Engineers more likely to be creationists?

[Rye]

This makes sense to me. I've read a couple of studies in the past which concluded that you tend to find a lot more Christians in fields which relate directly to mathematics. You tend to find a lot more atheists in biology and anthropology.

This rings a bell with me as well. Biology, IIRC has the highest number of atheists, with probably something like Astronomy having the highest number of religious people (perhaps something to do with the Jesuit observatories and staring for too long into the abyss?). Then of course, the crazier and more detached from reality the maths people are, the loopier they tend to get, so you end up with stuff like Timewave Zero.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Yeah, from my experience in math (which only goes up to Diff. Eq btw) there are really a lot of trascendental things that just shock you.

Like the integral of 4/(1+x^2) from 0 to 1 being the same as the ratio of a triangle circumference to its diameter.

Or laplace transforms, or the plotting of complex numbers.

[Mayabird]

This makes sense to me. I've read a couple of studies in the past which concluded that you tend to find a lot more Christians in fields which relate directly to mathematics. You tend to find a lot more atheists in biology and anthropology.

This rings a bell with me as well. Biology, IIRC has the highest number of atheists, with probably something like Astronomy having the highest number of religious people (perhaps something to do with the Jesuit observatories and staring for too long into the abyss?). Then of course, the crazier and more detached from reality the maths people are, the loopier they tend to get, so you end up with stuff like Timewave Zero.

The number I heard in my evolution class was that 90% of biologists are atheists. Of course, that 10% includes Deists, agnostics, vague spiritual types, a significant number of Jews (not the orthodox kind, obviously; more often the kind that's like "Oh shit, it's Passover! All my booze is made out of grain so what am I going to dri-yes! Potato vodka, you have saved me from sobriety!), people who say that they're of some other religion but aren't highly observant, and about eight and a half fundamentalists.

Biology really makes people face their beliefs or possible lack thereof. I remember freshman biology at GT having some creationists in it, but they were gone by the sophomore level classes. People who may have been wishy-washy through bad earlier education or training usually wash out or realize they have to change their beliefs, like the Mormon geneticists who finally left their church when their DNA mapping of native Americans showed that, surprise surprise, they're descended from Asians and aren't Semitic as the Book of Mormon claims (a big deal to them, though the rest of the scientific community was like, "Oh, they confirmed what we already very, very, very, very strongly suspected through the other mountains of evidence. Ooh, and here's some rum. They make this stuff out of sugarcane, I think, so it's good.")

[Darth Wong]

Biology simply clashes very directly with a lot of core Christian fundamentalist beliefs, which is why so few Christofascists stay in it for long. I don't think there's any need to make it more complicated than that. For better or worse, while a scientific education can reduce the likelihood of people retaining fundie beliefs, it is not a magic elixir which keeps the fundies away. And as I said earlier, there's bound to be some pretty heavy selection bias: these people are taught to hate biologists from almost the time they learn to read and write.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This makes sense to me. I've read a couple of studies in the past which concluded that you tend to find a lot more Christians in fields which relate directly to mathematics. You tend to find a lot more atheists in biology and anthropology.

Put it this way. I can walk into an upper division biology class, and openly bash religion. The professor, can openly bash religion. And we dont have to worry about offending anyone. I was at a department dinner not long ago

Grad student 1: You know, we are not all atheists
Grad Student 2(the hot one): Can you point out someone in the room that isnt?
Grad student1: No....

They're just not there. I can count on one hand the number of religious bio professors on campus.

1 is a conservative jew(but also goes into an anti-creationist pro-evolution diatribe at the end of his genetics class... it is great) the other I think (my PI for undergrad research) only pretends to be because his wife is an observant german lutheran. THis guy even talks about evolution and winks when he makes the disclaimer to a class "Now I am not saying there is no god..."