richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
ARGUMEN T S FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE 101It is faintly amusing that the leading creationist website,'Answers in Genesis', cites the Larson and Witham study, not inevidence that there might be something wrong with religion, but asa weapon in their internal battle against those rival religiousapologists who claim that evolution is compatible with religion.Under the headline 'National Academy of Science is Godless to theCore', 55 'Answers in Genesis' is pleased to quote the concludingparagraph of Larson and Witham's letter to the editor of Nature:As we compiled our findings, the NAS [NationalAcademy of Sciences] issued a booklet encouraging theteaching of evolution in public schools, an ongoing sourceof friction between the scientific community and someconservative Christians in the United States. The bookletassures readers, 'Whether God exists or not is a questionabout which science is neutral.' NAS president BruceAlberts said: 'There are many very outstanding membersof this academy who are very religious people, people whobelieve in evolution, many of them biologists.' Our surveysuggests otherwise.Alberts, one feels, embraced 'NOMA' for the reasons I discussed in'The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists' (see Chapter 2).'Answers in Genesis' has a very different agenda.The equivalent of the US National Academy of Sciences inBritain (and the Commonwealth, including Canada, Australia,New Zealand, India, Pakistan, anglophone Africa, etc.) is the RoyalSociety. As this book goes to press, my colleagues R. ElisabethCornwell and Michael Stirrat are writing up their comparable, butmore thorough, research on the religious opinions of the Fellows ofthe Royal Society (FRS). The authors' conclusions will be publishedin full later, but they have kindly allowed me to quote preliminaryresults here. They used a standard technique for scaling opinion,the Likert-type seven-point scale. All 1,074 Fellows of the RoyalSociety who possess an email address (the great majority) werepolled, and about 23 per cent responded (a good figure for this kindof study). They were offered various propositions, for example: 'Ibelieve in a personal God, that is one who takes an interest in
102 T H H G () D D E I. U S I G Nindividuals, hears and answers prayers, is concerned with sin andtransgressions, and passes judgement.' For each such proposition,they were invited to choose a number from 1 (strong disagreement)to 7 (strong agreement). It is a little hard to compare the resultsdirectly with the Larson and Witham study, because Larson andWitham offered their academicians only a three-point scale, not aseven-point scale, but the overall trend is the same. The overwhelmingmajority of FRS, like the overwhelming majority of USAcademicians, are atheists. Only 3.3 per cent of the Fellows agreedstrongly with the statement that a personal god exists (i.e. chose 7on the scale), while 78.8 per cent strongly disagreed (i.e. chose 1 onthe scale). If you define 'believers' as those who chose 6 or 7, andif you define 'unbelievers' as those who chose 1 or 2, there were amassive 213 unbelievers and a mere 12 believers. Like Larson andWitham, and as also noted by Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle, Cornwelland Stirrat found a small but significant tendency for biologicalscientists to be even more atheistic than physical scientists. For thedetails, and all the rest of their very interesting conclusions, pleaserefer to their own paper when it is published. 56Moving on from the elite scientists of the National Academy andthe Royal Society, is there any evidence that, in the population atlarge, atheists are likely to be drawn from among the bettereducated and more intelligent? Several research studies have beenpublished on the statistical relationship between religiosity andeducational level, or religiosity and IQ. Michael Shermer, in HowWe Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, describes alarge survey of randomly chosen Americans that he and hiscolleague Frank Sulloway carried out. Among their many interestingresults was the discovery that religiosity is indeed negativelycorrelated with education (more highly educated people are lesslikely to be religious). Religiosity is also negatively correlated withinterest in science and (strongly) with political liberalism. None ofthis is surprising, nor is the fact that there is a positive correlationbetween religiosity and parents' religiosity. Sociologists studyingBritish children have found that only about one in twelve breakaway from their parents' religious beliefs.As you might expect, different researchers measure things indifferent ways, so it is hard to compare different studies. Meta-
- Page 54 and 55: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 49Huxley was not
- Page 56 and 57: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E SIS 51can
- Page 58 and 59: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E SIS 53in
- Page 60 and 61: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 55McGrath goes o
- Page 62 and 63: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 57the Cambridge
- Page 64 and 65: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 59unequivocally
- Page 66 and 67: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 61non-interventi
- Page 68 and 69: T H E G O D H Y P O T H E S I S 63s
- Page 70 and 71: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 65Another typica
- Page 72 and 73: T H E G O D H Y P O THESIS 67NOMA -
- Page 74 and 75: T H E G O D II Y P O T H E S I S 69
- Page 76 and 77: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 71longer based o
- Page 78 and 79: THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 73advanced techn
- Page 80 and 81: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 82 and 83: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 84 and 85: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 86 and 87: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 88 and 89: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 90 and 91: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 92 and 93: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 94 and 95: A R G U M ENTS F O R G O D ' S E X
- Page 96 and 97: ARGUMENTS F O R GOD'S E X I S T E N
- Page 98 and 99: A R C U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 100 and 101: A R G U M E N T S FOR G O D ' S E X
- Page 102 and 103: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 106 and 107: A R G U M E N T S F O R G OD'S E X
- Page 108 and 109: A R G U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S E
- Page 110 and 111: A R Ci U M E N T S F O R G O D ' S
- Page 112 and 113: ARGUMENTS F O R G OD'S E X I S T E
- Page 114 and 115: W H Y T II E R E A L M O S T C E R
- Page 116 and 117: W H Y T H E R E A I. M O S T C E R
- Page 118 and 119: W H Y T H ERE AL.MOS T C E R TAINL.
- Page 120 and 121: W H Y T H f ' R i . A L M O S T C 1
- Page 122 and 123: W H Y T l i l - I U ; A L M O S T C
- Page 124 and 125: W H Y r i-i r R r A I M O S T C t R
- Page 126 and 127: W H Y '11IKRK A L M O S T (.: F R T
- Page 128 and 129: no evidence of its own, but thrives
- Page 130 and 131: W H Y r H E RE A 1. M O S T C F.RTA
- Page 132 and 133: I ! T R t AI.M15S I' ('. I R !' A f
- Page 134 and 135: W H Y T H E R E A I . M O S T C H R
- Page 136 and 137: A I. M O S I C 1 R I'A I N M is X <
- Page 138 and 139: W i I Y 1 II F. R F A 1 Vi (.) S T
- Page 140 and 141: W H Y r 11 r u r -\ i. \i o s r c r
- Page 142 and 143: W 11 Y '1 11 !•; R I. A I VI () S
- Page 144 and 145: !' R I ALMOST l' I U '[ A I \ I Y i
- Page 146 and 147: W H Y T H !• R E A I. M O S "I" C
- Page 148 and 149: extravagant God hypothesis and the
- Page 150 and 151: W H Y T H K R K A L VI O S I C E R
- Page 152 and 153: W H Y T H H R B A L M O S T C E R T
ARGUMEN T S FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE 101
It is faintly amusing that the leading creationist website,
'Answers in Genesis', cites the Larson and Witham study, not in
evidence that there might be something wrong with religion, but as
a weapon in their internal battle against those rival religious
apologists who claim that evolution is compatible with religion.
Under the headline 'National Academy of Science is Godless to the
Core', 55 'Answers in Genesis' is pleased to quote the concluding
paragraph of Larson and Witham's letter to the editor of Nature:
As we compiled our findings, the NAS [National
Academy of Sciences] issued a booklet encouraging the
teaching of evolution in public schools, an ongoing source
of friction between the scientific community and some
conservative Christians in the United States. The booklet
assures readers, 'Whether God exists or not is a question
about which science is neutral.' NAS president Bruce
Alberts said: 'There are many very outstanding members
of this academy who are very religious people, people who
believe in evolution, many of them biologists.' Our survey
suggests otherwise.
Alberts, one feels, embraced 'NOMA' for the reasons I discussed in
'The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists' (see Chapter 2).
'Answers in Genesis' has a very different agenda.
The equivalent of the US National Academy of Sciences in
Britain (and the Commonwealth, including Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, India, Pakistan, anglophone Africa, etc.) is the Royal
Society. As this book goes to press, my colleagues R. Elisabeth
Cornwell and Michael Stirrat are writing up their comparable, but
more thorough, research on the religious opinions of the Fellows of
the Royal Society (FRS). The authors' conclusions will be published
in full later, but they have kindly allowed me to quote preliminary
results here. They used a standard technique for scaling opinion,
the Likert-type seven-point scale. All 1,074 Fellows of the Royal
Society who possess an email address (the great majority) were
polled, and about 23 per cent responded (a good figure for this kind
of study). They were offered various propositions, for example: 'I
believe in a personal God, that is one who takes an interest in