Spinning the Data on Scientific Atheism
by JoyThere has been a lot of hay made of the relative "importance" of the purported atheism of scientists and purported religiosity of the public, that I think betrays some not-so masterful spinning by not-very good spinmeisters in these debates. Between the 'New Atheists' and the 'IDM' establishment, the whole Neodarwinism vs. Intelligent Design situation has been miscast as a war between evangelist camps for either fundamentalist Christianity or fundamentalist atheism.
So I went looking for some recent figures on how scientists self-identify their metaphysical beliefs, and recent surveys on how the general public self-identifies their metaphysical beliefs. I found some interesting discrepencies between the data and how the data has been publicized by interest groups on both sides.
A good example of hay being made in favor of the EA camp, I chose a page from Donald Simanek, physics professor at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, entitled Leading Scientists Still Reject God. His data relied on surveys of NAS scientists - the latest from 1998 - and for which the response rate was just slightly over 50%. A good example of self-serving spin we've seen lobbed into discussions dozens of times.
For more recent data and a less biased interpretation, I found a paper by Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist at the University at Buffalo, SUNY from February of 2007 entitled, Religion and Spirituality among University Scientists. Her survey response rate was 75%, with more than 1,646 respondents. Figures for surveys of the general public are listed in the References.
According to Ecklund, 60% of academic scientists self-identified as either atheist or agnostic, while among the general public, about 3% self-identify as atheist and 5% as agnostic. Several reasons were given for this, including the finding that scientists tend to come from homes where religion is either marginal or not practiced at all, and there are a disproportionate number of Jewish scientists compared with the general public (~2% of the public, ~15% of scientists). Jews generally do not tend to be fundamentalist Christians…
Speaking of which…
~14% of the general public self-identify as evangelical or fundamentalist, while less than 2% of academic scientists claim these labels.
Wait a minute… Less than 15% of the general public are evangelical/ fundamentalist? This might lead one to wonder why the EAs and critics of ID speak in such dire threaty terms about fundamentalism if fundamentalists are such a minority. Could it be spin? Could the constant mischaracterization of all people who aren't evangelical atheists as some dangerous version of creationist wacko be a pure sleight-of-mind?
And what about people who might be classified as some sort of 'believer' who isn't particularly religious - doesn't attend a regular church, etc.? Since I myself fall into this category, I was glad Ecklund examined this class in her paper. Too often religionists spin figures to promote the impression that all believers are "religious" while EAs spin them to promote the idea that all non-church goers are atheists. What's really going on?
For this look at the data, Ecklund used the word "spirituality" to mean someone who believes in something greater than themselves, but did not belong to a church or self-identify with any particular religion…
When asked "to what extent do you consider yourself a spiritual person?" about 66 percent of the natural scientists and about 69 percent of the social scientists describe themselves as spiritual. This means there is a population of scientists who say they have no religious affiliation but who do see spirituality as important. Indeed, about 39 percent of those without a current religious affiliation still consider themselves spiritual. In addition, over 22 percent of the scientists who are atheists are spiritual. And over 27 percent of the scientists who are agnostic are spiritual.
For my own part, it has long seemed evident to me that traditional religions - as measured by church attendance, tithing, and participation in rituals - has been declining for a long time. Fewer and fewer people I've met seem to think such things are all that important in their lives, though belief itself doesn't seem to have waned as much as disgust at overt involvement in politics (and promotion of the so-called "Culture Wars") seems to have disgusted believers. It hasn't made evangelical atheists of one-time church goers, it's just made one-time church goers a lot less likely to either align themselves with a church or self-identify as Christian when asked.
Sadly, that does sort of describe my problem with all those overexposed wannabe mind-tyrants out there who claim to speak for God while usurping God's judgment job for themselves (and condemning people wholesale to hell). Stopped identifying myself as Christian because they'd given it such a bad name. Now if asked, I simply reply that I am a follower of Jesus.
So, here in the week when Jerry Falwell finally got to meet his maker (and find out for sure whether his will-to-power was actually what God had in mind), what does it mean to take a look at the actual figures and understand how much disproportionate attention and spin has been applied to what is really a competition for political power between fairly insignificant minority populations? Ecklund offers her conclusion…
This excerpt and the many others like it show that, for some scientists, rather than science replacing religion, spirituality may be replacing religion.
I'd only add that the same thing is happening out in the general public. Confirming once again my impression that neither camp of wannabe mind-tyrants - the Dominionists or the EAs - can win the culture war they've so loudly and insultingly engaged. It might all be just cleverly spun distraction to keep us from paying attention to more important issues in science, education, politics and sociology.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
hey joy,
what exactly do you mean by this:
Comment by dantedanti — May 18, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Hi Joy,
Interesting post. I have interest, however, whether there is a difference in the belief structures between the various sciences. My understanding is that biologists in particular are more bent towards athiesim than, say, physicists. The difference between the beliefs of these two groups would indicate the difference between the radical "naturalistic" metaphysics that dominates biology and the metaphysical flexability that dominates physics compliments of the big bang.
Comment by bFast — May 18, 2007 @ 1:56 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
dante - I think Joy means that some people think they have the right to say whether a given person or group of people are condemned to hell (and thus take it - or usurp it - from God); Westboro Baptist comes immediately to mind, but there are certainly others.
Comment by thechristiancynic — May 18, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Dante:
I mean the propensity for some versions of fundamentalism (I'm thinking Southern Baptists here) and the coalition of the semi-willing we call the Religious Right (who apparently doesn't mind that neocons are atheists so long as they legislate the 'correct' social policies in exchange for votes) to make regular pronouncements on who's going to hell and why. Thecristiancynic read it correctly.
bFast:
Simanek's "Leading Scientists…" page has the survey results for the last century among NAS scientists. It seems clear to me that NAS either is not representative of academic scientists, or the survey results (about 50% and a sample more than three times smaller than Ecklund's) are skewed.
Given the number of doctors and medical researchers who aren't self-declared atheists, I'd have to say the NAS biology results are definitely misleading. Since those in medicine certainly qualify as dealing in biology. Among physicists I'm sure you'd find a lot of non-responders who don't want to talk about their metaphysical beliefs at all. Perhaps because things look so darned designed, or because things at the edge of physics are so metaphysically charged due to the limits on our knowledge. So a lot of even atheist physicists wouldn't go around claiming their science informs their metaphysics.
Comment by Joy — May 18, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Joy wrote:
It continues to amaze me the passion and energy that evangelical atheists (EA's) bring to this battle (to save the world from the superstition and evil of organized religion and intelligent design). I still can't figure out what motivates them, and apparently they for some reason are unwilling or afraid(?) to tell me. Ironically they are the first to point out the nefarious motives they see in others. Then it occurred to me that these people live in a world without purpose, meaning and or hope. Of course, that's it they haven't cut the umbilical cord yet they need to find some kind of meanig for themselves. Life otherwise is so scary! However, IMO that is pseudo meaning and pseudo purpose.
IMO a true atheist would accept this and just live his or her life without bothering anyone else. EA's apparently are people who haven't gone all the way yet. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. They may think there is no purpose to it all, but they still think they can find some purpose and meaning for themselves. Unfortunately, the purpose they have found attacking there fellow man for his or her personal beliefs can be very harmful and destructive. We have seen this recently with the bigoted and hate filled attacks on Guilermo Gozalez, or, attacking religious people who commit themselves to helping the poor and needy. I've asked this before, but for some reason it's a question that the EA's either can't or won't answer: What is it about your belief system that would make my life and the world better? Or, if you are going to destroy the present world social order, what are you going to replace it with? Aren't those rational questions to ask?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 18, 2007 @ 3:35 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
If you want to say that atheists have more power in politics than evangelicals and fundamentalists, explain why the latter can run for and win high office, but the former cannot? I take it you're familiar with the study showing that people are prejudiced against atheists as political candidates more than they are against women, blacks, Mormons or a variety of other minorities? Fundagelicals may be a small portion of the electorate, but they're massively influential, and have been since at least the early 1980s.
The word "spirituality" is kind of… mushy. What does it mean? Does it entail belief in a nonmaterial world? A sort of feel-good but content-free New-Agey thing? Pixies and elves? Thor? A god? A god named Jesus? It could mean all or none of these. Even Einstein might have answered in the affirmative to this, and he was at most an agnostic.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 18, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Joy wrote:
Joy,
That is an excellent response rate. The Pew Center considers a 27% response rate to be "standard", and a 51% response rate to be "rigorous".
This matches what Larson and Witham found in their 1996 survey. Where are the "interesting discrepancies between the data" that you say you found?
Not true. Ecklund did not define "spirituality" for the respondents. She allowed them to define it for themselves:
I'm not surprised at all by that. I consider myself a spiritual person. So do Dawkins, Harris and Dennett. We just don't think that spirituality needs to be encrusted with supernatural mumbo-jumbo.
Comment by keiths — May 18, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
John A Designer:
I asked that same question of my older sister after she'd gone off to college (those who remember the '60s weren't really there…) and became enamored of a prominent SDS founder. Tried to get me to start a high school SDS chapter.
Not being particularly starry-eyed about where I lived and who I had to share the space with, I totally thought she was joking! But she wasn't. Gave me the whole propaganda sloganeering recruitment spiel just like she'd heard it, and I was amazed (she's "the smart one").
So I asked what, exactly, her revolutionary heroes were going to put into place once all the flunkies and cannon fodder (like her) had managed to tear down the nation. Oddly, it's not something she'd ever thought about. Love is blind, they say, and in some cases this is true. So I said that until and unless the wigs and 'outside agitators' who wanted me to make a National Guard target of myself informed me of precisely what they had in mind - and I approved - they weren't going to get me to put my body on the line. She soon wised up too, no worse for wear and tear.
I have perceived in way too much of the EA rhetoric a serious anti-democratic mindset. Rights, freedom and other such concepts don't seem to much appeal to them. Which makes them just the other side of the Dominionist coin, and I don't think either is as dangerous as they'd like to be. Wannabe mind-tyrants are a dime a dozen. Most are singularly ineffective at being merely human, much less being effective tyrants. Outside their own families, anyway.
Comment by Joy — May 18, 2007 @ 5:22 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
grendelkhan:
??? I didn't say atheists (or even EAs) have any political power at all, grendelkhan. I can see that they'd LIKE to have political power, and aren't shy of whining about discrimination in hopes they'll get something they haven't earned, but it's never likely to happen. But far as I know an atheist can run for office if they want to. Even in states that have statutes barring them, which are blatantly unconstitutional and deserve challenge. I'd welcome it.
But they still have to compete for votes just like everybody else. If your desired constituency doesn't trust you because you've made such a big deal of being atheist (so they'd know you're an atheist), tough titty. My vote is not apportioned in favor of any playing field or political arena. It's mine, to use or not use as I see fit.
We get to vote for judges here in my state, including state Supreme Court. But we are not allowed to know what party they belong to or how they feel about various social issues on which they might be called to judge. So I get the little newsprint circular on judges that comes with my absentee ballot. Whenever one of the candidates claims to be the "Morality" candidate, or that s/he promotes "Family Values," they're using the standard right-wing buzz-terms to inform me of their loyalties. It's not that hard to figure out who's who.
Ecklund gave the questions asked as well as the results of the poll. From the paper:
That may be wishy-washy, but it's NOT evangelical atheism. And I'm sure none of the responders care that you think their 'spirituality' is mushy. You are in no position to demand they respond with something you can attack them for. Their own definitions, just like everybody else's definitions when asked to self-identify, do not have to fit your personal definitions.
Comment by Joy — May 18, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
JOHN_A_DESIGNER wrote:
John,
We're willing to answer your questions, but you ignore us when we do. Apparently it's more satisfying to you to pretend that we can't answer, or that we're afraid to.
You asked the same questions here, and I answered in detail here.
I'll ask you the same question I asked before: Would you convert from Christianity to, say, Buddhism, if it would make your life and the world better? Or does the truth matter to you, as it does to most of us?
Comment by keiths — May 18, 2007 @ 5:50 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
keiths:
Then I'm sure you agree that Ecklund's 75% response rate for her survey of academic scientists was far better. More than 1,600 responses is also a better sample population (when extrapolating to scientists generally) than 517 for the '98 NAS survey (which is often extrapolated to scientists generally in anti-ID rhetoric).
So if - like Larson and Witham - you were to claim that between 76.3% and 79% of scientists (undifferentiated) "disbelieve in God and immortality" you'd be spinning, wouldn't you? Not only that, but their '98 figures added up to MORE than 100% of the respondents. A good reason to reject the data as highly suspect, wouldn't you say?
Comment by Joy — May 18, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
bFast wondered whether the evidence shows biologists being more inclined to atheism than physicists are. That has also been my suspicion. Fwiw, the material below I originally posted in a reply to mtraven some time ago.
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 6:17 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
I wrote:
Joy responded:
Barely. Going from a 50% response rate to 75% only gains you 1 or 2% in statistical accuracy.
Joy, Larson and Witham did two surveys. Don't confuse their NAS survey with their survey of scientists generally.
I wrote:
First, Larson and Witham make that claim for NAS scientists, not scientists in general. Second, self-describing as "spiritual" does not imply a belief in God or immortality.
Larson and Witham's questions were quite specific, and their results match up almost perfectly with Ecklund's.
Comment by keiths — May 18, 2007 @ 6:52 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
JohnADesigner stated:"I've asked this before, but for some reason it's a question that the EA's either can't or won't answer: What is it about your belief system that would make my life and the world better? Or, if you are going to destroy the present world social order, what are you going to replace it with? Aren't those rational questions to ask?"
Those are excellent questions to ask. But to the EA, they are philosophical questions that "science" can't answer. And "science" is where one should begin to form one's worldview.
But science has a shortcoming. It deals with what is, and not with what ought to be. Morality cannot be based simply on what is. There is always an "ought" that we have to deal with.
Atheistic worldviews have already experimented with social orders based on atheism. Hitler tried eugenics on several "undesirable" populations, and there are still over 1 billion people who live under the oppression of communism. The athiestic regimes in Cambodia and Vietnam annhilated entire groups of people. I can't think of a world in which religion has no place. It won't be the Star Trek universe by any sense of the immagination.
The problem is that most EAs are idealists and ideologues, who don't believe that history has anything to teach them. They view history as the failure of religion. On the contrary, Christianity has been the moral glue that has kept Western societies from anarchistic decay. But they don't see it that way. They think that if they just silence or get rid of those who don't share their ideology (which is perhaps 90+% of the world population), then their utopia can be realized.
When I was in grade school I was taught about the dangers of utopian worldviews. Most of that teaching was based on examples from history.
Comment by Randy — May 18, 2007 @ 6:52 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
As an addendum to my previous comment, there's these:
Chapter 1: "Who Arranged for These Laws To Cooperate So Well?", by Ulrich Becker, CERN, Geneva, and Department of Physics, MIT
Chapter 6: "God Is A Characteristic of the Real Universe", by Professor Conyers Herring, Department of Physics, Stanford University
Chapter 11: "The Laws of Nature Are Created by God", by Professor Henry Margeneau, Emeritus Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Natural Philosophy, Yale University
Chapter 24: "The Guidance of Evolution Lets God Appear to Us in Many Guises", by Professor Walter Thirring, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Austria
PART TWO
Chapter 11: "At Some Stage in Evolution, God Created the Human Soul", by Professor P. C. C. Garnham, Department of Pure and Applied Biology, Imperial College, United Kingdom
Chapter 22: "The Piling of Coincidence on Coincidence", Professor Jay Roth, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Chapter 23: "Life, Even in Bacteria, Is Too Complex To Have Occurred by Chance", by Professor Harry Rubin, Department of Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley
Again, there's lots more, but I like this quote from the 1972 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, Christian Anfinsen:
"I think only an idiot can be an atheist." (Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 138.)
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
keiths:
Did you bother to read the OP, keiths? If you do, you'll see a link to a page from Dinald Simanek citing the NAS surveys for the 20th century (latest 1998) to make his point that NAS scientists - the "best of the best" are EAs like him, spun to 'scientists' in general. This is a thread about spinning data. Did that manage to go over your head when my responses to other commenters escaped your notice? Like, for instance, when I again cited Ecklund's characterization of the responses specifically for grendelkhan's benefit?
Then what's your problem?
Comment by Joy — May 18, 2007 @ 7:29 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Grendel
It's mushy because it encompasses whatever the person considers to be spiritual without being part of a dogma or particular set of beliefs. That's why it's called spirituality and not religion. It isn't just one group of people like religions are. You may be used to neatly defined compartments of belief systems, but people are growing beyond that. New ideas are stirring.
Keith,
In what sense do you say you consider yourself spiritual?
Comment by onething — May 18, 2007 @ 9:22 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 4:16 am
onething asks:
Hi onething,
By virtue of sheer awe at the universe, my sense of humanity's insignificance against the cosmic vastness, yet at the same time a feeling of profound connectedness to all of it. A sense of life's preciousness and fragility. Delight in the beauty of mathematics, music, the amazing flowering of four simple forces and a few fundamental particles into the raucous and gorgeous complexity we see around us.
I also meditate. A practice that affects consciousness so profoundly as meditation deserves to be called "spiritual", in my opinion, whether or not it encompasses any metaphysical beliefs.
Comment by keiths — May 19, 2007 @ 4:16 am
May 19th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Hi Keith
I consider the brain a fundamental part of spirituality, and more or less a neglected one. People will just now be coming to terms with that. Even though I think consciousness is independent of the brain, nonetheless our experience and our consciousness are mediated through the brain. You really ought to check out holosync technology. I've been using it for more than three years.
Comment by onething — May 19, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
May 20th, 2007 at 3:26 am
This ended up in the Memory Hole for some reason, so I'm reposting it:
Joy wrote:
Yes, Joy, I 'bothered' to read the entire thread. I also bothered to understand it, as well as Simanek's page, Larson/Witham's two reports, and Ecklund's study. You might benefit from doing likewise.
Simanek does not claim that NAS members are EAs. He also does not use the NAS survey to justify his claim that most scientists are not religious. If you think otherwise, supply us with some quotes which demonstrate your point.
I wrote:
Joy:
Joy, you were the one who claimed that Larson and Witham were spinning. What's your evidence?
Comment by keiths "” May 18, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
Comment by keiths — May 20, 2007 @ 3:26 am
May 20th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Keiths, your post ended up in the hole because I wanted it there. Because this is my thread, I am free to moderate as I see fit. I don't wish to play your game of stupid. It works like this -
1. I write a post.
2. You pretend you don't understand what I've said.
3. I try to explain it to you.
4. You twist the explanation, I try again.
5. You go off on irrelevant distraction tangents.
6. Go back to #1, repeat ad nauseum.
In this thread you began by telling me that a 50% response rate is as good as a 75% response rate. Irrelevant. Then you introduce a survey not present in the links provided - also irrelevant - to claim Ecklund's figures are consistent with it. So what? Then you assert that being a "spiritual" atheist is perfectly consistent with Simanek's spin because YOU consider yourself a "spiritual" atheist. Who cares?
You've consistently ignored my point - that EAs (like Simanek) use survey data to support their assertions that science supports their atheism, when most scientists are actually NOT evangelical atheists at all - they're just not fundamentalist Christians. Which is a big So What?
Thus when you came back with even more and stronger assertions to the survey that has nothing to do with my actual OP, I recognized your favorite distraction game. I do not wish to play, so I sent it to the hole. Your participation in this thread has ended.
Take your shovel and bucket to somebody else's sandbox.
Comment by Joy — May 20, 2007 @ 12:17 pm