It seems to come as surprise to many people that there are many professional scientists who regularly attend religious services. Perhaps it’s no surprising to Episcopalians given our Presiding Bishop’s original career. Within Anglicanism there’s even an international Society of Ordained Scientists. But even with all that, the average person in the US apparently is convinced that there are fundamental conflicts between scientific and religious thinking.
Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund has tested that belief by surveying more than 1700 leading scientists about their personal faith. She finds that many, nearly half of the responding scientists, describe themselves as being religious. But because of perceived pressures, they keep their faith beliefs to themselves, living what Ecklund describes as a “closeted faith”.
Fully half of these top scientists are religious. Only five of the 275 interviewees actively oppose religion. Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves “spiritual.” One describes this spiritual atheism as being rooted in “wonder about the complexity and the majesty of existence,” a sentiment many nonscientists — religious or not — would recognize. By not engaging with religion more fully and publicly, “the academy is really doing itself a big disservice,” worries one scientist. As shown by conflicts over everything from evolution to stem cells to climate policy, breakdowns in communication between scientists and religious communities cause real problems, especially for scientists trying to educate increasingly religious college students.
Religious groups — creationist movements in particular — are not without blame here. Creationist attacks on evolution “have polarized the public opinion such that you’re either religious or you’re a scientist!” a devout physicist complains. Indeed, the National Science Board recently spiked a report on American knowledge about evolution, claiming that it was too difficult to tell the difference between religious objections to evolution and questions raised about the state of the science.
Full story here (with links to the study).