Scientists on religion 2 May 2010 This book looks interesting: empirical work on what scientists actually think about religion… according to the blurb, more than 50% are religious. I’m not sure if this should surprise anyone – most groups in a society will be largely composed of people who match the standards in their society; the real question is to what degree that class deviates from the norms. OUP: If you want to send me a review copy, my details are on the Contact page. Epistemology Religion Science
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Politics The law, Sharia, and religious control 12 Feb 2008 Language Log recently took apart the speech and interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the media are, inaccurately, reporting as advocating the introduction of Sharia law into British and by implication other common law jurisdictions. Its conclusion was that Abp Rowan Williams did not advocate Sharia law, but instead… Read More
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Note that – as often happens – this book seems to relate exclusively to scientists in the US. As the US is usually assumed to be the most religious Western society, I wonder if these results can be taken as typical.
Well they will indicate the proportion of scientists who are religious as a fraction of the overall population. One might expect that in less religious societies, scientists will be correspondingly less religious.
An advisor of mine received a review copy the other day, and his first impressions are that it’s largely a good book on a good topic, but that some of the data could have been handled better. For example, while there IS a breakdown of religiosity by field, when comparing the views of scientists to the larger US population no such distinctions appear to be made. All the same, when it hits a general release I’ll be picking it up.