Naturally Non-Religious

By Hannah Welham

A new study has confirmed scientists’ reputations for being one of the most unholy bunches of non-believers around. But science doesn’t seem to be the reason for their non-belief.

A project, christened ‘Religion Among Academic Scientists’ (RAAS), set out to answer the question: Do university scientists drop their childhood religion on entering the doors of a science faculty, or is their atheism something more innate?

Elaine Howard Ecklund and her team from the University of Buffalo studied 1,646 US university academics from many discipline, including physics, biology, sociology, and biochemistry.

Cleverly, all the questions Ecklund asked were based on ones asked in previous national surveys so that religious beliefs in scientists could be compared with those of the general public.

Results, published in the journal Social Problems, showed that science academics are significantly less religious than the general public. Indeed, 52% of the former said that they had no religious beliefs at all compared with only 14% in the general population.

Just 2% of scientists consider themselves to be evangelical whilst the number rises to 14% outside of the university gates.

A second conclusion was more surprising: there is no obvious link between becoming a university scientist and losing any previous religious belief.

Indeed Ecklund states that “study data do not support the idea that scientists simply drop their religious identities upon professional training”. A non-religious scientist was very likely to have been a non-religious child.

Ecklund is quick to point out the significance her study has in understanding science’s standpoint in society:

"Although academic scientists at elite universities teach and train future leaders of universities, media, primary and secondary education, medicine and government, there actually has been little systematic study of their religious beliefs and identities."

Some other gems uncovered by Ecklund and her team:

A scientist brought up within religion is more likely to be religious.
Natural and social scientists are equally (non-)religious.
Foreign scientists working in the US are, on the whole, more emphatic disbelievers.
There is no difference in religiosity between male and female academics, even though in the general public women are more likely to attend a church service.
Younger academic scientists are more religious, a complete opposite to the general public trend.

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