Robin Hanson asks why professors aren't religious?
Last November we learned that the US public believes in God more than college professors, who believe more than professors at elite schools:
Almost a third answered "none" when asked their religion -- more than twice the percentage found in the general population. Science professors were the least religious. Accounting professors were the most religious. More than half the professors at places other than so-called "elite" universities said they absolutely believed in God. About a third of the professors at elite schools took that position. ... About 30 percent of community college professors considered intelligent design as a serious scientific alternative. Fewer than 6 percent of professors at elite universities took that position.
If all we know about a view was that professors held it more, and elite professors even more so, we would be inclined to favor that view. But other considerations can be relevant; if we knew elite professors favored increasing elite research funding, we might attribute that to self-interest bias. So should we favor elite professors' views on God, or can we identify other relevant considerations?
I'd certainly agree academics tend to be better informed regarding their own area of expertise, but how many are actually experts in religion? Why would people trust that academics are better informed than others about religion? Is it possible that since most religions are based on faith and not on reason, academics lose their comparative advantage and are therefore turned off or feel threatened by it?
There may be a selection bias and path dependency story here as well. It is true that most academics tend to lean left politically. It is also true that those on the left tend to have lower levels of religiosity than the general population. With this being so, could most of the lack of religiosity be explained by the effects of left-leaning political beliefs? (Or maybe vice-versa?) According to the Seattle Times:
The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.
Does this also mean that the rest of us should favor the political views of the elite as well? That doesn't seem to follow. A more plausible story is that Democrats tend to favor the elite being in control of society which empowers those in academia, particularly those in elite institutions. It would make sense from a self-interest perspective for those academics to have a greater incentive to lean left. The more elite the institution, the greater the incentive. Because of the strong correlation between political perspectives and religious beliefs, this would probably result in fewer religious people in academia. (Interestingly, there is little effect of education level or IQ on religious belief, but a big effect from being involved in academia. The implication is that highly educated religious people tend to find jobs outside of academia.)
There seems to be a real bias in the academy against religious belief. I am hopeful that this will eventually change. As I previously wrote:
There is a common tendency in the academy to dismiss religious thinking and religious people as being somehow ignorant, backwards looking, and hindering progress. The standard assumption is that as technology, scientific knowledge, and wealth all increase, religion will decline. This is something Professor Larry Iannaccone calls the "secularization theory".
This theory is that it presumes religions will fade away (or become socially irrelevant) due to the advance of science. What is ironic about the secularization theory is that there is nothing scientific about it at all. It has no data to support it, no evidence of trends favoring it, lots of evidence contradicting it, and yet people hold on to it with what appears to be religion-like faith.
My hope is that as people begin to study religion seriously rather than condescendingly, it will bring about more respect for and insight about religion and religious people and the significant role religion may play in bringing about development and working as a stabilizing force in society. It may also go a long way towards respecting other people's "right to be wrong".
Read more in the paper "Religion, Science, and Rationality" by Rodney Stark, Larry Iannaccone, and Roger Finke.
More thoughts on Hanson's post by Tyler Cowen and my classmate William McBride. Jane Galt also invites discussion on her blog.
See My Previous Posts on the Economics of Religion:
4 comments:
My name is Jason Briggeman, and I approve your use of deliberate misspelling for purposes of education and/or revenge.
This starts and ends with Boetkke.
Hi Brian, I'm Leon Jackson for the Agora (theagora.blogspot.com). I am the one who posted the Econ of Religion post and you answered. I am so pleased to meet you, its hard finding Christians into economics, even when 2-3 great economist in history were clergy men.
Brian, I agree with you, a intellectual and domain expert in one field may not necessarily have the same expertise in another. Besides, there are some barriers of entry for many intellectuals to find out about religion such as the fact that a vast majority of those who do practice religion do so for emotional, superstitious and non rational reasons. The common error people make is to disregard the religion because of the faulty motive some of its proponents have for it, but this is a fallacy, as we don’t disregard scientific facts and theories like evolution just because some people would like a naturalistic non theistic world so that they can enslave or victimize others. So many intellectuals allow faulty demographics to keep them from even trying to examine the evidence for religion and the bigger questions.
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