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Astronomers

Started by bstratton, 01/07/2003 04:55AM
Posted 01/07/2003 04:55AM Opening Post
I have this idea that there is a higher proportion of professional astronomers that are Creationists instead of evolutionists, compared to professionals in the other science fields .

I am ,I guess basing it mostly on the open mindessness for the Creation theory I see in Sky and Telescope, and Astronomy magazines, and the field in general.

Do you think this is true, and why this field?

Brien
Posted 01/07/2003 10:07AM #1
I'm not sure about if it is true or not but I will say that all creationists are not created equal. I have an uncle who believes in creation and that it took literaly six days to create the universe. I've met others who are creationists but think that when God said "Let there be light" the big bang occured. The story of creation was explained to the prophet types in terms they could understand.

I think a professional astronomer would have trouble understanding God's motive in going to all that effort to create this universe in six days. A universe that under scrutiny appears billions of years old. Where light was created in mid-stream millions of years from its source. A universe with 3 degrees kelvin of background radiation for no purpose but to fool us. To me this reduces God to some kind of trickster like Loki.

I'd rather think that God created a particle that exploded, causing the birth of our universe. In this case I could see where an astronomer might think that anything so beautiful and complex had to be created.

Mark
Posted 01/11/2003 03:59AM #2
Brien…

A couple of years ago I read an article about a similar topic: religion among professional scientists. From what I recall (and I'm past 40, so I don't recall much!), astronomy is the branch of science with the highest percentage of professionals considering themselves religious, and biology (no surprise) has the lowest percentage. I think the author queried several thousand professional scientists. There was a variety of religions represented. Since some religions do not include a belief in creationism, the article may not answer your exact question.

I wish I could remember where I read the article. Scientific American may have had a summary of it. Anyway, an internet search might turn up something (it usually does).

Fred