(1)原文及文獻資料如下：
Leading scientists still reject God

Sir – The question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever — almost total.

Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists within his sample1. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively2.

In 1996, we repeated Leuba's 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature3. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba's 1914 survey to gauge belief among "greater" scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever — a mere 7% of respondents.

Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among "greater" scientists to their "superior knowledge, understanding, and experience"2. Similarly, Oxford University scientist Peter Atkins commented on our 1996 survey, "You clearly can be a scientist and have religious beliefs. But I don't think you can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because they are such alien categories of knowledge."4 Such comments led us to repeat the second phase of Leuba's study for an up-to-date comparison of the religious beliefs of "greater" and "lesser" scientists.

Our chosen group of "greater" scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality). Overall comparison figures for the 1914, 1933 and 1998 surveys appear in Table 1.

Repeating Leuba's methods presented challenges. For his general surveys, he randomly polled scientists listed in the standard reference work, American Men of Science (AMS). We used the current edition. In Leuba's day, AMS editors designated the "great scientists" among their entries, and Leuba used these to identify his "greater" scientists1,2. The AMS no longer makes these designations, so we chose as our "greater" scientists members of the NAS, a status that once assured designation as "great scientists" in the early AMS. Our method surely generated a more elite sample than Leuba's method, which (if the quoted comments by Leuba and Atkins are correct) may explain the extremely low level of belief among our respondents.

For the 1914 survey, Leuba mailed his brief questionnaire to a random sample of 400 AMS "great scientists". It asked about the respondent's belief in "a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" and in "personal immortality". Respondents had the options of affirming belief, disbelief or agnosticism on each question1. Our survey contained precisely the same questions and also asked for anonymous responses.

Leuba sent the 1914 survey to 400 "biological and physical scientists", with the latter group including mathematicians as well as physicists and astronomers1. Because of the relatively small size of NAS membership, we sent our survey to all 517 NAS members in those core disciplines. Leuba obtained a return rate of about 70% in 1914 and more than 75% in 1933 whereas our returns stood at about 60% for the 1996 survey and slightly over 50% from NAS members1,2.

As we compiled our findings, the NAS issued a booklet encouraging the teaching of evolution in public schools, an ongoing source of friction between the scientific community and some conservative Christians in the United States. The booklet assures readers, "Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral"5. NAS president Bruce Alberts said: "There are many very outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists." Our survey suggests otherwise.

Edward J. Larson
Department of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-6012, USA
e-mail: edlarson@uga.edu

Larry Witham
3816 Lansdale Court, Burtonsville, Maryland 20866, USA

References 1. Leuba, J. H. The Belief in God and Immortality: A Psychological, Anthropological and Statistical Study (Sherman, French & Co., Boston, 1916).
2. Leuba, J. H. Harper's Magazine 169, 291-300 (1934).
3. Larson, E. J. & Witham, L. Nature 386, 435-436 (1997).
4. Highfield, R. The Daily Telegraph 3 April, p. 4 (1997).
5. National Academy of Sciences Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (Natl Acad. Press, Washington DC, 1998).

(2)該文作者早一年發表的調查(見上資料3)為：
Scientists are still keeping the faith (科學家仍然保持信仰)
E. J. Larson & L. Witham
Nature 386, 435 - 436 (1997).

(3)在大眾科學家中，從1916年的調查到1996年的調查，仍舊有40%上下的人相信一個可以與個人發生關係的神(Personal God)，但相信靈魂不死的科學家變少了(60.6%到38.0%)，不渴望永恆的人增加了(27%到64.2%)。但你需要讀原文才更明白不渴望的人又是如何評說自己的不渴望的(有些人心裡其實還是有那份渴望的)。

(4)該文作者1997-1998的兩篇文章的題目值得我們留意。從Scientists are still keeping the faith 到 Leading scientists still reject God。讓我們來琢磨一下。從20世紀初調查的(當為19世紀中後期出生的)，到20世紀末調查的(當為20世紀出生的)，在普通或大眾科學家這個大群體裡，約40%的繼續保持個人對上帝的信仰。但同時期內，“大”或“領先”科學家則繼續拒絕上帝(該文題目直譯)，這與科學院院長Bruce Alberts因為要和稀泥而鼓吹信仰與科學不衝突的那番話有矛盾，正如該文結尾一句所言。這應該算是該文要澄清事實真相的一個目的吧。這兩項調查結果只是爭對過去的20世紀而言，不是說，此前三個世紀(17-19世紀)的大小科學家也是如此(有人統計過，那三個世紀最出名的300位科學家，超過90%都是信神的)。

(5)今天從事科學的人，不需要特別是被神的創造之美所感動而熱心研究發現神所造的自然與自然律，而可以簡單地只是為了科學的興趣、謀生的手段、或者成名的途經。從科學中興到如今，在一個越來越遠離神的世代里，從普通人群中興起甚至成名的科學家不需要有信神的背景，也不需要在得意於自己的成名之後，在無形的多不信神的同儕壓力(peer pressure)下積極主動地選擇信神。是故，我們看見一群有科學知識但缺乏認識神智慧的所謂“大”科學家們，完全符合聖經對罪人屬靈狀況的描寫。

或許真正值得不人云亦云的常人深思的是，那少數派普通科學家和極少數“大”科學家對信仰的注釋。真理，畢竟不是以罪人的投票來表決的。

老夫預計，這個調查如果在幾十年後再重複一次，我們會不吃驚地發現，普通科學家對神的信仰和對永恆的渴望還在下滑，而“大”科學家信神的比例更加屈指可數。

主再來前的日子，難道不該這樣嗎？