From: cary@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell)
Subject: Re: Do Mathematicians oppose Evolution?
Date: 7 Nov 2000 18:14:11 -0500
Newsgroups: sci.math,talk.origins
Summary: [missing]

In article <3A077794.E7E150D6@san.rr.com> Richard Uhrich <uhrich@san.rr.com> writes:
<No, mathematicians are not, as a group, creationists. 
<

I'd be you're right.  However, I found it interesting how mathematicians
scored in a recent survey of such attitudes.

(from the American Atheist newsletter, reporting on a 
_Scientific American_ article):


> 
> Larson is the Richard B.  Russell Professor of History and Law at the
> University of Georgia, and won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in history for
> book "Summer for the Gods" (Basic Books, Harper Collins, 1997), an
> account of the infamous Scopes evolution trial.  Witham is an author
> and religion reporter for the Washington Times newspaper.
> 
> Last year, the pair announced results of a study which replicated
> surveys made in 1913 and 1933 by sociologist James H.  Leuba that
> measured attitudes within the scientific community concerning the
> existence of a deity.  Leuba had reported a decline in personal belief
> among scientists in a "God in intellectual and affective communication
> with humankind" from 27.7% in the 1913 study to only 15% by 1933.
> "Disbelief" rose from 52.7% to 68%, and "doubt or agnosticism" fell
> slightly from 20.9% to 17%.  The 1998 Larson-Witham study which
> replicated Leuba's work found "Personal belief" in a deity at only 7%,
> while "Personal disbelief" had risen to 72.2%, and "Doubt or
> Agnosticism" to 20.8%.
> 
> The survey measured attitudes among members of the prestigious
> National Academy of Sciences.  Witham and Larson noted:
> 
> "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.  We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS
> mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality).  Biological
> scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in
> immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in
> God, 7.5% in immortality)."