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highwaystar101 on 21 September 2009
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Kasz216 said:
highwaystar101 said:
Kasz216 said:
highwaystar101 said:
Whenever I hear statistics about scientists I always think two things...

A. That the actual number of scientists that believe in god is significantly lower than the national average within their country.

B. Scientists who belong to a religion will most likely work in a field that is unconnected to their faith and so does not mean they have to compromise on their beliefs.

I would be willing to bet that both of these statements are true.

You would be wrong... well about B.... 59 percent of biologists believe in a god.

A is true.

Like Rath and his "quantum mind" theory.  Scientists stick to the first theory they come up with until there is some proof suggesting it isn't so.  Even when there is no empieracal evidence... and sometimes when there is empierical evidence to the opposite... like Rath's Quantum mind theory... which is actually less likely as it has stuff going against it and no empirical evidence.

59%? A lot more than 59% of biology has no reason to interfere with personal religious beliefs. You can work in most areas of biology and not compromise your religious beliefs, Slimebeast is a perfect example of this.

--Edit--

Kasz, I looked on the internet at specific areas of biology and as you would expect 79%  of evolutionary biologists don't believe a god exists. But that is because atheism plays much more of a key role in evolutionary biology. However if you working in a field such as biochemistry then it would rarely influence your religious beliefs.

How does atheism play a key role in evolutionary biology?

Atheism doesn't play a key role in anything.

It's not like evolutionary biology is particularly complicated for people to understand.

If anything I'd think it suggests that something about atheism makes biologists more likely to choose evolutionary biology as a field.

Any biologist should know enough about evolution to know that it didn't go down like Genisis.

 

I'm going to nip this in the bud straight away before you turn the argument into something else.

Atheism means 'without god', when you are are an evolutionary biologist it would be preferable that you don't believe in intelligent design as it would work against the field of biology you work in. Complication has nothing to do with anything either. And yes it does suggest that atheists are more likely to work in evolutionary biology, that was the sodding point, because evolutionary biology is not something that would be appealing to a hardcore Christian who believes the world was created 6000 years ago because it would directly conflict with their beliefs when they study an evolutionary branch dating back millions of years.

And evolution isn't so essential to other areas of biology, again I refer to Slimebeast who is a medical doctor so he has studied biology extensively, he does not have to accept the theory of evolution in its' current form and he doesn't.

Look, our stats that we both provided prove my point. 59% of biologists believe in a god, but only 21% of evolutionary biologists believe in a god. At some point between biology and evolutionary biology there comes a point where believing in a 'creator' is counter productive to working in the field, that is pretty much what I'm on about.