When Physics World carried out a readers’ survey to mark its 20th anniversary in October 2008, in the main the editors took a light-hearted approach. They asked readers to answer nine multiple-choice questions on matters such as who inspired them to do physics, whether they mind being unpopular at parties, and what was the top physics discovery of the previous 20 years. A summary of the results appeared last year on the physicsworld.com blog (22 December 2008).

But one question was more serious: “Which of the following reflects your views on science and religion?” Readers were offered a choice of five answers (see “Readers’ view” at the end). It takes but a glance to see that this question suffers the flaws of other efforts to get hard statistics about “deep issues”. I know I cannot be too critical, given that the editors devised the survey and you (well, 505 readers) responded. Let me just say that the question must have been thought up very close to deadline. But much more revealing than the data were readers’ comments.

The matrix

I found that I could, very roughly, place each of the comments in a 2 x 2 matrix based on how readers conceive of science and religion (see figure). In the upper-left quadrant, I put respondents who regarded science as consisting of (true) beliefs about the world, and religion likewise as a set of beliefs about the world and the existence of a personal God in it. For some respondents in this quadrant, who made up perhaps two-thirds of all respondents, religious beliefs are salutary and have nothing to do with science.

But for others, religious beliefs reflect ignorance and are akin to belief in mermaids and unicorns. “Religion stems from lack of knowledge,” wrote one reader; while another said that religion has a place in human culture just as “Father Christmas and the tooth fairy” do. People in this quadrant tended to view science and religion as inevitably conflicting over issues such as evolution and cosmology.

In this quadrant I would also put respondents who said they were agnostic, viewing religion as consisting of an unproven belief in a personal God. “As a physicist,” one wrote, “I have to accept the possibility of existence of anything that can’t be disproved (yet).” Another: “I am an agnostic…there is insufficient evidence but the probability is very low.” Still another: “Never rule out anything until proved otherwise, however unlikely.” These agnostics regarded belief in a personal God as akin to belief in the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot or UFOs. If God is proven to exist, this may call for some behaviour modification — but until then, we are fine as we are.

In the upper-right quadrant, I assigned respondents who viewed science as belief in a set of neutral facts, and religion as an approach or stance towards the world. These people viewed religion as not consisting of beliefs — not even in a “divine administrator” — but about how we live and our principles for leading a better life, as exemplified perhaps by Buddhists, Quakers and Unitarians. Many respondents with this view of religion saw it as posing no threat to science; indeed, several cited “organized religion”, rather than religion per se, as what conflicts with science.

Others in this quadrant saw religious approaches as dangerous, as a social pestilence or plague — “the root of earthly conflicts” — while still others revealed a Marxist-like conception of religion as the opiate of the masses. “Religion has no place in science,” commented one reader, “but in practice it does have a place in human society since the masses need some sort of moral guidance that science can not supply (and shouldn’t).” Religion helps people “to develop a conscience and provides an otherwise absent comfort”, claimed another, and another said that “the masses need religion but scientists should know better”.

In the lower-left quadrant, I put respondents who saw religion as consisting of beliefs, but who saw science not as having to do with beliefs in particular theories or results — these change! — but as an approach to generating beliefs. Scientists cannot avoid inheriting some beliefs about the world, but they probe these beliefs with all available resources, and some ways of probing are better than others. Members of this group often saw science as a progressive worldview as comprehensive as religion, for inquiry is a supreme value, truth is sought in a public and objective process, and no belief is unchallengeable. Those in this quadrant tended to see science as more profound than religion. “Science is my religion,” one person wrote.

The critical point

I would assign myself — and a handful of other respondents — to the lower-right quadrant, viewing both science and religion as consisting more of approaches to the world than of sets of beliefs about it. Humans inherit fragments of knowledge about nature, and scientific inquiry is the response to the feeling that it is worth knowing more. Humans also inherit imperfect patterns of behaviour, and a religious life is the response to the feeling that we can “live better” than we do.

But it is a messy subject, for most adults know that there are better and worse ways of living. Yet in reaction to the perceived excesses and hypocrisies of organized religion, many people name that desire to live better as being “spiritual”, “humanistic” or even “secular humanistic” — reserving the term “religious” for organized schemes to live better that they themselves deem deluded or impractical.

What is fascinating about this question in the Physics World survey are not the statistics but the many different conceptions of science and religion that lie behind them.

Readers’ views

Responses to the question “Which of the following reflects your views on science and religion?”, which appeared in Physics World’s 20th-anniversary survey of October 2008. A total of 505 readers replied.

• I am an atheist who sees no place at all for religion in the universe — 114 responses (22.6%)
• I am a non-believer, but I think religion and science can coexist because they each deal with separate aspects of the universe — 153 responses (30.3%)
• I am a religious person who thinks science and religion can coexist because they each deal with separate aspects of the universe — 81 responses (16.0%)
• I am a religious person who thinks that science and religion are different ways of looking at the same thing. My faith enhances my appreciation of science — 91 responses (18.0%)
• Other — 66 responses (13.1%)