Is Our Children Learning Atheism?
If, during this U.S. Presidential election, candidates fight over who is less elitist, pay attention. I see the problem as being one of anti-intellectualism seeking to justify horrific public policy decisions that turn out to be disastrous. One candidate is accused more often than the other of being the elitist favorite, while the other is on the “straight talk express” unencumbered by serious examination. Fiill in the blanks yourself as to which is which.
Anti-intellectuals claim that our schools and universities are ruled by liberal atheists, and so the larnin’ that comes out of these institutions is suspect. One can make a good case for the liberalism aspect of the claim, but the atheism is harder to defend based on surveys of academics. Razib at the ScienceBlog “Gene Expression” reports on the results of a recent survey published in Profiles of the American University: Volume II: Religious Beliefs and Behavior of College Faculty. (permission to copy in whole or in part not granted, but there is a link to the pdf of the report from Razib’s article. It’s 97 pages.)
In the survey, the authors show that while faculty tend to be more likely to be liberal/religous than conservative/religious, only 4% directly declare themselves to be godless. Numbers on surveys are hard to verify because of the faults of self-reporting, but that seems to be a lower portion than among the general populace.
I am going to leave it up to Scienceblogs to police the possible copyright violations of Razib’s post, and I am not going to copy the tables nor provide quotes (I don’t want to put Clashing Cultures at risk!) I think that you should go over and read the post.
Aside from the question of godlessness, Razib also addresses a topic near and dear to my co-blogger Anastasia, that of the selective nature of skepticality among faculty (italics mine:)
Am I the only one who has had the experience of a non-science background friend who is surprised that I’m not terrified by the idea of fish genes being spliced into tomatoes? In other words, yes, a modern liberal arts education might make one more skeptical of conventional “mainstream” world-views, but that skepticism is often not complemented much with a commitment toward rational & empirical analysis of the issues at hand. So naturally intuitive morality with roots in our cognitive hardware kick in.
Anastasia has written many posts in which she analyzes the hating on GMO because of Monsanto Foods’ involvement. People who should know better refuse to accept the science independently. I don’t know how much of the anti-GMO sentiment there is on campuses, but it seems as though Razib runs into it from liberal arts and humanities colleagues.
My impression is that the accusation of godlessness is based on the same style of reasoning as people apply to the question of whether or not GMO foods should be studied. It’s an accusation without in-depth analysis.
Of course, requesting people to apply in-depth analysis is elitist, isnt it?
Who would you rather have a beer with?
Definitely interesting, but not surprising to me; I have never found academia to be the hostile atheist wasteland portrayed in culture-war propaganda, and Calvin is the first religious school I’ve ever been a part of (unless you think Harvard is still a Christian college). And I think you and Razib are onto something interesting re the connection between “religion” and irrational fear of genetic modification.
One correction, though. Look again at the graphs and you’ll see that 19% of faculty, vs. 4% of the general public, report that they don’t believe in god, and 8% (vs. 1% of the general public) self-identify as atheists. It’s clear that godlessness is more common in the academy than in the real world, but it’s also clear that godlessness is not the dominant worldview by any stretch.
Most concerning to me is the very strong negative perception of evangelical Christians: 53%, with Mormons finishing a distant second at 33%. Those kinds of numbers, in my opinion, do point to something more than disagreement, and the potential for damaging prejudice is significant and troubling.
Whoops, read it backwards. Research has never been my strong suit.
I think that the perception regarding evangelicals has to do with a confusion on the terms “fundamentalists” and “evangelical” which is something I know the Jim Wallis’ of the world are trying to correct.
Atheists in academia are looked at by theists in a negative light, just as they are everywhere else. As the president of the student organization “Atheist and Agnostic Society”, I’ve effectively outed myself. It’s twice so far gotten me into uncomfortable conversations where I was asked to explain my personal beliefs by superiors. I was accused of having no morals, for goodness sake! This is just my personal experience, but I know that many professors (especially those that teach lower level undergrad classes) keep their lack of religion very private to avoid verbal attacks from students.
Where I work, there is no religion (or lack thereof) in discussions; especially not with superiors. I am fortunate in that, I guess.
Of course, there are not many studies are out there on religion and banking,
Anybody who suggests God when teaching has problems:
Free Gonzalez: Guillermo Gonzalez never anticipated becoming a test case – has been featured in “Expelled no Intelligence Allowed”
Censoring intelligent design – One man’s personal experience of state school anti-Christian intolerance in the USA
You know, if the facts of Gonzalez’ “persecution” weren’t so laughably distorted by DI, by Uncommon Descent and in the film Expelled, you wouldn’t have much to whine about, would you?
Gonzalez didn’t perform nor produce according to the expectations laid down by Iowa State’s Astronomy and Physics department, and while members of the tenure committee doubted his interest in doing good science due to his submission of Privileged Planet in his portfolio for tenure review, his denial was based on his failure to further the program.
Stop it, Wayne. You know better. Today I was in a parade in Blaine, MN and several churches took part. No one kicked them out.
[...] interesting blog called Clashing Culture follows with an article about the so-called “Godless Academia” in education systems and how, contrary to some Christian opinion, only 4% of educators claim [...]