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> For instance there's a trend for medical students to believe less in evolution than other biology students I don't find that particularly surprising, actuall

by OskarS 6y ago

> For instance there's a trend for medical students to believe less in evolution than other biology students I don't find that particularly surprising, actually! I would assume that most subfields of biology relies more on deep understanding of evolution than medicine does. Like, if you're a botanist or entomologist or whatever, you need to have a very understanding of speciation and evolutionary pressure and whatnot, more so than a doctor would (I would think, anyway). Now, if medical students believed less in evolution than the general public, THAT would be shocking. But I doubt that is the case.

jack_riminton 6y ago
Well they’re more likely to believe in God than the general public so yes that’s entirely possible https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/survey-shows-that-physicians-are-more-religious-than-expected https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/survey-shows...
- Xcelerate 6y ago
  I seem to recall seeing a breakdown of belief in God by discipline, and it was the opposite of what I would have expected. Abstract mathematicians were the most likely to believe in some form of God, followed by physicists, with biologists being the least likely to believe. Considering how complex and unpredictable biological science is compared to something like particle physics, I was surprised by this.
  - gjm11 6y ago
    I don't think it should be surprising if biologists are the least likely group to believe in God. One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. The reason why this turns out not to be a very good reason is that evolution explains this better (dealing e.g. with cases where the design seems needlessly complex, malicious, etc.). Biologists are more familiar with evolution and spend more time thinking about it than other scientists. Relatedly, evolution has frequently been the target of attack from religious people and groups. Biologists are likely to notice this more and be more bothered by it (imagine a world where there's a strong anti-technology lobby motivated by religion; engineers would likely be more likely to be opposed to religion in that case). Pure mathematicians are used to thinking of intangible things like numbers, sets of sets of sets of sets, equivalence classes of functions from manifolds to abelian groups, etc., as real things even though they clearly don't "live" in the physical universe, and perhaps even as more perfect than the tangible inhabitants of the material world. I think this may make the idea of a sort of spiritual universe with inhabitants like a Most Perfect Being Imaginable particularly congenial to pure mathematicians. (On the other hand, pure mathematicians ought to be less vulnerable to some varieties of philosophical flim-flam used by religious apologists. For instance, the so-called "ontological argument" is composed mostly of logical errors, and I would expect pure mathematicians to notice this more readily than anyone else. ... But: Kurt Goedel, who was one hell of a good logician, actually put some effort into coming up with a logically sound version of the ontological argument. Of course it's no good because it relies on axioms there's no reason to think apply to the actual world, but it does indicate that a sufficiently ingenious mathematician may react to a terrible argument not by dismissing it but by finding a way to make it less terrible.) [In case anyone cares: I am a pure mathematician, or at least I was one before moved into industry where one gets paid more for doing easier work. I was a religious believer for many years but am not any more.]
    - jack_riminton 6y ago
      I think the cause may be a lot more prosaic than all of that; namely that doctors are more likely to be the children of ambitious immigrants and are therefore more likely to be religious
    - mattkrause 6y ago
      In a similar vein, a lot of "ingenious biological designs" turn out to be amazingly hacky close up. The eye, for example, has blood vessels blocking some of the photoreceptors. A moderately intelligent designer wouldn't run the power cables directly in front of the camera's lens! Or...maybe we're not made in His Image: cephalopods don't have this problem, after all. Cthulhu ftaghn....
      - abandonliberty 6y ago
        If you accept that God is an internet startup, it all makes sense. Everything barely cobbled together, but it looks pretty good from the outside!
    - abandonliberty 6y ago
      >One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. Any decent genetics/medical class will thoroughly disabuse you of this notion. There's a clear lack of any intelligence in our design beyond satisfying evolutionary requirements. Up to 9/10 first time mothers suffer a perineal laceration during childbirth. 65% require stitches. Male/female ducks are in an evolutionary arms race for control of breeding. Males have extremely long corkscrew penises for rape, while the females have vaginas with fake paths designed to resist. Humans have the same conflict, but it plays out socially (e.g. faking signals of high value during courtship) or in war. A number of religious people, both genders, have argued to me that we can't apply human concepts of rape to animals/god. Nuts. Either God is a sick, twisted, sadistic fucker, or life wasn't intelligently designed. Pick one.
      - gjm11 6y ago
        > Any decent genetics/medical class will thoroughly disabuse you of this notion. That was my point: this is one reason why biologists are particularly unlikely to believe in God. (At least in places where the dominant form of belief-in-God gives prominence to the idea that God is responsible for the design of living things.)
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    Makes sense. Abstract math and physics are very... platonic. I can understand why someone who believes in a Divine Order would be attracted to abstract mathematics or theoretical physics. Also makes sense that messy experimentalism would be less allured by the idea of especially Abrahamic God.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Medical Doctors are members of a rich and powerful guild. Admission to the guild requires getting into medical schools. That in turn requires entering at least university (really high school) knowing how the pre-med game is played. For this reason, membership in the profession is more hereditary than most and is especially hard to achieve without knowing a doctor through family friends who can talk you through the process. Also, in the USA, churches were historically important social institutions. In a country of powerful religious institutions, members of a powerful guild with significant barriers to entry and therefore strong hereditary lines are often religious. That's not really at all surprising. At least to me.
thu2111 6y ago
You'd be surprised how many people with supposedly elite educations don't believe in evolution. For me the most shocking example (or maybe not that shocking) is how it's de rigour in sociology to deny evolution. Yes, they will superficially claim they believe in it, but that belief collapses when placed under the slightest pressure. For example if you ask them for examples of male/female differences that originate in evolutionary selection pressure, you'll discover there are none. Not even men being physically stronger than women has an evolutionary explanation, according to this field. The rejection of evolution by sociologists is a long standing problem. There's an essay about the problem from 1990: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01112591 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01112591 and in 2018 people were still writing about the very same thing: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2018.00024/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2018.00024... The field systematically rejects Darwinism for ideological reasons.

by OskarS 6y ago

jack_riminton 6y ago

Well they’re more likely to believe in God than the general public so yes that’s entirely possible https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/survey-shows-that-physicians-are-more-religious-than-expected https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/survey-shows...

Xcelerate 6y ago
I seem to recall seeing a breakdown of belief in God by discipline, and it was the opposite of what I would have expected. Abstract mathematicians were the most likely to believe in some form of God, followed by physicists, with biologists being the least likely to believe. Considering how complex and unpredictable biological science is compared to something like particle physics, I was surprised by this.
- gjm11 6y ago
  I don't think it should be surprising if biologists are the least likely group to believe in God. One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. The reason why this turns out not to be a very good reason is that evolution explains this better (dealing e.g. with cases where the design seems needlessly complex, malicious, etc.). Biologists are more familiar with evolution and spend more time thinking about it than other scientists. Relatedly, evolution has frequently been the target of attack from religious people and groups. Biologists are likely to notice this more and be more bothered by it (imagine a world where there's a strong anti-technology lobby motivated by religion; engineers would likely be more likely to be opposed to religion in that case). Pure mathematicians are used to thinking of intangible things like numbers, sets of sets of sets of sets, equivalence classes of functions from manifolds to abelian groups, etc., as real things even though they clearly don't "live" in the physical universe, and perhaps even as more perfect than the tangible inhabitants of the material world. I think this may make the idea of a sort of spiritual universe with inhabitants like a Most Perfect Being Imaginable particularly congenial to pure mathematicians. (On the other hand, pure mathematicians ought to be less vulnerable to some varieties of philosophical flim-flam used by religious apologists. For instance, the so-called "ontological argument" is composed mostly of logical errors, and I would expect pure mathematicians to notice this more readily than anyone else. ... But: Kurt Goedel, who was one hell of a good logician, actually put some effort into coming up with a logically sound version of the ontological argument. Of course it's no good because it relies on axioms there's no reason to think apply to the actual world, but it does indicate that a sufficiently ingenious mathematician may react to a terrible argument not by dismissing it but by finding a way to make it less terrible.) [In case anyone cares: I am a pure mathematician, or at least I was one before moved into industry where one gets paid more for doing easier work. I was a religious believer for many years but am not any more.]
  - jack_riminton 6y ago
    I think the cause may be a lot more prosaic than all of that; namely that doctors are more likely to be the children of ambitious immigrants and are therefore more likely to be religious
  - mattkrause 6y ago
    In a similar vein, a lot of "ingenious biological designs" turn out to be amazingly hacky close up. The eye, for example, has blood vessels blocking some of the photoreceptors. A moderately intelligent designer wouldn't run the power cables directly in front of the camera's lens! Or...maybe we're not made in His Image: cephalopods don't have this problem, after all. Cthulhu ftaghn....
    - abandonliberty 6y ago
      If you accept that God is an internet startup, it all makes sense. Everything barely cobbled together, but it looks pretty good from the outside!
  - abandonliberty 6y ago
    >One common reason for believing in God is how ingeniously designed living things often are. Any decent genetics/medical class will thoroughly disabuse you of this notion. There's a clear lack of any intelligence in our design beyond satisfying evolutionary requirements. Up to 9/10 first time mothers suffer a perineal laceration during childbirth. 65% require stitches. Male/female ducks are in an evolutionary arms race for control of breeding. Males have extremely long corkscrew penises for rape, while the females have vaginas with fake paths designed to resist. Humans have the same conflict, but it plays out socially (e.g. faking signals of high value during courtship) or in war. A number of religious people, both genders, have argued to me that we can't apply human concepts of rape to animals/god. Nuts. Either God is a sick, twisted, sadistic fucker, or life wasn't intelligently designed. Pick one.
    - gjm11 6y ago
      > Any decent genetics/medical class will thoroughly disabuse you of this notion. That was my point: this is one reason why biologists are particularly unlikely to believe in God. (At least in places where the dominant form of belief-in-God gives prominence to the idea that God is responsible for the design of living things.)
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Makes sense. Abstract math and physics are very... platonic. I can understand why someone who believes in a Divine Order would be attracted to abstract mathematics or theoretical physics. Also makes sense that messy experimentalism would be less allured by the idea of especially Abrahamic God.
throwawaygh 6y ago
Medical Doctors are members of a rich and powerful guild. Admission to the guild requires getting into medical schools. That in turn requires entering at least university (really high school) knowing how the pre-med game is played. For this reason, membership in the profession is more hereditary than most and is especially hard to achieve without knowing a doctor through family friends who can talk you through the process. Also, in the USA, churches were historically important social institutions. In a country of powerful religious institutions, members of a powerful guild with significant barriers to entry and therefore strong hereditary lines are often religious. That's not really at all surprising. At least to me.

thu2111 6y ago

You'd be surprised how many people with supposedly elite educations don't believe in evolution. For me the most shocking example (or maybe not that shocking) is how it's de rigour in sociology to deny evolution. Yes, they will superficially claim they believe in it, but that belief collapses when placed under the slightest pressure. For example if you ask them for examples of male/female differences that originate in evolutionary selection pressure, you'll discover there are none. Not even men being physically stronger than women has an evolutionary explanation, according to this field. The rejection of evolution by sociologists is a long standing problem. There's an essay about the problem from 1990: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01112591 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01112591 and in 2018 people were still writing about the very same thing: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2018.00024/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2018.00024... The field systematically rejects Darwinism for ideological reasons.