griefer: “There is a strong correlation between profession:scientist and faith:none, but the hidden variable is not a desire to rule the the world. it is IQ and g.”
I am not at all sure about this. As a grad student in a university physics department, I can certainly agree that there’s a lot of scientists who profess atheism. Even more common are those for whom religion simply isn’t enough of their mental landscape to even care enough to call themselves atheists. But I’m really not sure the percentage of the practicing religious is much lower among university physicists than it is among the general population. How many of those at your local Starbucks go to church, or pray regularly, or read their Bible, or in any way take their professed Christian or other religion seriously? I don’t know, but it’s surely not many.
I submit that the hidden variable is not IQ. It’s honesty. A scientist will at least not lie and check the “Christian” box on the survey when there’s nothing in his life to warrant self-identifying as such. The average Joe will.
