By now, Sheril Kirshenbaum’s and Chris Mooney’s book Unscientific America has received a lot of attention on the Internet, most notably for its attacks on atheistic popularizers of science like PZ Myers. Basically, the book argues that atheists should refrain from criticizing religion, as this sort of behavior alienates religious people from science and promotes a cynical, unpalatable view of science among the religious.

As Myers points out in his review of the book, it is rather strange that the book chastises vocal atheists for the sorry state of science education in our country, especially when the more vocal atheists tend to be the most vociferous supporters of science!  PZ Myers is reknowned for his attacks on creationism and his legendary blog Pharyngula, which exposes millions to science and the perils of pseudoscience.  The prolific atheist Richard Dawkins is also well-known for his popularization of science in such works as The Ancestor’s Tale, The Selfish Gene, and the upcoming The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.  Atheists are also overwhelmingly represented in skeptical organizations whose missions are to spread scientific literacy and combat pseudoscience, whether it be through combatting the misinformation about vaccines and educating the public about alternative medicine and health or else through criticizing those who would misrepresent evolution, quantum physics, or even history (as is the case with holocaust deniers and 9/11 “Truthers”).

Not only that, but the real enemies of science, and indeed the direct enemies of science whose overt purposes are often to corrupt science education, tend to be religious.  That creationism and Intelligent Design are being spread and supported by theists for religious purposes is so obvious that it almost need not be said, let alone overwhelmingly demonstrated in a court decision in Dover, Pennsylvania.  Religious political conservatives are also notorious for impeding scientific progress through legislative power—by denying federal funding of stem cell research, by funding abstinence-only programs that preach ignorance of sexual functions and that have been empirically demonstrated to have no effect on the sexual activity of teenagers, by denying the evidence in favor of anthropogenic global warming, and so on.  And on the liberal divide of the political spectrum, religious influences prove almost as destructive of science education as those of the conservatives.  New age spirituality has given rise to the proliferation of nonsensical medical therapies to such a degree that “energy” therapies like therapeutic touch are taught in nursing textbooks whereas other mystical modalities like acupuncture have infiltrated legitimate medical institutions in spite of showing no therapeutic value beyond that of a placebo.  To ignore and respect the religions that influence and promote these harmful anti-science movements is folly.

Contrary to the thesis of Unscientific America, I believe that atheists need to become louder and more active in political and social movements in support of science.  Atheists already contribute greatly, through donations or active involvement, to science-promoting organizations like the James Randi Educational Forum and the National Center for Science Education.  Rather than silence atheists, we should encourage more people to accept atheism, thus showing that atheism is a viable and legitimate stance to take.  The more we legitimize atheism, the more support for science would be gained, both through the conversion of more people to atheism and the acceptance of atheism by the general public, to the detriment of fundamentalist, anti-science religious movements.  Even a mere glance at the demographic data overwhelmingly supports this position.

Scientists tend to be disproportionately nonreligious.  A study by Elaine Howard Ecklund showed that 52% of surveyed scientists professed no religious affiliation.  For comparison, only 14% of the general population expressed no religious affiliation.  Clearly, the differences are staggering.  For whatever reason, science education and interest in science correlate strongly with being nonreligious.  Even better, only 2% of scientists described themselves as evangelical or fundamentalist, whereas 14% of the general population identify themselves in this way.

More detailed analyses produce interesting results, as well.  The most prestigious and elite scientists tend to be even more nonreligious than their less prestigious scientific counterparts.  Indeed, one survey from 1998 by Larson and Witham seemed to indicate that among prestigious scientists disbelief in God was nearly universal.  The authors reported the following:

Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers.

Another survey by Gross and Simmons found similar results.  They surveyed professors to determine their religiosity, finding that the nonreligious, and atheists specifically, were disproportionately represented in the population of college professors, though atheists were not a majority.  Interestingly, the proportions of atheist and agnostic professors rose continually in correlation with the prestige of the university that employed them.  Community colleges had about 15% who identified as atheist/agnostic, whereas four-year Bachelor-of-Arts-granting universities and nonelite doctoral-granting universities had a little more than 20%.  Most importantly, in elite doctoral-granting universities the proportion of atheists and agnostics was so high that they outnumbered those professors who with certainty believed in God, with a little less than 40% professing to be atheists or agnostics.  Of course, this survey included professors from all fields, including those who teach in subjects that are not in the natural sciences, including art and business.  Not surprisingly, those in the natural sciences, particularly biology and psychology, had much higher proportions (61%) of atheists and agnostics.

Of course, none of these studies show that being involved in science causes atheism.  In fact, this is most likely not true at all.  The data in Ecklund’s study, for instance, indicated that the most reliable predictor of a scientist’s religiosity was his or her upbringing; those raised in religious homes tended to be more religious, and those raised in nonreligious homes tended to be nonreligious.  In explanation of this data, Ecklund said:

It appears that those from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately self-select into scientific professions. This may reflect the fact that there is tension between the religious tenets of some groups and the theories and methods of particular sciences and it contributes to the large number of non-religious scientists.

Thus, science doesn’t convert the religious to atheism, but instead it seems that atheists tend to be predisposed to having an interest in or skill in science and its methods.  The studies showing that more prestigious scientists at elite universities tend to identify more as atheists and agnostics seem to support this interpretation, revealing that the nonreligious may select science as a profession because the methodology of science leaves little room for faith or belief without evidence and accords with an atheistic worldview.  Once again, religion seems to be harmful to the cause of science, as it not only offers contradictory explanations but also espouses a faith-based epistemology that is totally incompatible with proper scientific methodology.  It is no surprise, then, that those who are best at science and more reknowned tend to be atheistic or agnostic.

Now, if atheists tend to be more interested in and better represented in the sciences, so much so that the more elite scientists are almost universally nonreligious, then this implies that the best solution to America’s scientific illiteracy is to simply convert more Americans to atheism, or to promote atheism in such a way that it becomes a more palatable and viable alternative to future generations.  In this sense, the “New Atheists” so reviled by Mooney and Kirshenbaum as indirect enemies of science are in reality doing the most good for science by bringing atheism into the open and attempting to topple the hegemonic insistence that religion cannot be criticized.  Given that Ecklund’s study (mentioned previously) showed that the religiosity of scientists correlated with the religiosity of their upbringing, it makes sense that making atheism public and visible would produce more atheists.  The more people are exposed to a nonreligious worldview, the more likely they are to see it as a viable alternative.  This, in essence, is the strategy of the New Atheists.  Refusing to criticize religion and remaining eternally silent on the matter, as Mooney and Kirshenbaum suggest, would not be helpful at all for science education, as it would limit the growth of the population most in-tune with and accepting of science!

What’s more, the New Atheist strategy for growth appears to be working.  Demographic data consistently show rising numbers of the general population who identify as atheist or agnostic, and even greater numbers ambiguously identify as nonreligious.  From 1990 to 2001 the number of atheists and agnostics increased from about 1 million to 2 million.  From 2001 to 2008 these numbers increased even more, with the population of self-identifying atheists and agnostics rising to 3.6 million.  The surge in numbers from the 90s made feasible the production of a large, social atheist movement, and the New Atheists likely arose from this growth.  From 2001 to 2008 it is likely the increasing numbers of self-identified atheists are at least in part attributable to the New Atheist movment, whether it be through the popularization of various books on the subject, atheistic ads running on buses and billboards, or the lively and vibrant atheist and skeptic community on the Internet.  In 1990, for instance, the Aris report combined atheism and agnosticism and found that 1,186,000 people identified as one or the other.  However, in general the distrubtion of atheists and agnostics is about half and half (with a slight edge to agnosticism), so it’s safe to assume that in 1990 about 540,000 people self-identified as atheists.  With that noted, the population of atheists increased by 360,000 people between 1990 and 2001, when the new total of atheists became 902,000 in 2001.  During the period that saw the rise of the New Atheism, from 2001 to 2008, the number of self-identified atheists increased even more dramatically, with the number of atheists added to the total nearly doubling:  about 700,000 people newly identified as atheists during this seven-year period, compared with only 360,000 in the previous eleven-year period.  Whether this dramatic increase in the numbers of atheists (agnostics rose quite significantly, too) is attributable to the New Atheism movement is, of course, debatable, but it seems likely that the movement had a significant impact on these numbers, and the mechanism by which the movement would produce new converts is certainly plausible.  What is more interesting is that atheists are almost certainly underrepresented in this study, as many people claimed to disbelieve in God according to a separate Aris survey question, and yet for some reason the same proportion of people did not self-identify as atheists.  With that taken into account, the survey shows that as much as 2.3% of the population is atheist in belief (if not in name), with 10% of the population being agnostic.

As a result of this data, it seems that the best way to promote science is to promote atheism.  Atheists and agnostics tend to have a worldview that predisposes them to interest in and excellence in science; atheists are not only widely represented in scientific fields but are even more widely represented among the elite and prestigious.  Demographic data also seem to suggest that increasing the visibility of atheists as a minority through vocal promotion of atheism—like the work being done by the New Atheists and other secular and skeptical groups—increases the support for atheism and its acceptance in society.  As such, if the correlations between science and skepticism of religion continue to hold, then increasing the number of atheists would much more effectively increase scientific literacy in America.  And even if the correlation between atheism and scientific literacy would not hold in the future, at the very least increasing the number of atheists would help eliminate those anti-science forces motivated primarily by religion.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 3:30 PM and is filed under Atheism, Blog, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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