Posted by Garett on September 01, 1998 at 19:03:32:
In Reply to: Leading scientists still reject God posted by Chris on August 23, 1998 at 21:04:35:
Rodney Stark, a sociologist of religion (and author of a great intro-to-soc text), reports some survey evidence in the May 1996 American Economic Review.
Source: 1969 Carnegie Commission survey of 60,000 Professors
Religiousness by Scholarly Field (%)
Is Religious Attends Regularly Opposes religion
Math/Stats 60 47 11
Physical/Life Sci. 55 43 11
Economics 50 38 10
Psychology 33 20 21
Anthropology 29 15 19
Stark notes, generalizing from other survey data, "In survey after survey, the correlation between educational attainment and most measures of religiosity is positive, not negative."
Also, panel data shows that while grad students and professors are a few percentage points less religious than others, their anti-religious tendencies began BEFORE their scientific training.
Why is it that people in the fields that are supposed to "disprove" religious claims (hard sciences) are the most religious? Stark speculates that among psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists "their semi-religious reliance on non-testable claims puts them in direct competition with traditional religions." The same way that Coke employees hate Pepsi as a matter of principle.
Any thoughts on this? It'd be nice if the survey questions were more about "God," but his article has references to a lot more stuff.