Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think

Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think by Elaine Howard Ecklund. Oxford University Press. 2010.


This book reports Ecklund's survey of the science faculty at several "elite universities."

A few things that strike me:

A significant minority of the science faculties at these elite schools were practicing Christians. I think the percentage of those who identified with a particular Christian denomination was in the low 30s.

Younger faculty were more likely to be theist than were older faculty. This was a surprise to the researcher and to me. Typically people do not change their stance as theist or atheist after their twenties. So these younger faculty are likely to remain theists as they get older and move into positions of greater prominence and security.

Unlike the situation in the general population where women are far more likely to be church connected than men, among the scientists there was no difference in male and female religious identification.

There is considerable hostility to religion among science faculty, especially to evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity. However, scientists who expressed hostility toward evangelical Christianity at the same time acknowledged respect for particular, identifiable colleagues who were evangelical, if they respected the scientific work of the colleague.

Of all religious groups, Jews were vastly overrepresented among scientists and evangelical Christians were dramatically underrepresented compared to percentages in the general population of America.

After describing conversations with a couple of scientists, she writes, “As with this sociologist and chemist, many of the scientists I talked with do not often think about what it might mean to be spiritual or whether spirituality is connected in any meaningful way to the work they do as scientists. . . . their definition[s] of religion and spirituality only arose during the actual interview. It was as though putting them in a context where they were asked about spirituality forced them to develop a definition for something that would have never concerned them otherwise.” p 54.

Duh! Spirituality, an outlook that sees the universe through the lenses of purpose, meaning, intention and relationship, is rooted in a radically different mentality, (and, my guess is, a distinct neural geography) than that which supports the analytical, critical functions crucial to the best scientific work. Scientists as a group would be less likely to have (or to have developed) the capacity for engagement with the universe in the realm of spirituality.

Scientists need the poets, prophets, artists, writers and preachers to enable them to perceive a different range in the spectrum of reality. Of course, these spiritual specialists need scientists to enable them to see and know things they could never learn through their art or piety.

Ecklund makes the point that many scientists who belong to religious communities “believe less” than others in those communities. The scientists belong to the communities, but know that they themselves do not personally believe all the things that many others in the community believe. This is in line with what I have observed in scientists who are Adventist. The way I would say it is that frequently the religious/spiritual convictions of scientists are more diffuse than would be characteristic of the average church member in any denomination.


“Of those surveyed, 31 percent who agreed or agreed strongly with the statement, 'I am a spiritual person' had not attended religious services in the past year.” This was true of 14 percent of the general population. P 56.

Of the scientists who call themselves spiritual, 22 percent also called themselves atheist. So theism was not a necessary part of being spiritual. Or to put it the other way round, just because someone is atheist does not mean he has no spiritual sensibilities or impulses. P 58

Engagement in any kind of spiritual practice—going to church, meditation, reading a sacred text—was correlated with a statistically significant higher level of volunteerism. Those read spiritual texts are 29 percent more likely to volunteer than are those who have no spiritual practice. P 64.

A number of times Ecklund writes that an important element of the mindset of scientists is a drive for coherence. They cannot deeply embrace a spirituality which is genuinely contradictory to their lives and work as scientists.