Evolutionary Politics: Why we should care what candidates think about biological evolution

From reasononline:

Biological evolution became a hot topic in the presidential campaign last May when Republican presidential hopefuls were asked during a debate if "there was anybody on the stage that does not agree, believe in evolution?" Three held up their hands, Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.), Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) and former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.). Evolution deniers Brownback and Tancredo have now dropped out of the race. So what do all the remaining candidates—Republican and Democratic—think about biological evolution? And does it matter?

(full article)

We can beat Iran - but not by fighting

From the International Herald Tribune:

We can beat Iran - but not by fighting

Interesting perspective. Worth reading.

George W. Bush: The Frank Burns of Modern Politics

I came across this little tidbit while searching for something else (of course) but one line from it caught my attention:

"George W. Bush is the Frank Burns of modern politics."

This analogy is right on target and the post, though a few years old now, is still worth a quick read.

Straight Talk from Bill Maher on Conan

"You can't be a rational person six days a week…and on one day of the week, go to a building, and think you're drinking the blood of a two thousand year old space god."

Holiday Cheer and Murder

Two Charged in Washington Holiday Killings
(From the Associated Press via Yahoo! News)

SEATTLE - After slaughtering their parents, Joseph McEnroe apologized to his girlfriend's young niece and nephew before shooting both in the head to end a Christmas Eve massacre, prosecutors alleged Friday.

But even as they filed aggravated first-degree murder charges against McEnroe and Michele Anderson, prosecutors could not say what might have driven the couple in the violent killing spree.

(read the complete article)

Believer bitter over 'prosperity' preachings

(From the Associated Press via CNN.COM) -- The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.

And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Florida, area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.

Only the blessings didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.

(read the complete article)

This "53-year-old accountant" is old enough to know better, schooled in the skills of financial accounting, yet somehow gullible enough to buy into this kind of scam? It's difficult to be very sympathetic to her plight. Nobody forced her squander her money on this nonsense.

Historian: First English Bible Fueled First Fundamentalists

From LiveScience:

"The translation of the Bible into English marked the birth of religious fundamentalism in medieval times, as well as the persecution that often comes with radical adherence in any era, according to a new book."

(more)

Romney: 'Freedom requires religion'

[Commentary below]

(CNN) -- White House hopeful Mitt Romney said religious liberty "is fundamental to America's greatness," in his Thursday address on faith in America.

Romney, seeking to become the first Mormon president, explained how his faith would affect his presidency in his speech at former President George H. W. Bush's presidential library at Texas A&M University.

"There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders," Romney said.

"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone," he said.

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

"I believe in my Mormon faith [LDS church-Wikipedia] and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers -- I will be true to them and to my beliefs," he said, adding that if his faith hurts his candidacy, "so be it."

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

Romney said he thought some have taken the idea of separation of church and state beyond its original meaning by trying to remove any acknowledgment of God from the public arena.

"It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of secularism. They are wrong," he said.

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

(full article)

Commentary

The idea that all the candidates profess some level of religious belief, whether sincerely or as a political expedient is troubling enough, but I have grave concerns about the positions and opinions expressed by this candidate (and similar sentiments voiced by others).

It is as though he believes that the underlying assumption of the existence of a god or gods, common to essentially all religions, is somehow separate from religion and that all people, regardless of the particular version of the story to which they subscribe, implicitly accept the god notion. This exposes that in his thinking, Atheists either don't exist or at least don't matter. We are outside his sphere of awareness - outside his universe if you will. How can such a person be the president of all the citizens when he fails to acknowledge many of them from the start?

He states that "freedom requires religion". I suppose in a humorous sense this can be true - what, afterall, would "freedom from religion" mean if there were no religion from which to be free? But seriously, true freedom cannot be realized in a dogma-laden context. Religion poses the greatest challenge to our rights and freedoms, in many cases seeking to specifically and explicitly abridge them.

Romney also conflates the concepts of religion and world-view when he refers to "the religion of secularism". While religion may encompass world-view, the reverse is not necessarily true. What he refers to as 'secularism' is quite simply the greatest strength of our nation as set forth by its founders; yet he dismisses this as some sort of misconception. These kinds of muddled thought are the most insidious threat to the vital separation of church and state that has made possible the very freedom he so quickly twists up with his religious thinking.

Though it is not inconceivable that such a man, should be be elected, could in the final analysis be shown to have had a net-positive effect on the country, his beliefs, not unlike many professed by the current disastrous president, are, to borrow his phrase, "at odds with" the principles on which this nation is founded. As such, I, for one, could not in good conscience even consider casting a vote for him.

Papal encyclical attacks atheism, lauds hope

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, in an encyclical released on Friday, said atheism was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.

(more)

Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

(AP [via CNN]) -- When some of the world's leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They'll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.

(more)

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Some years ago I read a book titled The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, a collection of ramblings by Richard Feynman. This man's mind was brilliant and insightful, and this book captures something of that insight and of his inquisitive yet whimsical personality.

I see that it is now available on GoogleBooks. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is well worth reading. It can also be found on Amazon.com for a reasonable price.

Below is an excerpt:

p. 110-111

"I believe that we should demand that people try in their own minds to obtain for themselves a more consistent picture of their own world; that they not permit themselves the luxury of having their brain cut in four pieces or two pieces even, and on one side they believe this and on the other side they believe that, but never try to compare the two points of view.

Because we have learned that, by trying to put the points of view that we have in our head together and comparing one to the other, we make some progress in understanding and appreciating where we are and what we are. And I believe that science has remained irrelevant because we wait until somebody asks us questions or until we are invited to give a speech on Einstein's theory to people who don't understand Newtonian mechanics, but we never are invited to give an attack on faith healing, or on astrology-on what is the scientific view of astrology today.

I think that we must mainly write some articles. Now what would happen? The person who believes in astrology will have to learn some astronomy. The person who believes in faith healing may have to learn some medicine, because of the arguments going back and forth; and some biology. In other words, it will be necessary that science become relevant. The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right so long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue that I needed to understand the problem.

As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from modern society except for its applications, and thus be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their own point of view, they will have to learn what yours is a little bit.

So I suggest, maybe incorrectly and perhaps wrongly, that we are too polite. There was in the past an era of conversation on these matters. It was felt by the church that Galileo's views attacked the Church. It is not felt by the Church today that the scientific views attack the Church. Nobody is worrying about it. Nobody attacks; I mean, nobody writes trying to explain the inconsistencies between theological views and the scientific views held by different people today-or even the inconsistencies sometimes held by the same scientists between his religious and scientific beliefs.

Now the next subject, and the last main subject that I want to talk about, is the one I really consider the most important and the most serious. And that has to do with the question of uncertainty and doubt. A scientist is never certain. We all know that. We know that all our statements are approximate statements with different degrees of certainty; that when a statement is made, the question is not whether it is true or false but rather how likely it is to be true or false.

"Does God exist?" "When put in the questional form, how likely is it?" It makes such a terrifying transformation of the religious point of view, and that is why the religious point of view is unscientific. We must discuss each question within the uncertainties that are allowed. And as evidence grows it increases the probability perhaps that some idea is right, or decreases it. But it never makes absolutely certain one way or the other. Now we have found that this is of paramount importance in order to progress. We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And the question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty."

The Legacy of Intolerance

This came in a forwarded email and I thought it poignant enough to be worth posting here.






It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian Peoples looking the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be " a myth" it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

Scientific American: Searching for God in the Brain

From Scientific American: Searching for God in the Brain
Researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith By David Biello The doughnut-shaped machine swallows the nun, who is outfitted in a plain T-shirt and loose hospital pants rather than her usual brown habit and long veil. She wears earplugs and rests her head on foam cushions to dampen the device’s roar, as loud as a jet engine. Supercooled giant magnets generate intense fields around the nun’s head in a high-tech attempt to read her mind as she communes with her deity. . . . (Full Text)

Science vs. Religion

Science begins with a question and the foundation of the accumulated knowledge of past scientific work, always aware that future work may call any of that past knowledge into question. Answers are sought through contemplation and experiment, examining what can be observed and devising ways to test and clarify our understanding. It is by nature a process of successive approximation, gradually, continually improving and refining what we understand. While it may never lead to a complete understanding of everything, it is the only path we know to revealing reality, tantalizing glimpse by tantalizing glimpse.

Religion, on the other hand, begins with the premise that all answers can be found in an ancient book. This premise stands in contradiction to the whole enterprise of scientific investigation and ultimately of meaningful education. Without the external pressures of modern society, religious “education” consists mainly of rote memorization of the scriptures and some limited exploration of their interpretation according to whichever leaders were involved. This can be seen today in areas dominated by fundamentalists. Religion actively impedes the learning process, even going so far as to declare some ideas as heretical, off limits to even private thought.

Religion is an insult to the individual and collective intelligence not only of our own species but all species. Even as it purports to hallow nature as creations of its god or gods, it denies the magnificence of nature and the processes underlying it, seeking instead to project the notion that it all is the product of the grand design of some mythical, mystical consciousness, the origin of which remains obscure, but, despite its putative ability to create the entire universe, somehow it is unfulfilled without human worship.

Science and the Islamic world—The quest for rapprochement

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy
Physics Today Online

"Internal causes led to the decline of Islam's scientific greatness long before the era of mercantile imperialism. To contribute once again, Muslims must be introspective and ask what went wrong."

(article)

Human Seasonal Celebration

Severe storms in the Pacific Northwest knocked out power for a time last winter. Having been out of town when this occurred, I returned to the area some days later to find the main roads cleared but the power still down and recovery very much underway and incomplete. I fired up a backup generator, heated the house, and set about the cleanup tasks, discarding spoiled food, cutting up downed trees, filing insurance claims, etc.

During a break in the weather, I took a walk around the neighborhood, inspecting the damage and contemplating the situation. It was then that I began to think about the gathering and giving spirit of this time of year. It probably has its origins far earlier than the various contemporary religious traditions to which it is commonly attributed, and probably played a crucial role in the survival of the human species to the present era.

At this time of year, when the weather often can be harsh, it was almost certainly a cooperative effort just to survive the season. People were together during these trying times much more closely and must have traded supplies as well as physical warmth, huddling together, bundling up in whatever skin blankets, tents, huts, and shelters were available. No doubt this sharing of body heat resulted in significant numbers of pregnancies.

Relief from having survived the harsh season of winter (and no longer having to huddle in such close quarters with others who by that time were no doubt starting to get on each others’ nerves) and the increasing visibility of the resulting pregnancies almost certainly is the foundation for the exuberant fertility festivals of the spring season.

A bountiful harvest, whether by hunter-gatherers, herders, or farmers, was a major factor in whether or not there would be sufficient food to survive the coming winter; hence the harvest celebrations of the autumn season. Plentiful food meant feasts during which, not unlike our kin species in the wild, people indulged, thus packing on fat reserves for the coming harsh season. What wasn’t consumed was preserved as best they knew how, to provide rations through the winter. And so the cycle continued.

Gift giving probably evolved from necessary trade between people pooling their resources during the huddle. Good will in the form of proffered foodstuffs, skin blankets, etc., was reciprocated in kind. Concern also developed on the part of those with more, to assist those who may have been unable to store adequate supplies for their own survival, an early form of a community safety net, helping some in one year and others in the next.

Coming together for survival was also an opportunity for reunion between family and friends who may have traveled separately during the rest of the year. The cheer of the time no doubt stemmed from the joy of these reunions and the comfort and security of being with the group. At night, around the fire, stories would be told, sharing the experiences of the past year, fears, triumphs; no doubt exaggerated with each telling. Many cultures devised proto-religious spiritual embellishments to help explain their experiences.

Tens of thousands of years after those ancient times of continuous survival pressure, many forms of festive seasonal traditions persist in nearly every human culture, having evolved through many twists and turns along with the religious concepts and contexts that came to surround them, to the holidays we know today. Evolution is ceaseless; certainly these traditions continue to change and adjust in light of changing reality and our ever-expanding understanding of the world around us. We are long overdue to shake off the primitive religious baggage we have carried forward to the present. Reality offers more than enough reason to celebrate without the need for a fantastical veneer of spiritual nonsense to dampen our exuberance.

The George W. Bush Memorial: A Monument to Ignorance

The George W. Bush Memorial: A Monument to Ignorance

By Mohammed J. Christiansen

WASHINGTON, DC - September 11, 2101

Today we take a moment out of our busy schedules to pause and remember the terrible events that took place on this day in 2001, a century ago. Few are alive today who still remember that day, whether they were in the area of any of the attacks and witnessed them personally, or lost loved ones, or just watched in horror via the various news media.

Today not only marks the anniversary of those tragedies and the tragic loss of life, but the opening salvo in a U.S. Presidency gone terribly wrong. George W. Bush was ushered into office by a Supreme Court decision after an election resulting in a near tie with Democratic candidate Al Gore, amid strong allegations of election tampering in several states and major counting problems in Florida in particular, where Bush’s brother was governor at the time. His presidency began in what appears to have been one of, if not the most corrupted elections in the history of the United States of America. How exactly he was able to remain in office for a second term has been the subject of much conjecture and accusation ever since.

George W. Bush defined himself as a man of Christian “Faith”. True to form, he immediately began working to weaken the separation of church and state, so vital to a strong democratic society. President Bush used his “faith” in lieu of intelligence and reason in making vital decisions that would affect not only the United States but the world at large, thereby dramatically weakening the standing of the United States among other nations, seriously undermining its moral and political leadership. Lacking in basic intelligence and common sense, he surrounded himself with smarter people; yet failed miserably to heed their advice, or worse, pressured them to alter their advice to conform to his “faith-based” agenda. A few who recognized his intellectual frailty, appealed to his “faith” to forward their own pernicious agendas; notably his vice president, the aptly named Dick Cheney.

Mr. Bush was not well read, preferring instead to spend time on his Texas ranch land, “clearing brush”, chain saw in hand. On the international front, his interactions with other world leaders were often juvenile; his ability to distinguish friend from potential foe, dubious at best. Cheney was widely recognized as the intelligence behind his administration; though that intelligence was seldom applied in the best interests of the United States or its people. The incompetence and ineptitude of this administration as a whole is legendary still today.

George W. Bush was often referred to deservedly disrespectfully as “W” (to differentiate him from the prior president and his father, George H. W. Bush), or as “Dubya”, pronouncing the “W” with an imitated Texas accent, or as George Shrub, or George Bush “the lesser”.

Following the events of September 11th, 2001, when it was determined that a radical Islamic group operating under the name Al Qaida was responsible, its leader, Osama bin Laden, once supported by covert US operations in Afghanistan, but since recognized as a terrorist enemy of the west, was identified as the prime target for a response. An Islamic extremist group known as the Taliban was oppressively ruling Afghanistan at the time and, not surprisingly, refused to extradite bin Laden. After token negotiations in the United Nations, a well-intentioned, if largely ineffective international diplomatic organization, the decision was made to declare war on Afghanistan and remove the Taliban from power, paving the way, ostensibly at least, to capturing or killing bin Laden. This initial incursion was carried off relatively smoothly by a “coalition” consisting primarily of US forces but with some token international support. The Taliban was effectively neutralized, and a puppet government installed. Residual Taliban continued to pose a threat, trying to reconstitute their opressive rule. US and multinational forces would remain in theater for years in an effort to combat these extremist forces and maintain some semblance of civil order.

Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding out in rugged territory straddling the border between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, controlled not by either country, but by tribal forces ensconced there. Bush appealed to the then leader of Pakistan, President, General Pervez Musharraf and hastily forged an alliance in which Pakistani forces were enlisted to try and corral bin Laden and possibly capture him. Pakistan, immersed in a territorial dispute with neighboring India that saw both experimenting with nuclear weapons, now found itself in an important negotiating position with the US and was quick to cooperate or at least present the appearance of cooperation in order that it might gain some leverage. It wasn't until years later, under the administration of Barack Obama, the first US president of African descent, who followed George W. Bush in office, when US forces finally caught up with bin Laden in living in relative comfort inside Pakistan; a confrontation that resulted in his death.

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush, after pressuring the intelligence community to produce what later was exposed as pathetic “evidence” that Saddam Hussein in nearby Iraq had been tangentially involved in the terrorist attacks against the US and was producing so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), ostensibly in preparation for a full-on attack on the United States and/or its interests abroad; the same Saddam Hussein against whom an earlier president, Bush’s father, George H. W. Bush had fought a war and prevailed but failed to “finish the job” and remove him from power, presented that “evidence” to the United Nations through one Colin Powell, who up to that point had been widely viewed as a man of great personal integrity by most of the American public and much of the world for that matter. After deliberations and under great pressure from the Bush administration, the UN eventually issued resolutions making demands of Hussein. Ultimately, this was used as pretext for a war in Iraq, carried off by another “coalition” consisting again predominantly of US forces, with grudging token support from other nations.

Hussein, while certainly no angel, was not the perpetrator of the September 11th attacks and by all accounts, was not in any way involved in them, directly or indirectly. Though he was removed from power and eventually tried in a hastily reconstituted Iraqi court, ostensibly of, by, and on behalf of Iraqis, convicted, and hanged for his crimes against Iraq, Hussein, through his certainly destructive program of cash “reward” payments made to the families of suicide bombers killing innocent civilians in Israel, was only a relatively minor player in the global terrorism threat on which was founded Bush’s new doctrine of preemptive action. The Iraq war, primarily a realization of the personal agendas of Bush and his Vice President Cheney, was a tremendous drain on the US national budget and cost thousands of American lives – more in fact than the September 11th attack, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, most of whom were probably innocent civilians.

Bush invoked and far exceeded constitutional wartime powers to expand the power of the Executive branch, much to the detriment of the strength of the Constitution and of the United States’ form of constitutional democracy itself. During his tenure, he installed members of the Supreme Court, including a Chief Justice, tipping the balance from a progressive and rationally minded court to one with strong Christian “conservative” leanings. The damage to the American way of life resulting from this change alone is still being tallied. Wherever he had the opportunity, Bush used his religious beliefs as an excuse to undo decades of progress in civil rights and freedoms, medical research, and other areas. The Bush administration regularly interfered with the due course of scientific research, and pressured various governmental agencies to alter their reports away from reality in support of his beliefs. He and his administration effectively vandalized the United States of America, its government and its constitution, undermining the very foundations of what had been the greatest national experiment in the history of human society. The republican party suffered as well, allowing its right-wing religious constituency to influence run amok, fielding more than a few rank idiots as vice presidential and presidential candidates, and generally showing itself to be misaligned with the interests of the nation at large. Not that the democrats had it right either, but they were at least not so inflexible and dogmatic.

It is not, however, merely the ignorance of this failed president that makes his uncharacteristically modest if well maintained memorial a monument to ignorance; nor is it just the crimes and misdoings of his administration. It is the ignorance, intolerance, and bigotry of the religious multitudes, Christian and Muslim in particular, so focused on their myths and dogma. It is the ignorance of a huge portion of the American public, religious and otherwise, so complacent in the supposed checks and balances designed to protect against just such a criminal administration as to somehow overlook the fact that with the republican-dominated congress and hand picked Supreme Court, the administration in its first term had nearly completely dismantled those very safeguards and twisted the knife in the wound during the early part of its second. Only midway through his second term did the American public finally dislodge the republican congressional majority, and then only by the narrowest of margins.

American citizens’ direct and continual involvement in the public discourse, not merely in the electoral process, an essential ingredient of the American System, had been abdicated by the citizenry at large, probably beginning with the growth of the broadcast media into the position of dominant source of public information, effectively turning the great democratic conversation into a one-way presentation, excluding the input of the citizenry at large. Direct citizen involvement, the safeguard of first and last resort, was critical to the healthy pursuit of American Democracy. This involvement had already almost completely evaporated by the time of the George W. Bush Administration; yet this alarming situation was hardly even recognized by the public at large, lured into complacency by a media and political status quo that had by then been reduced to little more than a marketing campaign, selling politicians much the way of any other product: clothing, hygiene products, food.

Ignorant Americans stood by and watched their very way of life systematically undermined by a presidential administration reminiscent of nothing so much as the early days of the Third Reich, but in America, where such things were not supposed to happen. This was the administration that the founding fathers feared. This was the administration against which the various safeguards were installed in the first place, all those many years ago. Yet Ignorant Americans stood by and let it happen.

Ignorant Muslims world wide said nothing when extremists from among their ranks perpetrated horrible crimes against humanity, usually aimed deliberately at innocent civilians including children, under the aegis of the dogma of their supposedly peaceful religion.

Ignorant Christians the world over, but in the United States in particular, reveled in the delusion that events were unfolding that looked eerily similar to events they’d been brainwashed to expect leading up to the “second coming” of their imagined messiah.

None of these prophesied events came to pass of course. After years of brutal and bloody war, reasonable minds began to emerge, publishing in traditional media such as books, and new electronic media such as the Internet, the first global electronic information network, an omnidirectional medium in which everyone could participate worldwide. Eventually, the jumpstarted conversation resumed, this time with input not only from within the United States, but worldwide, from all sides of the issues. Eventually, reason reasserted itself, leading in time to a more rational and more peaceful public discourse and society as a whole began to heal.

On this hundredth anniversary of the tragedy that served as the trigger for this sad chain of events, it is for all the citizens of the Planet Earth to remember and study this and other atrocities throughout our history; to recognize in ourselves the tendency toward, and actively and aggressively work to prevent another one; to combat the forces of dogma wherever they may show their faces; to teach our children the time-tested methods of critical thinking, analysis, and introspection, and the imperative to apply them; to work for the strength of our society for the benefit of all the inhabitants of this tiny blue planet we call home.

Mohammed Judas Christiansen is Managing editor of the Jerusalem Global News System. His commentaries are featured regularly in this forum.

Scientology Faces Criminal Charges

"BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — A Belgian prosecutor on Tuesday recommended that the U.S.-based Church of Scientology stand trial for fraud and extortion, following a 10-year investigation that concluded the group should be labeled a criminal organization."

.
.
.

The German government considers Scientology a commercial enterprise that takes advantage of vulnerable people.

(more)

Perhaps Germany should also take them to court. Why stop with Scientology? Perhaps they should take all the 'commercial enterprises taking advantage of vulnerable people' to court. There are many such enterprises far more well established than Scientology that collectively have done far more harm throughout the millennia.

Believing the Unbelievable

Believing the Unvelievable: The Clash Between Faith and Reason in the Modern World
Sam Harris [wikipedia] speaks at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Science Not the Cause of Non-Religious Scientists

From LiveScience:

Scientists are less religious than the general population, a new study shows, but the reason has little to do with their study of science or academic pressures.

(more)

I'm not sure how to interpret these results or if they're even credible.

So why are scientists less religious? The data indicate that being raised in a religious home is the best predictor of how religious someone will be—scientist or member of the general population.

Perhaps they should have examined whether the data suggest that being raised in a free-thinking non-religious home is a predictor of taking up a scientific career path?

Some interesting items from the article:

• 52 percent of scientists surveyed said they had no religious affiliation, compared with only 14 percent of the general population.
• Of the religious scientists, however, 15 percent identified themselves as Jewish compared to 2 percent of the religious general population.
• 14 percent of the general population described themselves as "evangelical" or "fundamentalist.” Less than 2 percent of scientists, however, identified themselves as either of these.

Well, Judaism promotes questioning and arguing, unlike many of the Christian dogmas. Jewish culture strongly promotes education as well. That might explain the disproportionate representation of scientists who identify themselves as Jewish. How many of those scientists accept the central proposition of the existence of a god would have been another interesting question for the survey.

Curiously, younger scientists were more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than older scientists.

If these young and religious scientists continue to stay religious, Ecklund said, "it could indicate an overall shift in attitudes toward religion among those in the academy."

Perhaps the longer one applies the scientific method to the study of life, the harder it is to accept religious ideas. Indeed it would be interesting to follow this up in perhaps 30 years to see how many of the currently young and religious scientists in the survey remain so later in life, and of those, how many continued their scientific pursuits. Moreover, it would be very interesting to interview them now and in the future to learn how they reconcile their scientific studies with their religious beliefs, and whether and how that may have changed over the years.

---
One footnote-- the original article title is "Science Not to Blame for Non-Religious Scientists" [emphasis mine]. This is a curiously slanted title for a supposedly scientific journal. Use of the word Blame implies the judgment that lack of religiosity among scientists (or any other group, I suppose) is a bad thing for which it is necessary to assign blame. A supposedly impartial scientific presentation should have chosen a title more similar to mine, making no qualitative judgment about the study results.