I agree with curious layman. If you are a believer or not, it has nothing to do with rather you a scientist or not.

It could be that more Nobel winners are believers because they are trying to change the world. It is the Nobel Peace prize, after all.

The peace prize is just one type. Most scientists win prizes relevant to their field 

Has anyone ruled out the usual confounding variable that people overlook in doing correlations?

Many nobel prizes were awarded quite a long time ago.

Acknowledged atheism was rarer in the past.
.

If you looked at people who won awards for playing the serpent, a disproportionate (by today's standards) number of them would be theists simply because it's a medieval instrument and most players were around before atheism was common.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(instrument)

 

I am studying logic at the moment so correct me if I am wrong.

This seems like an "affirming the consequent" fallacy. 

Having the given logical structure

Premise -> Only 10% of the Nobel Prize winners are atheist

Premise -> A Nobel Prize Winner has been announced

Premise -> There is a 90% chance that a Nobel Prize winner is not an atheist ( not premise 1 ( P(not A) = 1 - P(A) ) )

Premise -> Those who are Nobel Prize winners are smart

Conclusion -> There is a high chance that the next Nobel Prize Winner will not be atheist

(maybe conclusion 2) -> If there is a high change that a Nobel Prize Winner is not atheist and a Nobel Prize 

winner is smart, then someone who is not an atheist is smart.

( this does not feel right and it feels like I am missing a large amount of "enthymemes" as the book calls them. )

 

 Maybe there is quite a few logical structures can be extracted from this original statement, however I am unsure.

 

p.s. I am not sure If you can have more than one conclusion with multiple premises 

Of course I could be wrong, where the thread initiator could simply be stating something that they have learned, If this is the case then apologies.

 

On 1/18/2020 at 2:42 PM, Daniel Wilson said:

Hi all,

I was very surprised to discover that only 10% of the Nobel prize winners are atheist:

[...]

How do you explain this?
 

Easy. If what the survey says is actually true --see below:

Analogy --not to be taken literally:

Go to a prison and ask all convicts for murder crimes whether they're guilty or not. You end up with a list of: 10 % say they did; 65 % say didn't and 25 % don't remember.

Conclusion: Only 10 % of convicts for murder crimes actually did commit a crime.

 Explanation: In the words of Daniel Dennett; American Philosopher and scientist, outstanding at exposing many religious (and other) logical fallacies IMO, "they believe in believing in God." I.e.: They live in a social environment in which it would be far more costly for them to declare themselves atheists than to keep on pretending. Dennett, e.g., takes no prisoners when it comes to theologians. They all fall --willingly or not-- in the use/mention fallacy: "A history of God," "God in our society," etc. Religion is absolutely rife with fallacies, half-truths, and conveniently spun arguments and data. Besides, as iNow says,

On 1/18/2020 at 2:54 PM, iNow said:

I question the validity of the source data. Is sharing ones religious affiliation / nonbelief in an open and honest way prerequisite to receiving the award? No, it’s not, so most of these “data” underlying the claim of “only 10%” are surely better classified as unsourced assumptions. You may as well be asking why only 10% of Nobel winners like mozzarella. 

.

On 2/26/2020 at 11:21 PM, John Cuthber said:

Has anyone ruled out the usual confounding variable that people overlook in doing correlations?

Many nobel prizes were awarded quite a long time ago.

Acknowledged atheism was rarer in the past.
.

If you looked at people who won awards for playing the serpent, a disproportionate (by today's standards) number of them would be theists simply because it's a medieval instrument and most players were around before atheism was common.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(instrument)

 

Excellent point.

Edited May 13, 20205 yr by joigus
changed one word and cut quote

33 minutes ago, joigus said:

Excellent point.

Agreed. My 5 month ago self thanks you

On 1/18/2020 at 7:42 AM, Daniel Wilson said:

Hi all,

I was very surprised to discover that only 10% of the Nobel prize winners are atheist:

1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Religion_of_Nobel_Prize_winners.png

2. https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=7237

3. https://www.quora.com/What-proportion-of-Nobel-prize-winners-are-atheist

4. https://www.johnlennox.org/resources/145/how-many-nobel-prize-winners

This info contradicts everything I've heard before, that there is a strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity.

For example:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xvILvxYbFA&feature=youtu.be&&t=1m45s

2. https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_militant_atheism#t-955695

3. https://www.psypost.org/2019/11/meta-analysis-of-83-studies-produces-very-strong-evidence-for-a-negative-relationship-between-intelligence-and-religiosity-54897

How do you explain this?
 

Religiousness doesn't correlate with higher intelligence worldwide

40 minutes ago, Jack Jectivus said:

Religiousness doesn't correlate with higher intelligence worldwide

What about religiosity?

On 1/18/2020 at 5:42 AM, Daniel Wilson said:

Hi all,

I was very surprised to discover that only 10% of the Nobel prize winners are atheist:

1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Religion_of_Nobel_Prize_winners.png

2. https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=7237

3. https://www.quora.com/What-proportion-of-Nobel-prize-winners-are-atheist

4. https://www.johnlennox.org/resources/145/how-many-nobel-prize-winners

This info contradicts everything I've heard before, that there is a strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity.

For example:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xvILvxYbFA&feature=youtu.be&&t=1m45s

2. https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_militant_atheism#t-955695

3. https://www.psypost.org/2019/11/meta-analysis-of-83-studies-produces-very-strong-evidence-for-a-negative-relationship-between-intelligence-and-religiosity-54897

How do you explain this?
 

Does this statistic even matter?

16 minutes ago, Sohan Lalwani said:

Does this statistic even matter?

Not enough for you to resurrect a 5 year old thread, just to dismiss it.

21 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Not enough for you to resurrect a 5 year old thread, just to dismiss it.

Ok