ps418

FYI:

The February 2003 Harris Poll on 'The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans' gives the following statistics. I found it enlightening. Of all adults, the percentage affirming belief:

God 90%
Survival of the soul 84%
Miracles 84%
Heaven 82%
The resurrection of Christ 80%
The Virgin birth 77%
Hell 69%
The devil 68%
Ghosts 51%
Astrology 31%
Reincarnation 27%

Those percentages remain high even among people who identify as having post-graduate education. The following are ratios comparing those with high school or less to those with post-grad education.

God 92/85=1.08
Survival of the soul 86/78=1.10
Miracles 89/72=1.24
Heaven 86/71=1.21
The Resurrection 86/64=1.34
Virgin Birth 84/60=1.40
Hell 74/53=1.39
The Devil 73/52=1.40
Ghosts 56/36=1.55
Astrology 37/16=2.31
Reincarnation 28/17=1.65

Amount of education is inversely correlated with all of these beliefs, but particularly so for belief in ghosts, astrology and reincarnation. Belief in 'core' beliefs such as God and survival after death, on the other hand, are only mildly affected by amount of education.

Patrick

Barcode

Well, this is depressing. Sometimes I think it'd be a whole lot easier if I could ignore common sense and all rational thought in order to join the rest of this insane world.

Are there any statistics comparing the subject one studies to a belief? For instance, how many religious physicists are there, compared to say, religious historians?

One of the most fundamentalist types I know has a Phd in Engineering ... this baffles me sometimes. With some people, I guess they manage to compartmentalise things in their mind and don't quite make the link between what they believe in and what the factual evidence says.

ps418

I know what you mean. My attitude is 'Do what you can, but be willing to accept failure.' I do think that in general people are becoming less rational, rather than more rational, over time.

Lartham and Witham (1998) reported on a survey of beliefs among biologist and physicist members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In terms of belief in God and immortality, they scored very much lower than the general population, with 72% and 77% expressing disbelief, 20% and 23% expressing doubt or agnosticism, and 7% and 8% expressing belief, respectively. So, biologists and physicists in this sample to seem to have similar beliefs. I don't have any statistics to back me up, but I'd bet that biologists and physicists are much less likley you affirm belief in those two beliefs than religious historians are.

Larson and Witham, 1998. Leading Scientists Still Reject God. Nature 394, p. 313.

Well, IMHO, I would not expect belief to be at all diminished in engineers relative to the general population, because I would not expect engineering training to present any real challenges to such beliefs.

Patrick

Wounded King

Lets just be grateful they didn't put evolution on the list, a low score there could be even more demoralising.

I think the 1 percent of christians who don't believe in god are amusing.

ps418

Well, as of 1997, only 44% of Americans believed that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” (Gallup Poll) As of 1999, the same poll showed 47%. A greater number of people, however, believed in either naturalistic evolution or some form of god-guided evolution. These numbers have not changed much from 1990 to 1999. I do not have a source for other countries, but I know that it is nothing like this in most of Europe.

Patrick

Tenek

I think the difference in post-grad/avg would be more apparent if you consider the number who *don't* believe in those...

God 15/8 = 1.88
Survival of the soul 22/14 = 1.57
Miracles 28/11 = 2.55
Heaven 29/14 = 2.07
Ressurection 36/14 = 2.57
Virgin Birth 40/16 = 2.5
Hell 47/26 = 1.81
Devil 48/27 = 1.78
Ghosts 64/44 = 1.45
Astrology 84/63 = 1.33
Reincarnation 83/72 = 1.15

If a post-grad education leaves you twice as likely to not believe in miracles, heaven, the ressurection, or virgin birth, that says a lot, methinks.