Are Most Scientists Atheists?

Are most scientists atheists? Many times atheists and the atheistic media have suggested that most scientists reject belief in God and the best scientists have been atheists. That is simply not true. For many years we have published a column in our printed journal titled “Scientists and God.” In that column, we have included statements by leading scientists, many of them Nobel Prize winners, expressing their belief in a Creator.

Baruch Aba Shalev wrote a book titled 100 Years of Nobel Prizes. That book contains a report on the Nobel prizes awarded between 1901 and 2000. It shows that during that period when 423 prizes were awarded, 65.4% of Nobel Prize Laureates identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference. Scientists who identified themselves as Christians won 78.3% of all Nobel prizes in Peace, 72.5% in Chemistry, 65.3 % in physics, 62% in medicine, 54% in economics, and 49.5% in literature.

So, are most scientists atheists? Certainly not. You don’t have to put your brain in park to be a Christian. Believing there is intelligence and purpose in the creation gives searching people a leg up in any attempt to understand the world in which we live.

— John N. Clayton © 2019