"About two-thirds of scientists believe in God, according to a new survey that uncovered stark differences based on the type of research they do.
The study, along with another one released in June, would appear to debunk the oft-held notion that science is incompatible with religion.
Those in the social sciences are more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than researchers in the natural sciences, the study found.
The opposite had been expected..."
well who knew?
Controversial statement alert: The social sciences aren't really sciences.
ya, i'm not really getting "the opposite had been expected"
The 1,646 responses by the scientist's were:
I do not believe in god 34%
I do not know if there is a god 30%
I believe in a higher power but it is not god 8%
I believe in god sometimes 5%
I have some doubts but I believe in god 14%
I have no doubts about god's existence 9%
I don’t consider “Social Science” to really be a science in any real sense of the meaning of the word. Let’s just settle on calling it a discipline. If we exclude social scientists from the study then we’d have a negligible number who believe in god I’m pretty sure, but as it stands the study is spurious to say the least, and it’s conclusions worthless.
as gnostic as it gets i guess
The problem here is what did they define as God? We don't know, so it's not very helpful. Did they mean an Abrahamic god? A personal or non personal god? A big bag of energy in the universe that they call a god? I know some scientists are inclined to believe in a non personal creator force they might call a god, but that's quite different from what a looney tunes evangelist might call god. So, you can't read too much into this study.
word
Re the origin of the term “social science”:
“Beginning in the 1950s, the term behavioral sciences was often applied to the disciplines designated as the social sciences. Those who favoured this term did so in part because these disciplines were thus brought closer to some of the sciences, such as physical anthropology and physiological psychology, which also deal with human behaviour.”
Source: online Britannica
I first heard the term “social science” in early 1960s as I neared a BA in math and economics and applied for grad school to study math and physics.
Why post this journalist's 2005 misrepresentations that more than a small proportion of scientists believe in supernatural beings?
mostly bc i was kinda surprised myself
Scientists do not believe in gods. Some people who claim to be scientists might believe in gods.
well or God, as opposed to "gods" anyway. Also--not that i personally object if someone assumes to be gnostic--you are making statements of absolute truth that are easily refuted imo, was Einstein a scientist or no?
Social "sciences" are less rigid and less falsifiable than are natural sciences. The results of the study are what I would expect.
It was shortly after the “hard sciences” won WW2 that the “soft scientists” — sociologists, psychologists, etc — wanted the prestige the “hard scientists” had.
Then, oddly, “hard mathematics” was unable to compute the speed and location of electrons so the hard mathematicians started using “soft mathematics” — statistics — to guess at their speed and location, and created quantum mechanics.
Interesting. Never heard it said like that. Seems like you are playing down the soft sciences. They way I see it, hard science gave hitler the weapons of war, soft science gave him the will of the people to fight...
Hard science won WWII? I thought that it was Hitler's delusions of superiority, 60 million Russians, 40 million British, 50 million loyal colonials and a few million, mainly civilian workers in America.
Hard science merely increased the ability to kill and maim it did not give the resolve to not surrender to tyranny & oppression.
America & its citizens with their drones, satellites, nuclear bombs and cruise missiles seemingly has still not understood that having been defeated in Vietnam, fought to a standstill in Korea & Afghanistan.
@Canndue, @FrayedBear In case you want to know how applied mathematicians (engineering students ) toasted pure mathematicians: “Here’s to pure mathematics; may it never be of use to anyone.”
@FrayedBear Yes, hard science — including radar, magnetic exploders on mines and torpedos, proximity fuses on anti-aircraft projectiles, and especially two atomic bombs — won WW2. German pilots flew the first jet planes but not in time to win the air war in Europe.
@yvilletom two atomic bombs did not win WWII they simply, like the firestorms of Hamburg & Dresden, vindictively murdered defeated civilians to satisfy American political & military psychopathy.
[en.wikipedia.org]
@yvilletom I was interested to recently learn that not only were Boing engineers attending German facilities during the war but stealing German designs.
@FrayedBear You lack information.
The Japanese civilians were defeated but they were not making the decisions, The Army’s leaders wanted to fight until Japan no longer existed. They were training children to run at soldiers with bamboo spears. Think again about who was psychopathic.
Re Wikipedia, have you never edited any of its content? .I have. It’s easy. Do you believe everything you read there?
@yvilletom no! I was lazy & grabbed the first available reference.
Perhaps the following one will appeal to you more.
Sadly your mention of Japanese children with sharpened bamboos still leaves me amazed at your credulity.
[stripes.com]
A few quotes:
"Hasegawa brings a unique perspective: he is a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara who speaks Russian and lived through the U.S. firebombing of Tokyo as a child.
“True defeat and surrender are two different things,” Hasegawa said in a phone interview with Stars and Stripes. “Surrender is a political decision, requiring political will.”
The atomic bombs’ impact can’t be discounted when discussing Japan’s reasons for surrender, Hasegawa said.
However, the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, and the realization that Japanese forces would have to fight the Soviets in the north and the U.S. in the south, constituted “the greater shock,” Hasegawa said."
And
" On Aug. 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay delivered its payload and destroyed Hiroshima.
By that time, Japan had few remaining cities with a population of more than 100,000 that hadn’t been severely damaged. Gen. Curtis LeMay burned much of Tokyo with incendiary bombs months earlier, a move he later admitted would have been considered a war crime if the U.S. had lost."
And
" “The documentary evidence is overwhelming that Truman wanted the Soviets to enter the war and that on Aug. 8, he was very pleased to learn that they had done so,” Kort said.
As for the use of atomic bombs, opinion remains divided. A Pew Research Center poll released in April showed that 56 percent of Americans believe it was justified. Among Japanese, 79 percent said it was not.
Hasegawa lays the blame for the tragic atomic bombing and the Soviet invasion at the feet of Japan’s wartime government. However, his research ultimately changed his thinking on some aspects.
The bomb played a part in Japan’s surrender, but it may not have been necessary, he said.
Had the U.S. drawn Stalin into publicly supporting the Potsdam Declaration’s unconditional surrender demand, Japan might not have held out hope for a Soviet-brokered deal. Had it guaranteed the emperor’s position, Japan might have surrendered earlier, Hasegawa said, though this is yet another point that draws endless historical debate.
“Other alternatives were available, but they were not explored,” Hasegawa said. "
As I originally stated "it was Hitler's delusions of superiority, 60 million Russians, 40 million British, 50 million loyal colonials and a few million, mainly civilian workers in America."
and
"two atomic bombs did not win WWII they simply, like the firestorms of Hamburg & Dresden, vindictively murdered defeated civilians to satisfy American political & military psychopathy."
@FrayedBear You have your belief.
It does not include that nuclear weapons have frightened the world’s ruling classes into not using the ruled classes to fight their wars.
"Social science" is not really science; it's a fancy name for sociology.
Sociology is a branch of science.