Believers in God among professors far outweighs atheists: maybe

Hmmm.

In my experience, discussing religious beliefs on campus is verboten. Who knew that ~1/3 of sociology & psychology professors believe in god? Overall, there is fascinating & substantial variation by discipline in atheism and agnosticism. via @robkhenderson NB @McCormickProf pic.twitter.com/DRxdKKCjAE

— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) April 28, 2019

To make the table a little clearer.

Click to enlarge.

How can psych professors (50% atheist, 13% believers) even begin to understand Americans (10% atheists, 80% believers)? They are speaking different epistemic languages. Maybe the replication crisis is founded in more than just sloppy research procedures.

However, there is reason to wonder just how accurate some of this data might be. I suspect that their population size was likely way too small.

For example, look at the ratio between atheists and believers for mechanical engineers and electrical engineers; two populations who I would speculate to be about the same in terms of empirical rationalists.

Mechanical Engineers: 44.1 (A):17.7 (B) - Disbeliever Ratio is 2.49:1

Electrical Engineers: 2.4 (A):38.1 (B) - Disbeliever Ratio is 0.06:1

That seems improbable.

There are only four fields where atheists outnumber believers - Biology, Political Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Psychology. Of these, the first two are nearly even. It is only in Mechanical Engineering and Psychology where atheists materially outnumber believers. And there is good reason to believe that the Mechanical Engineering might be an inaccurate anomaly since all the other STEM fields have believers way outnumbering atheists.

The field of psychology sometimes seems to have a similar worldview to that of journalists which prompted me to wonder whether journalism might have a similar incapacity to understand the world on which they are reporting. Regrettably there are not good numbers I could find regarding journalism and religious belief. The best I could come up with was this report from 2007 indicating that

8 percent of journalists at national publications and 14 percent of those at local publications reported attending worship services weekly, compared with 39 percent of the general public who reported the same. But attendance and belief don’t always correlate neatly, and it’s important also to note that newsroom employment has plunged between 2007 and today.

And on the flip side, about 30% of journalists never attend church. But church attendance (or non-attendance) is only a very crude proxy.

In the reports on professor's beliefs, we only have Communication which is a much broader definition than Journalism. Among Communication professors, the disbeliever ratio is 11.1 (A):26.7 (B) - Disbeliever Ratio of 0.45:1.

One final point. I am not sure that the ratios tell the whole story (even if we could be confident that they were accurate.)

I have long noticed an asymmetry between avowed atheists and avowed believers. Large percentages of believers (or at least Christian and Jewish believers, the groups to whom I have the greatest exposure) are very tolerant. Their beliefs are their own and they do not seek to convert anyone except possibly by example. In contrast, again, in my experience, a much higher percentage of atheists are almost militant in their belief system. It is almost as if it is not merely inconceivable that others should have a different belief system from themselves but that they find it provoking that others should differ.

The consequence is that a simple disbeliever:believer ratio does not tell the whole story about the environment of tolerance regarding alternate belief systems.