Oftentimes atheists claim that the overwhelming majority of scientists are unbelievers and attempt to support their 
position by pointing to a number of polls that query the religious temperature of scientists, which have been conducted over the past decade or so. By offering such data, atheists try and argue that immersion in science dispels the supposed superstitious and fictitious beliefs of those who believe in God.
Is this really the case? Let’s take a look and see if this line of argumentation holds up once things are more closely examined.
Polling the Unbelievers
In the recently released movie, The Unbelievers[1], atheists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss state how science is “beautiful” while religion is “not beautiful”, with the pair doing little to hide their contempt for any person who believes there is more to reality than just the material universe. Do the vast majority of Dawkin’s and Krauss’ colleagues share their opinion?
Members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science were polled by the Pew Research Center a number of years ago, with the results showing that 51% of those scientists believed in God or something beyond the natural.[2] While the majority of scientists polled did express a belief in something outside the material universe, the number of unbelievers among scientists was indeed much larger than the population as a whole (41% vs. 4%).
The survey highlighted another very interesting fact along the lines of scientists and unbelief. While atheists often argue that advances in science throughout the last century are eroding religious faith, the data in the Pew Research survey showed that that the percentages of believers/unbelievers among scientists was actually unchanged from about 100 years ago.[3]
Of course, this is just one survey; others done with different groups of scientists have shown higher percentage of unbelievers, while others are on par with what the Pew Research group found. While debates over numbers in different surveys can certainly be had, the more interesting question is why are some of these scientists atheists?
The Motives Behind the Numbers
Atheists point to statistics such as those in the Pew Research survey and argue that more scientists are unbelievers because their scientific education has caused them to dismiss any belief in God. But can that correlation be proven?
Rice University sociologist Dr. Elaine Ecklund conducted research from 2005-2008 in order to answer this very question, with her investigation resulting in the 2012 book Science vs. Religion – What Scientists Really Think. While Ecklund notes that some scientists do not believe because of their scientific studies, she sums up her overall findings this way: “In fact, for the majority of scientists I interviewed, it is not the engagement with science itself that leads them away from religion. Rather their reasons for unbelief mirror the circumstances in which other Americans find themselves: they were not raised in a religious home; they have had bad experience with religion; they disapprove of God or see God as too changeable.”[4]
Ecklund’s conclusions show that when atheists posit that the majority of scientists become unbelievers because of their science, they commit the logical fallacy of post hoc propter hoc, which is Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”. According to Ecklund, most scientists do not, in fact, reject God because of some scientific awakening. Rather, they are unbelievers for reasons that are common to other atheists who are not scientists.
An Interesting Conversation
Seeing Ecklund describe some scientist-atheists as not believing because “they disapprove of God” reminded me of an interesting conversation one of my seminary professors had over dinner with a biologist who was an atheist. As the dinner progressed, my professor respectfully confronted his dinner mate with the flaws and fallacies of atheism where God is concerned.
Surprisingly, the atheistic professor said at the end of their dinner, “What you’ve said makes a lot of sense. That said, I’m still going to teach evolution and remain an atheist.” Baffled, my professor asked why. “Because I want to sleep with who I want and keep living how I’m living”, came the reply.
I bring this up not to say that atheists are immoral while Christians are more ethical, but instead to argue that there are motivations beyond pure rational and evidential arguments as to why people reject God. For example, in addressing the Christianity’s influence in society, Aldous Huxley wrote, “We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom”.[5]
Various scientists have not been shy in admitting that it isn’t science that brought them to atheism nor is it science that keeps them there. Atheist George Klein wrote: “I am an atheist. My attitude is not based on science, but rather on faith. . . . The absence of a Creator, the non-existence of God is my childhood faith, my adult belief, unshakable and holy.”[6]
Or listen to atheist Thomas Nagel admit: “I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope that there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”[7]
Two Errors
In the end, we see atheists make two errors in their implied argument of science causing people to become unbelievers. First, they offer a false dichotomy of either embracing science or faith in God. Accepting both is certainly possible, with history and our present day showcasing numerous examples of brilliant scientists who are believers.
Second, atheists build on a false assumption of believing that scientific education causes faith in God to disappear and in doing so they commit the post hoc propter hoc logical fallacy of assuming the scientist’s current unbelieving state was caused by their scientific training.[8]
So why are some scientists atheists? The truth is, some scientists are atheists for the same reasons that cause other unbelievers to reject God, and most times, it has nothing to do with a scientific education, a supposed lack of evidence or anything similar.
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://goo.gl/BRGTo, my emphasis.
[8] The same could be said of the study entitled “Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief”; see: http://tinyurl.com/c2tjf8h.
THIS IS SO OBVIOUS its astonishing that some people dont get it.
Many people in the science disciplines are awarded scholarships. Unlike many people they have a choice in their career.
Atheists overwhelmingly choose the fields of Origins–biology, cosmology, physics.There are only 15000 physicists in the US BTW.
Theists overwhelmingly choose Medicine–there are 700,000 doctors and surgeons in the US and 3 Million RN’s—all are science degrees. Im sorry..but MD’s go through 11 years of school vs the 4 years of these other jobs. 75% believe in God. Even more for RN’s.
If your talent is logic and reasoning and are an atheist you’re more likely to be a Philosopher, psychiatrist etc
If you believe in God…a Theologian or minister.
If atheist and want to stick it theists– a professor of religion…if a Theist, a pastor or priest
This is logic 101 people, yet the uneducated public reasons their opinions in under 20 seconds. It also doesn’t help that the dishonest atheists claim science education caused their beliefs when in fact the studies show they were already formed. Why would a theist be compulsive about the origin of the universe when they already have that answer???
The same dynamics can be found in hundreds of occupations. The Media and broadcasting overwhelmingly attracts Liberals. Finance attracts conservatives. Very few people “become” these things through their work. If anything they are more likely to turn away from atheism. Do theists become porn moguls? Do atheists become Pastors?
One thing is clear..those who have a bend toward atheism choose a desk–as they are more likely to be loners. Theists will seek out more interaction..helping people one on one, hence Doctors, Nurses, Surgeons. There are not a lot of atheist rescue workers, firemen, police. Man of us who were in science club or passed by the class, who didnt have 47 pens in our pockets, know what I’m talking about 🙂
Please don’t think for a moment that Ecklund offers us independent statistical insight that supports the notion that science and religion are compatible without also appreciating just how widespread is the criticism about the quality of her research summaries.
And the argument that they are compatible because there are excellent scientists who are also believers is really poor. An analogy can be made that shows the problem: just because many priests are pedophiles does not mean pedophilia and religious belief are therefore compatible any more than scientists who are religious does not mean religion is compatible with science. What matters when looking at compatibility is evidence to show how the two are mutually supportive, and against this metric it becomes obvious that they are not. The direction of creating knowledge is entirely one way, meaning that although science can be used by believers to help inform these beliefs, the reverse is not true: science is not aided or improved in any way by informing it with religious belief. That’s why religious notions like creationism remain a significant impediment to improving the public understanding of modern biology.
What is important to understand is why there is such a significant difference between the percentage of working scientists who are believers compared to the general public. This gap grows even wider when compared to elite scientists and even more when we look at elite biologists. Ecklund does not aid us in this pursuit but creates a false image by how she summarizes her data. There is a reason for this growing gap and it has everything to do with recognizing the central role played by the compatibility issue. All of us are quite capable of holding incompatible beliefs at the same time and this is exactly what we find for scientists who are also believers; they create boundaries for maintaining one epistemology for work and another one for their faith-based beliefs. BUt in any direct comparison, each epistemology is clearly incompatible with the other, meaning they are not mutually supportive but actively at odds in need of clear separation.
elite biologists?
Is this field specific, or will we find the same range in Physics and Astronomy? I assume not higher, as biologists are singled out as being the proper indicator.
Why should being a biologist give you more of an insight and why does being an elite one give you superior insight into theology?
Why is the non-belief in creationism (by which I assume you mean Young Earth Creationism, which is only a subset) , due to supposedly being an impediment, not explained by the decrease in funding that might occur if they didn’t get funded to find other answers? Can not funding issues create a possible skew in positional reporting?
If they are “clearly” at odds, are non-atheistic scientists “clearly” less intelligent as it is not clearly apparent to them? Is there data to support this, other than their religious belief?
Religious faith seems, and i apologize if wrong, to be portrayed as a science stopper? Why would believing it part of a designed whole not prompt one to to more fully determine the details of the design and the methods used to implement it, any less than holding that it is a random occurrence that seems to have some regularities? Would not believing that there is an underlying design make one more apt to want to determine the design? i.e. assuming there actually is a Theory of Everything, rather than 4 fundamental forces that are frustratingly difficult to unify.
There is a blog/website somewhere for scientists who are committed Christians -some are priests, but I cannot find it.