(1)原文及文献资料如下：
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)该文作者早一年发表的调查(见上资料3)为：
Scientists are still keeping the faith (科学家仍然保持信仰)
E. J. Larson & L. Witham
Nature 386, 435 - 436 (1997).

(3)在大众科学家中，从1916年的调查到1996年的调查，仍旧有40%上下的人相信一个可以与个人发生关系的神(Personal God)，但相信灵魂不死的科学家变少了(60.6%到38.0%)，不渴望永恒的人增加了(27%到64.2%)。但你需要读原文才更明白不渴望的人又是如何评说自己的不渴望的(有些人心里其实还是有那份渴望的)。

(4)该文作者1997-1998的两篇文章的题目值得我们留意。从Scientists are still keeping the faith 到 Leading scientists still reject God。让我们来琢磨一下。从20世纪初调查的(当为19世纪中后期出生的)，到20世纪末调查的(当为20世纪出生的)，在普通或大众科学家这个大群体里，约40%的继续保持个人对上帝的信仰。但同时期内，“大”或“领先”科学家则继续拒绝上帝(该文题目直译)，这与科学院院长Bruce Alberts因为要和稀泥而鼓吹信仰与科学不冲突的那番话有矛盾，正如该文结尾一句所言。这应该算是该文要澄清事实真相的一个目的吧。这两项调查结果只是争对过去的20世纪而言，不是说，此前三个世纪(17-19世纪)的大小科学家也是如此(有人统计过，那三个世纪最出名的300位科学家，超过90%都是信神的)。

(5)今天从事科学的人，不需要特别是被神的创造之美所感动而热心研究发现神所造的自然与自然律，而可以简单地只是为了科学的兴趣、谋生的手段、或者成名的途经。从科学中兴到如今，在一个越来越远离神的世代里，从普通人群中兴起甚至成名的科学家不需要有信神的背景，也不需要在得意于自己的成名之后，在无形的多不信神的同侪压力(peer pressure)下积极主动地选择信神。是故，我们看见一群有科学知识但缺乏认识神智慧的所谓“大”科学家们，完全符合圣经对罪人属灵状况的描写。

或许真正值得不人云亦云的常人深思的是，那少数派普通科学家和极少数“大”科学家对信仰的注释。真理，毕竟不是以罪人的投票来表决的。

老夫预计，这个调查如果在几十年后再重复一次，我们会不吃惊地发现，普通科学家对神的信仰和对永恒的渴望还在下滑，而“大”科学家信神的比例更加屈指可数。

主再来前的日子，难道不该这样吗？