Last week, I became engaged in a rather lengthy online conversation about the religious faith of university scientists. It was prompted by this GetReligion post about Francis Collins. In my comments, I cited Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund’s recent book Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think, as well as her online article “Religion and Spirituality among University Scientists” (PDF). Ecklund’s research examines the religious beliefs and practices of university scientists, with some important findings – such as a much higher rate of religiosity than usually assumed.
Another commenter, though, noted a strange statistic: the number of scientists who consider themselves religious and/or spiritual actually outnumbers the number who say they believe in God. About half (48%) of scientists say they belong to a religious tradition, and 66% consider themselves to be a “spiritual person.” Yet more than half gave classic atheist or agnostic responses when asked whether God exists.
When asked their beliefs about God, nearly 34 percent of academic scientists answer “I do not believe in God†and about 30 percent answer “I do not know if there is a God and there is no way to find out,†the classic agnostic response. This means that over 60 percent of professors in these natural and social science disciplines describe themselves as either atheist or religiously agnostic. In comparison, among those in the general U.S. population, about 3 percent claim to be atheists and about 5 percent are religiously agnostic. (Ecklund, “Religion and Spirituality”)
What are we to make of this apparent contradiction? While I was jogging on Saturday, a thought occurred to me: What if this “agnostic” response is actually an expression of the scientists’ refined understanding of knowledge according to naturalism and the scientific method?
My reasoning is after the jump. [Read more…] about Are “agnostic” scientists really agnostic?