Letter to an Atheist by Michael Patrick Leahy

False Statement # 14

Do the members of the National Academy of Sciences , 93 per cent of whom reject the idea of God, lie, cheat, and steal with abandon ? (Page 39)

This factual misrepresentation by Harris is a real doozie. For someone who claims to rely upon objective measurable evidence only, he is so far off the mark here he risks completely blowing his credibility. What we can say with CERTAINTY is that 8 per cent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject the idea of God, 3 per cent are agnostics, less than one per cent believe in a personal God, and we don’t have any information on the beliefs of the other 88 per cent !

Though Harris provides no evidence to support this claim, he is obviously citing a 2005 article in Nature Magazine which in turn cited a 1998 survey conducted by Larson and Witham. In that survey, 70 per cent of the NAS Members who responded described themselves as atheists, and 23 per cent described themselves as agnostics. Agnostics do not reject the idea of God – they are simply uncertain about it. It is inaccurate for Harris to say that 93 per cent of the members of the NAS reject the idea of God. Only 70 per cent do that. But the broader issue, as Allan Wallace of the Santa Barbara Institute points out, is that Harris fails to present the true picture of faith within the scientific community. A 1914 survey by Dr. James H. Leuba showed that 40 per cent of scientists believed in God. The same question asked in a poll in 1997, and had the same results – 40 per cent of scientists believed in God.

The 1914 poll was conducted by Professor Jame H. Leuba of Bryn Mawr, who repeated his survey in 1933 with the same results. In 1997, History Professor Edmund Larsen of the University of Georgia repeated the Leuba questions, and again, the same results were obtained.

In 1998, Larsen and Witham conducted a survey of what they considered a more select group of scientists – greater scientists he called them. He decided that members of the National Academy of Science would be the “greater” scientists.

There are 2,217 members of the National Academy of Sciences. Larson chose to send his survey to only 517 members in the physical sciences. Of these, only 50% responded to his survey. So, out of 2,217 members, we know that a grand total of 70% x 259, or 181 members are atheists.

The true and accurate statement would be that we can say with certainty that in 1998 9% were atheists, 3% were agnostics, less than 1 % believed in a personal god, and we don’t know the religious beliefs of 87% of them because we either didn’t ask them, or they didn’t tell us.

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