Excellently put. It's one of the reasons I am an atheist. Incidentally, in this research paper, I would have to be placed in the category of engineering. This actually got me thinking quite a bit...
My mom is head of her psychology department and she is catholic. I occasionally question her on why she does not apply logic to her belief system. She usually gets uncomfortable and says she does not want to talk about it. She basically says this is the way my parents raised me.
To me, anyone who reads the bible should know that an all-knowing god didn't inspire it. For starters, god wouldn't have let very dangerous lies in the bible, like witches exist and you must kill them.
(cont) and the sad part is, a lot of the faculty and especially the military side of things (the Chaplin comes to mind) are constantly crediting god and miracles for all of the good research and work that gets done at the university.every military ceremony I've gone to has made me sick because of how much jesus praise goes on without even acknowledging the 10-15 hr days some of the dr's put into their research daily.even the religious dr's aren't that religious, more that they respect traditions
I really am curious about the data for medical schools because I work at a medical university for the military that primarily does research and it is sooo strange to see the differences between the researchers/professors and the other facility there in regards to their religious views. The majority, vast majority of the researchers (all sorts of research, bio-chem, psychology, neurology, micro-bio, pathology, etc..) seem to be non-believers while the regular faculty are highly religious (cont).
Proof - The Real Garden of Eden is found. See my channel for the video. Share it with others. The atheists don't want you to see it, that's why they've blocked me from showing them. Watch it and then tell someone!
I just see one flaw with the methodology of this study. I don't like the questions mainly because they included both believe and know. I think one thing I would change is remove the I know there is a god option, or add a I know there is no god option to balance both sides. I doubt there would be many takers though. I like that this study does account for the varying degrees of belief.
I'm not at all surprised at the results for psychology professors. One of the things that started me "questioning my faith" was taking a psychology class in high school and learning about how the mind works. My major is Computer Engineering which, although it's not on this list by its own, is a mixture of CS and EE classes. I wish the results were closer to Mechanical Engineers :P
Very interesting, C0nc0rdance. In Table 2 I understand they selected the largest 20 fields, but I would love to see the data for Physicists and Cosmologists. Perhaps Mechanical Engineering lends a bit of insight since it has a strong physics background (although admittedly far below an actual Physics major, especially for advanced degrees). But nonetheless it would be fascinating for someone to explain why each field might answer the way it did.
The wording isnt great, the 1st one "I dont believe in God" is JUST atheism, and the 2nd one "I dont know whether there is a god" is JUST agnostic and can be for both atheist and theist. Generaly speaking its poorly worded, its a table title "....... belief in God" and yet it allso deals with knowledge aswell.
I am a Mining Engineer, I went to a school that is almost entirely focused on engineering and I work with a bunch of engineers. I was personally blown away by the numbers associated with us engineers. It was and still is quite common for me to come across other engineers who are either full blown religious or some degree of religiosity, but far from atheist. I always kinda felt like an outsider in my field as an atheist but luckily, religiosity has little to do with engineering.
@khunopie That's possible. One of the hosts of the Atheist Experience from the Atheist Community of Austin also studied to become a priest or something, but the more he found out about religion, the more he saw it's all a show. They teach you how to pull the wool over your congregation's ears.
Actually, there is a strong atheist bias in biology. Biologists are just in a better position to notice this reality. The theists nearly always get everything ass backwards, thinking that reality must shift to fit their delusions as they do.
@DoesItAddUp101 so you are saying that the belief that" all belief in truth claims should have scientific basis" is not truth claim?
Thats exactly what I'm saying , that one is one of my general beliefs. The reason is, if people don't use scientific evidence or evidence of a scientific nature as their basis for belief in what is true or not, it becomes hard for people to tell me what they DO use as the basis of analysis.
@DoesItAddUp101 I don't believe that all beliefs must have scientific evidence as their basis. BUT I do believe that all beliefs in truth claims should have scientific evidence as their basis i.e. Anything that is used as an explanation for why something occurs or for how it occurs. Whereas, beliefs as a whole - such as "I believe my brother is is nice, but can be annoying" or "I believe that you would not kill me were we to meet" do not. Hopefully that makes sense
@DoesItAddUp101 I did mean that, and I had written it too, but the character limit forced me to delete it in order for my point to remain I decided that I would remove that as I felt it superfluous. As it turns out, it wasn't superfluous as you weren't 100% sure of my intended meaning. Hope the clarification helps ;)
@DoesItAddUp101 I see what you mean. As it turns out, I'm an atheist and I will be going on to study psychology at university, so you may have a point.
Although this is not why I'm going into psychology, some atheists may go onto study it because they are fascinated with the brain and the way it can allow people to believe things that lack evidence are that clearly aren't true (look up asomatognosia - interesting disorder)
Let me make this very plain, DoesItAddUp101: "Elite institutions" are defined in the paper as the top ranked universities: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Stanford and the like. The survey results were stratified into institutional categories chosen purposely by the authors.
I'd suggest you actually read the paper before commenting further.
"Higher echelons"...? A category that apparently includes that most unemployable of undergraduate degrees, psychology. Good job alienating the subjects that have been challenging religious literalism far before Darwin turned up. I think the most interesting statistics are those of English (presumably literature, tho' linguistics too) and history, which allow us to review such greats as Voltaire, Diderot, Montaigne, Gibbon, and so on. Not all wisdom is found in a test tube.
Psychologists actually understand the many ways we convince ourselves to believe in silly nonsense. Learning psychology was a very fundamental push for me becoming an outspoken atheist, since now I can even identify all the cognitive exploits that religious apologetics attempt to use when brainwashing believers.
Frankly, it would be kind of naive to assume that the connection does not exist. These are mutually exclusive ways of thinking that most people eventually must reconcile.
"Higher echelons of learning" refers to the top colleges, not the top degree attainments. I think this was clear in the context of the mismatch between junior colleges and elite graduate degree granting institutions in "Born-again Christians" and religious belief overall. Junior colleges contain the most (~25%), elite institutions contain the fewest (<1%) Evangelicals.
so educated students just see religion for what it is because all that studying caused intelligence & independent thought, not because of evil atheist professors brainwashing
@bary1234 let's not forget the pre-medieval ones. Surprisingly enough, it's those that are most significantly relevant, even to a geo-political level.
It's explained in the paper, especially if you read the full introduction, which describes the narrative they are addressing: Once the US had "God on the Quad", where undergrad institutions primarily served to train clergy. Harvard was once a bastion of conservative religious thinking, but during the 20's that changed, and the universities secularized.
The survey data is needed to fully flesh out their hypothesis, which is about undergrad institutions, not med or law schools.
Ah, but you see those professors aren't REAL Christians, and only Christianity counts as a religion, all others are false deceits of the devil to lure the unwary from the True Path.
I suppose I shouldn't be but I'm still shocked to hear how many people trained in the skills of critical thinking still profess a belief in the supernatural.
I think psychologists might be more prone to disbelief for a number of reasons.
1. The behavioral approach suggests the all things can be learnt by 3 processes, classical conditioning (Pavlov's dogs) Operant conditioning (+ve and -ve reinforcement) and social learning (vicious learning) As a result, they may perceive that religion can be just another leant concept
2. The cognitive approach suggests that distorted thinking leads to irrational beliefs.
I recall a study looking at how well students maintained their religious orientation thru college. The presumption ('alternate hypothesis') was that weakening of faith or deconversion would be most common in students who majored in the sciences. As it turned-out, it was the students who majored in the humanities that had the highest rates of faith-weakening and deconversion. I'd like to better understand the discrepancy between that study and these findings of professors.
You mean the part in the table entitled "health" and "Other"? I could be wrong, but last time I've checked, "medical" field is consider "health-related" fields. Altho, I have to admit, that I don't know, if you MD's consider "medicine" to be health-related. Probably not.
@DoesItAddUp101 Why should personal views be left out of this? This video does not deal with a strict science related topic, but a social issue that has been brought up in the debate concerning evolution v. creationism. Opinions and personal perceptions in this kind of video are absolutely fine. C0c0rdance can of course only properly state and defend his own opinions on this issue, so he may appear biased. I don't think he appears so, or actually is to be honest.
Im a professor, with a doctoral degree in psychology counselling, I do lecture and do research, and I am a Hindu, who is not a literalist. But I am also not American.... hmm where would I fit?
I am shocked. I am a software dev from Germany (living in Latvia), and Until today, I was pretty sure I hadn't met a religious coder in the last 15 years. I really would like to see a similar survey from Europe/Germany.
I'm a Civil Engineer and I'm with the Mechanical Engineers! I don't understand the lack of Atheism in Electrical engineers. The results seem odd since Electrical and Mechanical are so similar in concepts and curriculum. All engineering fields are similar.
Atheism is often a personal conclusion inspired by the access of reason, and not deliberate arguement or direct discussion in a lecture.
I like the discovery institute video, because in it they effectively admit "we aren't interested in the truth, we're only interested in pursuing our faith"
It seems to be almost common sense to me that as one learns more about the universe ones theist beliefs decline. Personally I am tired of the accommodationist stance. I agree with the Intelligent Design movement that evolution most certainly nudges one toward atheism. Atheist should admit this so we can speed up the death of theism!
Tables 2 and 4 are very hard to interpret without population size or statistical significance. I hope there's something about that in the text, or no conclusions can be drawn from the seemingly differing numbers.
IMO it's all made up by Christians that like to pretend that they're persecuted minorities just because the Bible says that they will be hated just as Jesus was hated. There's no systematic persecution, but that won't stop Christians from trying to play the role of Martyr.
It would seem that as one goes deeper and deeper into understanding, the less fanatical they become, even if they still hold loyal to their original beliefs.
...I laughed though when you said that professors of business and education are largely religious, with that totally supporting the stereotypes of the Christian right.
I wasn't surprised at the finding about psychology professors and I would guess that many more hold deterministic views than the average American. Traditional psychology has been largely value-neutral on religion (albeit with various historical figureheads having strong views for one side or the other) but learning about cognitive science and neuropsychology leaves little room for the mind-body duality that is essential to many religious beliefs.
My friend is working on his PHD and when he was a teenager he was a born again Christian (I was pagan at the time so it strained our relationship a little.) by the time he got to collage he started to relax, eventually becoming a casual Christian. However when he moved into the field of psychology he finally gave up all pretense and became an agnostic-atheist. He flat out states its because of his understanding of psychology that he gave up on being religious. Doesn't surprise me at all.
Finance and accounting professors have the highest religiosity - there's your explanation for the financial fuckwittery of the last few years. They didn't NEED to worry about anything, the big guy would sort it out!
Good job on the video, I seem to have noticed lately that your videos have more of an edge to them. I like it just don't stray too far from intellectual format.
Very interesting paper, one that highlights that creationists are whinging, alienated, and disingenuous and largely interested in diminishing public confidence in education and science.
Excellent video as usual C0nc0rdance. Check out some interesting yet controversial research into correlations between intelligence levels (IQ) and religious tendencies:
Lynn, R. (2009) Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations, Intelligence (Elsevier), Vol. 37, pp. 11-15
Nyborg, H. (2009) The intelligence–religiosity nexus: A representative study of white adolescent Americans, Intelligence (Elsevier), Vol. 37, pp. 81-93
Some interesting conclusions; worth investigating?
@UrukEngineer Realize though, there's a difference between believing in something that doesn't affect the world but makes you feel good is a different thing than being Christian.
how strange. my psychology teacher was a christian, masters in theology... maybe that was why he didn't know his field... the strangest thing is i also heard that psych is generally most supported by the churches... so that implies clinical psychologists would have very different views from their professors... curious curious
I'd say psychology makes a lot more sense in having a larger proportion of atheists. While evolution only refutes a literal Biblical interpretation/Creation myth, psychologists examines cognition and behaviour, in so far one can assess why people believe the most absurd of things through conformity/social influence, personality traits, heuristics etc. They get to know the causes of irrational thinking and behaviour and can subsequently identify more quickly their own.
As an anecdote to my take on this "study" is that whenever I meet a "scientist" who's in the habit of arguing for a god, it's almost always one with a professional degree - engineers, medical clinicians and that flavor.
A useful article. As a professor at a CC, I get this assertion (most professors are atheists) often enough. It's nice to have some data to point to to refute that.
@fredochs: be very wary about citing this study. It is flawed. To find out the true statistic to estimate the parameter of the religiosity of academicians, why would they exclude graduate level professors? Unless one wants to skew data, I can see no reason to exclude schools that only do graduate level work and award graduate level degrees. Surely, these academicians are as least as competent and qualified as those at undergraduate schools?
@integralmath I don't think that word ("flawed") means what you think it means. By logical extension of your reasoning, the TAs, deans, and janitors at colleges and universities should be included too.
@fredochs: yes, because students, TAs and janitors are natural candidates for a survey about whether or not professors are atheists. It's highly important that in a study to figure how frequent atheism is among professors, one consult people who aren't professors since those are the people who are no doubt best situated to know the beliefs of college professors.
I guess I just got pwned on the internet. My life now sucks; thanks.
I have a bit of a problem with the questions asked, you can not believe in a god and not know whether a god exists. Just as you can believe in a god and not know whether one exists. Meaning that study only definitively shows a 9.8% rate of atheism. The 13.1 percent could be made up of some atheists and some theists.
I'm curious what you mean by strong atheist because by the definition I'm used to just not believing in a god does not make you a strong atheist.
The survey seems ever so slightly poorly-worded, because both the first and the second column describe me. Indeed, anyone who answered "I don't know whether there is a God" should also find that "I don't believe in God" applies.
The correct wording of the first column should be something like "I believe no gods exist."
I am a psychology major; I I postulate that the reason for the numbers of non-religious in psychology is because so many people in that field have seen that many human problems stem from religion. Recently, I spoke with a practicing clinician who became an atheist after realizing that many of clients' problems had their roots in religion. I was dismayed to learn from that same cinician that he was afraid to share his atheistic beliefs with some of his coworkers because he feared discrimination.
I though of something just now. Although the religious positions and the career people have are somehow correlated, could the choice to pursuit a particular career not also be affected by personal interest and philosophy? If you are an atheist for example, your interests may lie more in the area of natural science, psychology, engineering etcetera. And thus you are more likely to pursue a career in these disciplines.
The authors are sociologists of religion, so they are very curious about the secular nature of universities in an otherwise religious country. The surprising results here are that many professors are religious, so the secular atmosphere is not the result of atheist activism, but a general culture of secular thought.
However, you make a point that causation can go either way: nontheists might become scientists, or scientists might become nontheists.
Or they might both be the result of a common cause. For example, people who have a tendency to not implicitly trust authority might gravitate toward both atheism and experimental science.
@Gigano1986 I think the correlation is that people who have intrests in "natural science, psychology, engineering etcetera." leads people to becoming an athiest.
@kokofan50 That is not a correlation, but a (possible) causative relation. As C0nc0rdance pointed out in his reply to my comment, the causation can go both ways. Atheism may lead some to have interests in those disciplines. There is no way to known using just this study.
@Gigano1986 I read C0nc0dance's comment after I posted my last comment. I was giving my personal opinion and why I have it. I know we can say anything for fact till lots of studys are done.
Good points. It seems to me there are two extremes here and both sides are arguing for a conflict between modern science and religion. Every professor I have heard voice their opinion on this subject, however, has looked at these two as separate.
I really wish people had a better education on this subject.
I don't have any data to support this, but I think part of the problem with the "narrative" from believers that institutions of higher learning are crawling with atheists, stems in part from the fact that to them (the religious) almost ANY non-traditional religious view can be lumped into "atheist". If you don't believe Jesus was a man/god who died on the cross for your sins - you might as well be atheist!
@AncientAtheist That, and fundamentalists are more likely to raise it as an issue. Then they are more likely to get shot down by the secularist and atheist alike. If you open your mouth in university, there are always plenty of people happy to tell you their mind. In Smallmindville where they are from, that just doesn't happen.
It should be obvious that psychologists generally do not believe in a god. They figured out long ago that this personal voice in our head (a.k.a. "God") is our own psyche.
But seriously, I am a bit worried about the huge prevalence of religious beliefs in the elementary education group. A lot of things can go wrong if one's aim is to rear children to think critically when he or she's being taught by a person who has a ~55% chance of asserting that God absolutely exists.
@Gigano1986 " I am a bit worried about the huge prevalence of religious beliefs in the elementary education group." It is because the level and standard of education required for elementary education is much lower than higher education. Plus, there are no measurables for them to be tested on... other than the basic babysitting stuff.
I enjoyed it, as I do all your videos. How, I do feel that the last sentence was an unnecessary jab, and it tended to undermine the objective tone of everything before it.
Fair enough. The thing is, they distort data... it's basically what they are paid to do. It took me five minutes to locate these and other figures that actually represent sociological data. If you watch their take on the issue, they either never bothered to do a reality check, or they did and rejected it because it was inconvenient.
Bottom line: You might feel differently after watching their videos on "Darwinism and Morality" T5YoPFdB6W8
I understand your frustration with such abject intellectual laziness. I've had an ongoing discussion with a fervent ID proponent who apparently hasn't read anything beyond but what he finds on the Discovery Institute website.
@ClumsyRoot: it's not, sadly, confined to just the religionists. I am having a discussion on my channel right now stemming from the same root: people who've not examined all available and relevant data still, nevertheless, want to have an opinion. Why saying, "I don't know, but I'll go find out" is hard is strange to me. Or even, "I don't know and don't care to know; therefore, I have no opinion" for that matter.
@ClumsyRoot He was being very generous to the Discovery Institute. They deserved much worse than that. They are a horribly dishonest and delusional group of people who have wasted a significant amount of people's time with their bullshit.
@ozmoroid Exactly. What exists in the differences between pistons and capacitors that made that discrepancy? Looks like some big noise. C'mon, EE... represent!
@ozmoroid Interesting. My brother and I both became evangelicals towards the end of our high school years. My brother's degree is in mechanical engineering, but he has worked as an electrical engineer for over 20 years. He is very evangelical to this day. I'm a liberal arts type. I was a Christian worker for 25 years but eventually lost my faith due to close study of the Bible. My brother has never gotten into the Bible in such detail, and maybe that's helped him keep his faith.
This is a fascinating study. Its comical how evident the irreality that the DI seems to live in is once you actually examine independent literature anywhere near their field of "Study".
Yes! Computer science is up there!
I guess programming causes you to...uh, I got nothing
GnarlyNewEngland 6 months ago
Excellently put. It's one of the reasons I am an atheist. Incidentally, in this research paper, I would have to be placed in the category of engineering. This actually got me thinking quite a bit...
Ital21 7 months ago
The smarter you are the less religious you are..
TheDrewpdog 7 months ago 7
@TheDrewpdog I wouldn't confuse smarts with level of education. Not being highly educated doesn't mean you lack intelligence.
Arkalius80 7 months ago 3
@Arkalius80 Ok the more educated you are the less religious you are. simple
TheDrewpdog 7 months ago 4
My mom is head of her psychology department and she is catholic. I occasionally question her on why she does not apply logic to her belief system. She usually gets uncomfortable and says she does not want to talk about it. She basically says this is the way my parents raised me.
To me, anyone who reads the bible should know that an all-knowing god didn't inspire it. For starters, god wouldn't have let very dangerous lies in the bible, like witches exist and you must kill them.
mrpayne123 7 months ago
Really interesting data! Thanks for sharing!
JustAnotherHumanist 7 months ago
(cont) and the sad part is, a lot of the faculty and especially the military side of things (the Chaplin comes to mind) are constantly crediting god and miracles for all of the good research and work that gets done at the university.every military ceremony I've gone to has made me sick because of how much jesus praise goes on without even acknowledging the 10-15 hr days some of the dr's put into their research daily.even the religious dr's aren't that religious, more that they respect traditions
sluggdiddyyddidgguls 7 months ago
I really am curious about the data for medical schools because I work at a medical university for the military that primarily does research and it is sooo strange to see the differences between the researchers/professors and the other facility there in regards to their religious views. The majority, vast majority of the researchers (all sorts of research, bio-chem, psychology, neurology, micro-bio, pathology, etc..) seem to be non-believers while the regular faculty are highly religious (cont).
sluggdiddyyddidgguls 7 months ago
Thank you for sharing this analysis with us.
tubetib 7 months ago
WooHoo Mech Eng Science RULES!!!
TheWingnuterer 8 months ago
mechanical engineer least religious !! haha I WIN!
RTRVII 8 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Proof - The Real Garden of Eden is found. See my channel for the video. Share it with others. The atheists don't want you to see it, that's why they've blocked me from showing them. Watch it and then tell someone!
downyourtube 8 months ago
GO UBC!!!!
tjd07x 8 months ago
Darn you C0nc0rdance! Always messing up the poor Discovery Institute by using data, reason, and facts.
You don't play fair!
mafarmerga 8 months ago 19
@mafarmerga lol awesome
Tryambakam 8 months ago
I just see one flaw with the methodology of this study. I don't like the questions mainly because they included both believe and know. I think one thing I would change is remove the I know there is a god option, or add a I know there is no god option to balance both sides. I doubt there would be many takers though. I like that this study does account for the varying degrees of belief.
ilackedtheheart 8 months ago
I'm not at all surprised at the results for psychology professors. One of the things that started me "questioning my faith" was taking a psychology class in high school and learning about how the mind works. My major is Computer Engineering which, although it's not on this list by its own, is a mixture of CS and EE classes. I wish the results were closer to Mechanical Engineers :P
lindafay1 8 months ago
Very interesting, C0nc0rdance. In Table 2 I understand they selected the largest 20 fields, but I would love to see the data for Physicists and Cosmologists. Perhaps Mechanical Engineering lends a bit of insight since it has a strong physics background (although admittedly far below an actual Physics major, especially for advanced degrees). But nonetheless it would be fascinating for someone to explain why each field might answer the way it did.
AmishRakeFight85 8 months ago
@bobbo819
The wording isnt great, the 1st one "I dont believe in God" is JUST atheism, and the 2nd one "I dont know whether there is a god" is JUST agnostic and can be for both atheist and theist. Generaly speaking its poorly worded, its a table title "....... belief in God" and yet it allso deals with knowledge aswell.
MrYKNAL 8 months ago
Obviously, we atheists have dropped the ball in advancing our evil agenda. :)
Maxdwolf 8 months ago
yay to mech. engineers!
waycam77 8 months ago
so, this study shows the more religious you are, you're more likely to be dumb
cperez1000 8 months ago
@cperez1000
Many other studies show that as well.
mdiem 8 months ago
Lol, political science is the third least theistic. Nothing like the study of mass-manipulation to kill your faith in religion.
ionz75 8 months ago 7
Also, concordance...you are the BEST science-based video producer on this forum. Congratulations on all your work.
Scotracer1987 8 months ago 2
I'm a Mechanical Engineer grad student. Go Mech Engers!
Scotracer1987 8 months ago
@Scotracer1987
I am a Mining Engineer, I went to a school that is almost entirely focused on engineering and I work with a bunch of engineers. I was personally blown away by the numbers associated with us engineers. It was and still is quite common for me to come across other engineers who are either full blown religious or some degree of religiosity, but far from atheist. I always kinda felt like an outsider in my field as an atheist but luckily, religiosity has little to do with engineering.
bayouboyy 8 months ago 3
My Professor of Theology claimed to be an Atheist
khunopie 8 months ago
@khunopie That's possible. One of the hosts of the Atheist Experience from the Atheist Community of Austin also studied to become a priest or something, but the more he found out about religion, the more he saw it's all a show. They teach you how to pull the wool over your congregation's ears.
sogghartha 8 months ago
Actually, Buddhists ARE atheists...
grozde 8 months ago
@grozde depending on what sect of buddhism you believe in.
TheHomelessCripple 8 months ago
@TheHomelessCripple
The overwhelming majority of Buddhists are atheists. Better? Buddhists are atheists is a darn valid statement.
bayouboyy 8 months ago
It scares me to think that elementary education professors are among the most religious in this country..
Marioag0412 8 months ago 3
Huh only 2.4% are atheists in Electric E., but 44% in Mechanic? Weird.
natzo89 8 months ago
@natzo89
Yeah, those numbers really made me raise an eyebrow. I would of thought ME to be much lower and also EE to be much higher than 2.4%.
bayouboyy 8 months ago
Actually, there is a strong atheist bias in biology. Biologists are just in a better position to notice this reality. The theists nearly always get everything ass backwards, thinking that reality must shift to fit their delusions as they do.
nothingUnrealExists 8 months ago
theists shouldn't be in any influential positions. they're retarded by definition...
KilluaXIII 8 months ago 3
@KilluaXIII That's what I was thinking while watching the Repub debate last week.
saxmanchiro 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101 so you are saying that the belief that" all belief in truth claims should have scientific basis" is not truth claim?
Thats exactly what I'm saying , that one is one of my general beliefs. The reason is, if people don't use scientific evidence or evidence of a scientific nature as their basis for belief in what is true or not, it becomes hard for people to tell me what they DO use as the basis of analysis.
spursdude92 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101 I don't believe that all beliefs must have scientific evidence as their basis. BUT I do believe that all beliefs in truth claims should have scientific evidence as their basis i.e. Anything that is used as an explanation for why something occurs or for how it occurs. Whereas, beliefs as a whole - such as "I believe my brother is is nice, but can be annoying" or "I believe that you would not kill me were we to meet" do not. Hopefully that makes sense
spursdude92 8 months ago
Atheist Mechanical Engineer here, representin'. Wooo-hoooo ME's. We're kicking ass
blurglide 8 months ago 7
@DoesItAddUp101 I did mean that, and I had written it too, but the character limit forced me to delete it in order for my point to remain I decided that I would remove that as I felt it superfluous. As it turns out, it wasn't superfluous as you weren't 100% sure of my intended meaning. Hope the clarification helps ;)
spursdude92 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101
I just love reading that comment after seeing you completely misunderstand the HAR1 articles yourself. Project much?
anglicantian 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101 I see what you mean. As it turns out, I'm an atheist and I will be going on to study psychology at university, so you may have a point.
Although this is not why I'm going into psychology, some atheists may go onto study it because they are fascinated with the brain and the way it can allow people to believe things that lack evidence are that clearly aren't true (look up asomatognosia - interesting disorder)
I don't know the true reason though.
spursdude92 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101 Make sure you include your indictment of the audience that resulted from your inability to convict the presenter.
alabamamanable 8 months ago
Hmm . . . I think I have an old video that would make a great response to this.
HonestDiscussioner 8 months ago
Hey! Where are the physicists, chemists, and mathematicians?
gory25 8 months ago
"Atheist" really means "does not belong to my version of religion" .
lizzand 8 months ago
@lizzand
...to theists.
Harizl 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101
Let me make this very plain, DoesItAddUp101: "Elite institutions" are defined in the paper as the top ranked universities: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Stanford and the like. The survey results were stratified into institutional categories chosen purposely by the authors.
I'd suggest you actually read the paper before commenting further.
C0nc0rdance 8 months ago 32
"Higher echelons"...? A category that apparently includes that most unemployable of undergraduate degrees, psychology. Good job alienating the subjects that have been challenging religious literalism far before Darwin turned up. I think the most interesting statistics are those of English (presumably literature, tho' linguistics too) and history, which allow us to review such greats as Voltaire, Diderot, Montaigne, Gibbon, and so on. Not all wisdom is found in a test tube.
UnOxonien 8 months ago
Psychologists actually understand the many ways we convince ourselves to believe in silly nonsense. Learning psychology was a very fundamental push for me becoming an outspoken atheist, since now I can even identify all the cognitive exploits that religious apologetics attempt to use when brainwashing believers.
AntiCitizenX 8 months ago
I am a serial drop out, I am a strong atheist.
Craydon 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101
Both parts of that statement are true:
1. Researchers rely on empirical data in their work.
2. Researchers are less likely to be religious, and much less likely to be Biblical literalists.
You are ASSUMING the connection between the two. I didn't make it. The fallacy is yours.
C0nc0rdance 8 months ago
@C0nc0rdance
"You are ASSUMING the connection between the two"
Frankly, it would be kind of naive to assume that the connection does not exist. These are mutually exclusive ways of thinking that most people eventually must reconcile.
AntiCitizenX 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101
"Higher echelons of learning" refers to the top colleges, not the top degree attainments. I think this was clear in the context of the mismatch between junior colleges and elite graduate degree granting institutions in "Born-again Christians" and religious belief overall. Junior colleges contain the most (~25%), elite institutions contain the fewest (<1%) Evangelicals.
C0nc0rdance 8 months ago
my personal opinion on religion is,
tear down the churches, shred the bibles, and turn all the money over to school :) free education <3
petrino 8 months ago
so educated students just see religion for what it is because all that studying caused intelligence & independent thought, not because of evil atheist professors brainwashing
thanks for going through the motions
unamaxify 8 months ago
Superstition still plagues humans so deeply and widely. Its just disgusting. And embarrassing and horrible.
We have to end these medieval cults before they end us.
bary1234 8 months ago
@bary1234 let's not forget the pre-medieval ones. Surprisingly enough, it's those that are most significantly relevant, even to a geo-political level.
handplanty 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101
It's explained in the paper, especially if you read the full introduction, which describes the narrative they are addressing: Once the US had "God on the Quad", where undergrad institutions primarily served to train clergy. Harvard was once a bastion of conservative religious thinking, but during the 20's that changed, and the universities secularized.
The survey data is needed to fully flesh out their hypothesis, which is about undergrad institutions, not med or law schools.
C0nc0rdance 8 months ago 18
Ah, but you see those professors aren't REAL Christians, and only Christianity counts as a religion, all others are false deceits of the devil to lure the unwary from the True Path.
I suppose I shouldn't be but I'm still shocked to hear how many people trained in the skills of critical thinking still profess a belief in the supernatural.
colourmegone 8 months ago
I think psychologists might be more prone to disbelief for a number of reasons.
1. The behavioral approach suggests the all things can be learnt by 3 processes, classical conditioning (Pavlov's dogs) Operant conditioning (+ve and -ve reinforcement) and social learning (vicious learning) As a result, they may perceive that religion can be just another leant concept
2. The cognitive approach suggests that distorted thinking leads to irrational beliefs.
3. Neuroscience may also give them reason
spursdude92 8 months ago
I recall a study looking at how well students maintained their religious orientation thru college. The presumption ('alternate hypothesis') was that weakening of faith or deconversion would be most common in students who majored in the sciences. As it turned-out, it was the students who majored in the humanities that had the highest rates of faith-weakening and deconversion. I'd like to better understand the discrepancy between that study and these findings of professors.
EV4UTube 8 months ago
"Fortunately for them, they are so dumb they don't even realize it."
Phyrexious 8 months ago
I am really enjoying this new Journal Club series! Good and interesting work, keep it up!
KristianHerner 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101
You mean the part in the table entitled "health" and "Other"? I could be wrong, but last time I've checked, "medical" field is consider "health-related" fields. Altho, I have to admit, that I don't know, if you MD's consider "medicine" to be health-related. Probably not.
rationalw0lf 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101 Why should personal views be left out of this? This video does not deal with a strict science related topic, but a social issue that has been brought up in the debate concerning evolution v. creationism. Opinions and personal perceptions in this kind of video are absolutely fine. C0c0rdance can of course only properly state and defend his own opinions on this issue, so he may appear biased. I don't think he appears so, or actually is to be honest.
Gigano1986 8 months ago
Im a professor, with a doctoral degree in psychology counselling, I do lecture and do research, and I am a Hindu, who is not a literalist. But I am also not American.... hmm where would I fit?
Sunhawk7ajj 8 months ago
@Sunhawk7ajj probably in the single class "Foreigners"
handplanty 8 months ago
@handplanty LOL true true..... Happily True
Sunhawk7ajj 8 months ago
I'm mechanical engineering undergrad, and I'm an atheist.
ChiefRepublic 8 months ago
@DoesItAddUp101 I am curious. What part of the video do you mean? I looked the video again and I didn't notice any clean bias...
gentoolkit 8 months ago
@gentoolkit
I think, that he is insulted by C0nc0rdance referencing a proper peer-reviewed paper rather than the "statistic", that DI produces.
rationalw0lf 8 months ago
WAIT A SECOND. I used that journal for quite a few articles in my two RLST term papers ._.
0Krusnik0 8 months ago
*Looks for own fields* Criminal Justice is weird I guess, but too bad there's no religious studies on there ;D
0Krusnik0 8 months ago
Conclusion: US education system = FAIL
ThunderPreacher 8 months ago
Most College Professors AREN'T "Atheists anymore??? (*Crushed*) :(
mjh012363 8 months ago
I am shocked. I am a software dev from Germany (living in Latvia), and Until today, I was pretty sure I hadn't met a religious coder in the last 15 years. I really would like to see a similar survey from Europe/Germany.
smarthandsomeguy 8 months ago
@smarthandsomeguy "Until today, I was pretty sure I hadn't met a religious coder in the last 15 years."
Come to the US for a different perspective. It seems that the programmers from other parts of the world who happen to be religious all immigrate here.
SkepticalTraveler 8 months ago
I'm a Civil Engineer and I'm with the Mechanical Engineers! I don't understand the lack of Atheism in Electrical engineers. The results seem odd since Electrical and Mechanical are so similar in concepts and curriculum. All engineering fields are similar.
Atheism is often a personal conclusion inspired by the access of reason, and not deliberate arguement or direct discussion in a lecture.
CHAS1422 8 months ago
Oh discovery institute how much embarrassment can you take?
GallusSapien 8 months ago
"Mechanical engineers"
oh,wow...
That might...explain some things
Chopstewie 8 months ago
Shows that religion and reality cannot occupy the same place at the same time.
Violent2aShadow 8 months ago
I like the discovery institute video, because in it they effectively admit "we aren't interested in the truth, we're only interested in pursuing our faith"
kelarael 8 months ago
It seems to be almost common sense to me that as one learns more about the universe ones theist beliefs decline. Personally I am tired of the accommodationist stance. I agree with the Intelligent Design movement that evolution most certainly nudges one toward atheism. Atheist should admit this so we can speed up the death of theism!
nontheistdavid 8 months ago
Intelligence, logic, reason, and an unfaltering dedication to truth leads you down the path of atheism.
Killedkennyagain 8 months ago
Strongly opinionated Theist naturally would have a mistrust of what would undermine their views; aka science.
Danaceb 8 months ago
Tables 2 and 4 are very hard to interpret without population size or statistical significance. I hope there's something about that in the text, or no conclusions can be drawn from the seemingly differing numbers.
ghuegel 8 months ago
IMO it's all made up by Christians that like to pretend that they're persecuted minorities just because the Bible says that they will be hated just as Jesus was hated. There's no systematic persecution, but that won't stop Christians from trying to play the role of Martyr.
FrostdPoptart 8 months ago
Loved the second last sentence. Sums things up rather nicely. Nice work.
RichardRoy2 8 months ago
I LOLd when i heard the most atheistic groups: psychologist and mech.engineer.
Because my mother is a psychologist and i am guess who. XD
SEThatered 8 months ago
thumbs up ;-)
RevDevilin 8 months ago
Excellent video.
DeathofSpeech 8 months ago
My English professor publicly scorned me in front of the class for being an Atheist. I got an A in the class.
Mrmoc7 8 months ago
@cjjc0
It would seem that as one goes deeper and deeper into understanding, the less fanatical they become, even if they still hold loyal to their original beliefs.
independentthinker0 8 months ago
It is funny about psychology, because I have a therapist who majored in pdychology and he's religious!
independentthinker0 8 months ago
I am sorry if they believe "studying biology leads away from a creation story" maybe they should start to accept the reason why that is
RazielKain 8 months ago
...I laughed though when you said that professors of business and education are largely religious, with that totally supporting the stereotypes of the Christian right.
klutterkicker 8 months ago
I wasn't surprised at the finding about psychology professors and I would guess that many more hold deterministic views than the average American. Traditional psychology has been largely value-neutral on religion (albeit with various historical figureheads having strong views for one side or the other) but learning about cognitive science and neuropsychology leaves little room for the mind-body duality that is essential to many religious beliefs.
klutterkicker 8 months ago
My friend is working on his PHD and when he was a teenager he was a born again Christian (I was pagan at the time so it strained our relationship a little.) by the time he got to collage he started to relax, eventually becoming a casual Christian. However when he moved into the field of psychology he finally gave up all pretense and became an agnostic-atheist. He flat out states its because of his understanding of psychology that he gave up on being religious. Doesn't surprise me at all.
Otokogoroshi 8 months ago
This video should give the Anti-Science crowd quite a lot to think about! Great Job CC!
ONESPECIES 8 months ago
C0nc0rdance man, you have been on a roll! Lots of excellent videos come out on this channel, I love it. Right on!
Jotto999 8 months ago
This was a interesting video.
Keep up the good work!
Thumb up from Sweden.
GreatgoatonFire 8 months ago
Finance and accounting professors have the highest religiosity - there's your explanation for the financial fuckwittery of the last few years. They didn't NEED to worry about anything, the big guy would sort it out!
ProphetTenebrae 8 months ago
Good job on the video, I seem to have noticed lately that your videos have more of an edge to them. I like it just don't stray too far from intellectual format.
arkham1999 8 months ago
Very interesting paper, one that highlights that creationists are whinging, alienated, and disingenuous and largely interested in diminishing public confidence in education and science.
WildwoodClaire1 8 months ago
Excellent video as usual C0nc0rdance. Check out some interesting yet controversial research into correlations between intelligence levels (IQ) and religious tendencies:
Lynn, R. (2009) Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations, Intelligence (Elsevier), Vol. 37, pp. 11-15
Nyborg, H. (2009) The intelligence–religiosity nexus: A representative study of white adolescent Americans, Intelligence (Elsevier), Vol. 37, pp. 81-93
Some interesting conclusions; worth investigating?
A4thinker 8 months ago
You're spoiling us! (Thanks.)
GreatBigBore 8 months ago
I can't believe that any professors are religious. How on Earth can anyone so academically adroit abandon their reason and intellect?
UrukEngineer 8 months ago
@UrukEngineer Realize though, there's a difference between believing in something that doesn't affect the world but makes you feel good is a different thing than being Christian.
cjjc0 8 months ago
@UrukEngineer I imagine they were indoctrinated from birth till they left home most likely...
FlaviusMaximus1967 8 months ago
Psychology/Sociology being the least religious isn't all that surprising, considering how Sigmund Freud considered religion a disease of the mind.
XxKeybladeMasterxX 8 months ago
how strange. my psychology teacher was a christian, masters in theology... maybe that was why he didn't know his field... the strangest thing is i also heard that psych is generally most supported by the churches... so that implies clinical psychologists would have very different views from their professors... curious curious
morthim 8 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
The DI are realizing that there is a strong factual bias among biologists, and that this bias creates an atmosphere hostile to willful ignorance.
rkyeun 8 months ago
I'd say psychology makes a lot more sense in having a larger proportion of atheists. While evolution only refutes a literal Biblical interpretation/Creation myth, psychologists examines cognition and behaviour, in so far one can assess why people believe the most absurd of things through conformity/social influence, personality traits, heuristics etc. They get to know the causes of irrational thinking and behaviour and can subsequently identify more quickly their own.
LucidCatnap 8 months ago 38
@LucidCatnap
I know I couldn't trust a psychologist who is also a theist...but that's just me.
xSilverPhinxx 8 months ago
@LucidCatnap Ha, I was just about to write a comment along these lines but you said it much better than I would have been able to :)
lostismyconstent 8 months ago
Comment removed
rkyeun 8 months ago
As an anecdote to my take on this "study" is that whenever I meet a "scientist" who's in the habit of arguing for a god, it's almost always one with a professional degree - engineers, medical clinicians and that flavor.
integralmath 8 months ago
A useful article. As a professor at a CC, I get this assertion (most professors are atheists) often enough. It's nice to have some data to point to to refute that.
fredochs 8 months ago
@fredochs: be very wary about citing this study. It is flawed. To find out the true statistic to estimate the parameter of the religiosity of academicians, why would they exclude graduate level professors? Unless one wants to skew data, I can see no reason to exclude schools that only do graduate level work and award graduate level degrees. Surely, these academicians are as least as competent and qualified as those at undergraduate schools?
integralmath 8 months ago
@integralmath I don't think that word ("flawed") means what you think it means. By logical extension of your reasoning, the TAs, deans, and janitors at colleges and universities should be included too.
fredochs 8 months ago
@fredochs: yes, because students, TAs and janitors are natural candidates for a survey about whether or not professors are atheists. It's highly important that in a study to figure how frequent atheism is among professors, one consult people who aren't professors since those are the people who are no doubt best situated to know the beliefs of college professors.
I guess I just got pwned on the internet. My life now sucks; thanks.
integralmath 8 months ago
@integralmath No worries; your errors will be forgotten in 2-3 internet years (45 seconds RL).
fredochs 8 months ago
@fredochs: I can assure you that I have made no error.
integralmath 8 months ago
I have a bit of a problem with the questions asked, you can not believe in a god and not know whether a god exists. Just as you can believe in a god and not know whether one exists. Meaning that study only definitively shows a 9.8% rate of atheism. The 13.1 percent could be made up of some atheists and some theists.
I'm curious what you mean by strong atheist because by the definition I'm used to just not believing in a god does not make you a strong atheist.
TrueMetis 8 months ago
I wonder if anyone else was bothered by this:
The survey seems ever so slightly poorly-worded, because both the first and the second column describe me. Indeed, anyone who answered "I don't know whether there is a God" should also find that "I don't believe in God" applies.
The correct wording of the first column should be something like "I believe no gods exist."
SanityInAnarchy 8 months ago
Interesting.
leptonsoup337 8 months ago
Journal Club rocks
dylanlawless1 8 months ago
I am a psychology major; I I postulate that the reason for the numbers of non-religious in psychology is because so many people in that field have seen that many human problems stem from religion. Recently, I spoke with a practicing clinician who became an atheist after realizing that many of clients' problems had their roots in religion. I was dismayed to learn from that same cinician that he was afraid to share his atheistic beliefs with some of his coworkers because he feared discrimination.
B0rn0nly0nce 8 months ago
I though of something just now. Although the religious positions and the career people have are somehow correlated, could the choice to pursuit a particular career not also be affected by personal interest and philosophy? If you are an atheist for example, your interests may lie more in the area of natural science, psychology, engineering etcetera. And thus you are more likely to pursue a career in these disciplines.
Gigano1986 8 months ago 6
@Gigano1986
The authors are sociologists of religion, so they are very curious about the secular nature of universities in an otherwise religious country. The surprising results here are that many professors are religious, so the secular atmosphere is not the result of atheist activism, but a general culture of secular thought.
However, you make a point that causation can go either way: nontheists might become scientists, or scientists might become nontheists.
C0nc0rdance 8 months ago 8
@C0nc0rdance
"causation can go either way"
Or they might both be the result of a common cause. For example, people who have a tendency to not implicitly trust authority might gravitate toward both atheism and experimental science.
sdrawkcabgnipytmi 8 months ago
@Gigano1986 I think the correlation is that people who have intrests in "natural science, psychology, engineering etcetera." leads people to becoming an athiest.
kokofan50 8 months ago
@kokofan50 That is not a correlation, but a (possible) causative relation. As C0nc0rdance pointed out in his reply to my comment, the causation can go both ways. Atheism may lead some to have interests in those disciplines. There is no way to known using just this study.
Gigano1986 8 months ago
@Gigano1986 I read C0nc0dance's comment after I posted my last comment. I was giving my personal opinion and why I have it. I know we can say anything for fact till lots of studys are done.
kokofan50 8 months ago
Theology and faith should have nothing to do with scientific practices.
Chaoitcme 8 months ago
@Chaoitcme They don't. If you add them, then it's no longer a scientific practice.
no2religions 8 months ago
@no2religions What about Christian Science establishments. That has to be one of the biggest oxymoron ever.
Chaoitcme 8 months ago
Good points. It seems to me there are two extremes here and both sides are arguing for a conflict between modern science and religion. Every professor I have heard voice their opinion on this subject, however, has looked at these two as separate.
I really wish people had a better education on this subject.
owchywawa 8 months ago
I don't have any data to support this, but I think part of the problem with the "narrative" from believers that institutions of higher learning are crawling with atheists, stems in part from the fact that to them (the religious) almost ANY non-traditional religious view can be lumped into "atheist". If you don't believe Jesus was a man/god who died on the cross for your sins - you might as well be atheist!
AncientAtheist 8 months ago
@AncientAtheist That, and fundamentalists are more likely to raise it as an issue. Then they are more likely to get shot down by the secularist and atheist alike. If you open your mouth in university, there are always plenty of people happy to tell you their mind. In Smallmindville where they are from, that just doesn't happen.
no2religions 8 months ago
It should be obvious that psychologists generally do not believe in a god. They figured out long ago that this personal voice in our head (a.k.a. "God") is our own psyche.
But seriously, I am a bit worried about the huge prevalence of religious beliefs in the elementary education group. A lot of things can go wrong if one's aim is to rear children to think critically when he or she's being taught by a person who has a ~55% chance of asserting that God absolutely exists.
Gigano1986 8 months ago
@Gigano1986 " I am a bit worried about the huge prevalence of religious beliefs in the elementary education group." It is because the level and standard of education required for elementary education is much lower than higher education. Plus, there are no measurables for them to be tested on... other than the basic babysitting stuff.
no2religions 8 months ago
your videos are divinely inspired
omfgbobsaget 8 months ago
No doubt the least religious group is psychologists, we ask "a god created THIS?! Nooooo way that happened" :)
StabbyRaccoon 8 months ago
My anus is bleeding profusely.
madjimms 8 months ago
@madjimms Oh & I found the statistical data very interesting. Kind of makes me not want to attend a community collage.
madjimms 8 months ago
I enjoyed it, as I do all your videos. How, I do feel that the last sentence was an unnecessary jab, and it tended to undermine the objective tone of everything before it.
ClumsyRoot 8 months ago
@ClumsyRoot
Fair enough. The thing is, they distort data... it's basically what they are paid to do. It took me five minutes to locate these and other figures that actually represent sociological data. If you watch their take on the issue, they either never bothered to do a reality check, or they did and rejected it because it was inconvenient.
Bottom line: You might feel differently after watching their videos on "Darwinism and Morality" T5YoPFdB6W8
C0nc0rdance 8 months ago 4
@C0nc0rdance
I understand your frustration with such abject intellectual laziness. I've had an ongoing discussion with a fervent ID proponent who apparently hasn't read anything beyond but what he finds on the Discovery Institute website.
ClumsyRoot 8 months ago
@ClumsyRoot: it's not, sadly, confined to just the religionists. I am having a discussion on my channel right now stemming from the same root: people who've not examined all available and relevant data still, nevertheless, want to have an opinion. Why saying, "I don't know, but I'll go find out" is hard is strange to me. Or even, "I don't know and don't care to know; therefore, I have no opinion" for that matter.
integralmath 8 months ago
@C0nc0rdance
Eh, I thought it was a good jab. :) Keep it up! lol
Akhotnik 8 months ago
@ClumsyRoot He was being very generous to the Discovery Institute. They deserved much worse than that. They are a horribly dishonest and delusional group of people who have wasted a significant amount of people's time with their bullshit.
DarwinsChihuahua 8 months ago
I'm suspicious of the large difference between Mechanical and Electrical Engineers in the 1st and 6th columns. That doesn't "smell right."
ozmoroid 8 months ago 5
@ozmoroid
They are big swings, aren't they? Granularity of the data, perhaps?
I found the "Elementary ed" figures to be interesting.
C0nc0rdance 8 months ago 2
@C0nc0rdance Maybe being nearer to quantum physics swings people more to the agnostic side?
phlexonance 8 months ago
@C0nc0rdance To quote the most religious in my family, "Get 'em young."
eicebleu 8 months ago
@ozmoroid Exactly. What exists in the differences between pistons and capacitors that made that discrepancy? Looks like some big noise. C'mon, EE... represent!
boss1001 8 months ago
@ozmoroid I'm an EE and an atheist, and it struck me as odd too.
4G3NTanon 8 months ago
@ozmoroid Interesting. My brother and I both became evangelicals towards the end of our high school years. My brother's degree is in mechanical engineering, but he has worked as an electrical engineer for over 20 years. He is very evangelical to this day. I'm a liberal arts type. I was a Christian worker for 25 years but eventually lost my faith due to close study of the Bible. My brother has never gotten into the Bible in such detail, and maybe that's helped him keep his faith.
Puchicas9 8 months ago
Great video!
ExSaint1379 8 months ago
This is a fascinating study. Its comical how evident the irreality that the DI seems to live in is once you actually examine independent literature anywhere near their field of "Study".
Keinlicht 8 months ago
Comment removed
ClumsyRoot 8 months ago
Volutary response surveys are almost always a bit biased.
SgtDICTION 8 months ago
Quite an interesting find, thanks C0nc0rdance.
RedPenguins01 8 months ago