of the main point of the religion, there are many who practice and identify with those "religions" without believing in God.

Second, non-theism is the norm among scientists in India. Only 29% of Indian scientists say that they "believe in God".

The countries where you'll find the most "theist" scientists are those where you can get jailed or killed if you don't pretend you are still a theists (e.g., Muslim controlled countries).

If you added up all the religious scientists in the world and compare with the total number of atheist scientists, I'm sure the ratio would be about the same as for the general population.

The facts show your are definitively wrong. Scientists are consistently less theistic and less religious compared to the general population in their countries. Although the difference is stronger in some countries than others, if you add them all together, being a theist would still be far less common among all the world's scientists than the world's gen pop.

And one doesn't need to reach the level of being a scientists to realize the intellectual absurdity of theism and religious claims. Consistently, as amount of education increases, theism and religiosity decrease. High school grads are less religious than dropouts, college grads less religious than High school grads, and graduate students are less religious than undergrads.

And the strong relationship between being less ignorant and being less religious holds when you compare between societies. The least educated societies tend to be the more religious, and the most educated tend to be the least religious. This map shows that the countries with the highest % of people who feel that "religion plays an important role in their daily life" are in Africa, Middle East, and southeast Asia. Predictably, these are the same countries with the lowest average number of years of educations (around 5-6 years).

South America is slightly less but still rather religious, and predictably those countries have slightly more but still rather low levels of education (about 7.5 years). The South American country with the most education (9.7 years) is Argentina who unsurprisingly is also one of least religious on that continent.

North America, Northern Europe, and Russia are the lowest in religion and the highest in education (10-13 years).
And the most religious outlier in Europe, Romania which is the only European country where more than 80% view religion as important, it is also one of the only countries in Europe with less than 10 years of average education, another being Portugal which is also more religious than most of Europe.

{Darker blue = higher % of people saying "religion is important"}

So, no matter how you slice it, being more educated and less ignorant is a strong predictor of both individuals and societies becoming less religious and theistic. If course that isn't a guarantee without exceptions, b/c knowledge and intellect are merely tools that applied will lead to atheism. People can and do choose not to honestly apply those tools to the issue of God, and that is how you wind up with theistic scientists. We have theistic scientists for the same reason we have 7.5 foot tall people who have never dunked a basketball, b/c they have never bothered to even try to apply that tool to that domain.

 

[Lion IRC]

Would you accept that there's more Hindu scientists in India than there are atheist scientists in the USA?

How about Muslim scientists in Indonesia versus atheist scientists in the UK?

Catholic scientists in Brazil versus atheist scientists in Australia?

 

[bigfield]

Would you accept that there's more Hindu scientists in India than there are atheist scientists in the USA?

How about Muslim scientists in Indonesia versus atheist scientists in the UK?

Catholic scientists in Brazil versus atheist scientists in Australia?

Would you accept that there are fewer Hindu scientists in Japan than there are atheist scientists in the USA?

How about Muslim scientists in Australia versus atheist scientists in China?

Catholic scientists in East Timor versus atheist scientists in Russia?

Apples in New Zealand versus oranges in Spain?

 

[Lion IRC]

But that's exactly what the Op is doing.
It is taking one country and using it as representative of some bigger picture canard.

By all means, add Japan into the equation. How many Buddhist/Shinto/Christian scientists in that country?

Add Russia too. You think the communists got rid of all the Orthodox scientists?

And China? You know what the word Tiananmen means right? 天安门

My point is that if you add up the number of ALL the scientists in the world - not just the UK, France, Germany - and divide them into theist vs atheist, I think you will find the ratio is similar to the general population.

Don't let the celebrity of prominent (noisy) atheists like Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carrol, Richard Dawkins, etc. mislead you into thinking that everyone with a science degree is probably an atheist. #NOMA

 

[bilby]

But that's exactly what the Op is doing.
It is taking one country and using it as representative of some bigger picture canard.

By all means, add Japan into the equation. How many Buddhist/Shinto/Christian scientists in that country?

Add Russia too. You think the communists got rid of all the Orthodox scientists?

And China? You know what the word Tiananmen means right? 天安门

My point is that if you add up the number of ALL the scientists in the world - not just the UK, France, Germany - and divide them into theist vs atheist, I think you will find the ratio is similar to the general population.

You are wrong. And we can add basic mathematics to the long list of things you don't understand.

Don't let the celebrity of prominent (noisy) atheists like Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carrol, Richard Dawkins, etc. mislead you into thinking that everyone with a science degree is probably an atheist. #NOMA

That's irrelevant to the question under consideration, which is whether a random person with a science degree is or is not more likely to be an atheist than any random human.

 

[bigfield]

But that's exactly what the Op is doing.
It is taking one country and using it as representative of some bigger picture canard.

The original post only discusses the United Kingdom. The subsequent posts also discuss the USA. It doesn't make a generalisation.

Your post, on the other hand, wasn't even a generalisation. It's just nonsense.

My point is that if you add up the number of ALL the scientists in the world - not just the UK, France, Germany - and divide them into theist vs atheist, I think you will find the ratio is similar to the general population.

First worldwide survey of religion and science: No, not all scientists are atheists
http://news.rice.edu/2015/12/03/fir...d-science-no-not-all-scientists-are-atheists/

The researchers did find that scientists are generally less religious than a given general population. However, there were exceptions to this: 39 percent of scientists in Hong Kong identify as religious compared with 20 percent of the general population of Hong Kong, and 54 percent of scientists in Taiwan identify as religious compared with 44 percent of the general population of Taiwan. Ecklund noted that such patterns challenge longstanding assumptions about the irreligious character of scientists around the world.

The paper:
Religion among Scientists in International Context: A New Study of Scientists in Eight Regions
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2378023116664353

The paper includes a handy graph showing you the difference.



I'd say this establishes a pretty good pattern, where scientists are less religious than the general population.

Based on the evidence at hand, what ratio should we predict in other countries?

 

[lpetrich]

Scientists have believed in a variety of religions and belief systems, though usually those from their social environments. Theoretical science got started in ancient Greece, and these proto-scientists were at least nominally Hellenic pagans. So should we make ourselves convert to the old-time religion of Greece? Complete with accepting the existence of the Olympians and worshipping them.

As to Blaise Pascal, he dumped his scientific researches for his religious interests when he became a fervent Jansenist. That sect was a quasi-Calvinist Catholic sect. So should one convert to Jansenism because of him?

Let's consider this proposition. If you convert to Jansenism and Jansenism is right, you will go to Heaven when you die and live happily ever after, and enjoy the sufferings in Hell of Jansenist opponents like Jesuits. But if you convert Jansenism and some other sect is right, then you will have lost nothing. So what do you have to lose?

 

[Lion IRC]

The original post only discusses the United Kingdom. The subsequent posts also discuss the USA. It doesn't make a generalisation.

Your post, on the other hand, wasn't even a generalisation. It's just nonsense.



First worldwide survey of religion and science: No, not all scientists are atheists
http://news.rice.edu/2015/12/03/fir...d-science-no-not-all-scientists-are-atheists/

The researchers did find that scientists are generally less religious than a given general population. However, there were exceptions to this: 39 percent of scientists in Hong Kong identify as religious compared with 20 percent of the general population of Hong Kong, and 54 percent of scientists in Taiwan identify as religious compared with 44 percent of the general population of Taiwan. Ecklund noted that such patterns challenge longstanding assumptions about the irreligious character of scientists around the world.

The paper:
Religion among Scientists in International Context: A New Study of Scientists in Eight Regions
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2378023116664353

The paper includes a handy graph showing you the difference.

View attachment 20517

I'd say this establishes a pretty good pattern, where scientists are less religious than the general population.

Based on the evidence at hand, what ratio should we predict in other countries?

Thank for the chart.

It's very helpful because it shows that if 59% of scientists in a huge populatIon like India are 'religious' then, numerically, they could arguably swamp the number of atheist scientists in a smaller country like the UK.

So if you add up all the theist scientists globally and do the same for...[Lion IRC repeating himself]

 

[bilby]

The original post only discusses the United Kingdom. The subsequent posts also discuss the USA. It doesn't make a generalisation.

Your post, on the other hand, wasn't even a generalisation. It's just nonsense.



First worldwide survey of religion and science: No, not all scientists are atheists
http://news.rice.edu/2015/12/03/fir...d-science-no-not-all-scientists-are-atheists/

The researchers did find that scientists are generally less religious than a given general population. However, there were exceptions to this: 39 percent of scientists in Hong Kong identify as religious compared with 20 percent of the general population of Hong Kong, and 54 percent of scientists in Taiwan identify as religious compared with 44 percent of the general population of Taiwan. Ecklund noted that such patterns challenge longstanding assumptions about the irreligious character of scientists around the world.

The paper:
Religion among Scientists in International Context: A New Study of Scientists in Eight Regions
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2378023116664353

The paper includes a handy graph showing you the difference.

View attachment 20517

I'd say this establishes a pretty good pattern, where scientists are less religious than the general population.

Based on the evidence at hand, what ratio should we predict in other countries?

Thank for the chart.

It's very helpful because it shows that if 59% of scientists in a huge populatIon like India are 'religious' then, numerically, they could arguably swamp the number of atheist scientists in a smaller country like the UK.

So if you add up all the theist scientists globally and do the same for...[Lion IRC repeating himself]

But the 77% of non-atheist non-scientists in India having already 'swamped' the non-atheist scientists, the effect on the global figure is still to produce a far larger proportion of atheists in science than there are in the general population.

For fuck's sake learn some basic arithmetic. You are making an even greater fool of yourself than usual, and that's quite a feat.

 

[Lion IRC]

800 Hindu scientists (59%) in India + 40 Christian scientists (27%) in the UK = 840
556 atheist scientists (41%) in India + 108 atheist scientists (73%) in the UK = 664

Now. Do atheist scientists outnumber theist scientists?

Hint for bilby

Show

840>664