Hacker News Reader

Comment by gjsman-1000 | Hacker News Reader

There is one issue though - how many biologists are religious in any way? According to BioMed Central, biology has more atheists than any other field. So, either they are all convinced that religions are false - or they are hardly the most impartial deciders, and are great at making sure any newcomers don’t get different ideas.

Just that fact would make a religious person laugh their head off at taking their perspective. Even from an atheistic perspective, can we rule out the possibility of an echo chamber?

View on HN

> According to BioMed Central, biology has more atheists than any other field.

According to Pew, the percentage of scientists in biology and medicine who profess no religious belief (41%) is lower than geology (47%) or physics (46%). So your claim is questionable at best.

But for the sake of argument let's suppose it's true. So what? If you took a survey of astronomers I'm pretty sure you'd find that the vast majority of them are convinced that flat-eartherism is false. But that's not because they are prejudiced, it's because the astronomical evidence is overwhelmingly against the flat-earth hypothesis, and so it's hardly surprising that there aren't very many flat-earthers among people who study astronomy.

Likewise, the biological evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution. That is why virtually all biologists, including the religious ones, believe it.

BTW, notice that religious belief also declines with age. This supports the hypothesis that the more you learn the less likely you are to be religious. And that is evidence against your (implied) hypothesis that belief in evolution is the result of atheistic prejudice.

---

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/scientists-a...

When I was a senior at my university I took a biology class. It was mostly freshmen. The class was lectured by a professor and graded by a teachers assistant who was a PhD student.

Being 22 as a senior, I would regularly head out to the bar at night and on the weekend. I got to know the TA for the class. One night he admitted that the professors would not let students going for a PhD get one if they had any religious belief of any kind. They only allowed atheists or strong agnostics through.

I've heard about this kind of thing happening. That was the first time I had someone in the system point blank tell me about it.

It's worth knowing there is merit to the accusations about the beliefs in this area being filtered or otherwise shaped.

> One night he admitted that the professors would not let students going for a PhD get one if they had any religious belief of any kind.

And how would he know? That doesn't seem like the sort of thing a professor would confide to a grad student. It could end the professor's career.

I think it's much more likely that your TA was lying to you in service of his own political agenda.

In any case, it is manifestly untrue that this is widespread because half of all working biologists profess to hold religious beliefs.

Even if this anecdote were true, it’s just an anecdote. It’s important not to let anecdotes influence you emotionally. All types of individuals, religious or otherwise, do messed up things. Cherry picking examples that fit your world view is a great way to succumb to confirmation bias.

> So, either they are all convinced that religions are false - or they are hardly the most impartial deciders, and are great at making sure any newcomers don’t get different ideas.

If some news article suggested that biologists are not impartial because most are men of European descent, there will be pitchforks and bonfires in the ensuing HN thread.

Religious affiliation is just as irrelevant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com