You ever read how they go at each other? Since Gould died it’s been pretty one sided, though some of Dawkins’ cultists are still sniping at him. I first became suspicious of Dawkins through his determinism and adaptationism, I was always on the side that said that rigid view of things was almost certainly not right due to the enormous complexity of evolution and the enormously long period it covered. I was also scandalized at how much stuff first the sociobiologists and then the evolutionary biologists were in the habit of just making up out of no evidence at all. Anything that suited their ends was just assumed to have been there, even if there was no fossil record or even neurological location known.

Carolyn Murphy said that it didn’t trouble her that the understanding of morality evolving and developing didn’t trouble her any more than the understanding of chemistry developing over time did. I’m not sure I accept that though it’s interesing to think about.

There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today.

There is no one single theory of God either, as proponents of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity (to name just three of the world’s religions) continue to feud today with each other, Of course there are feuds within as well as between each of those groups. In at least some cases the word “feud” is not to be taken merely figuratively.

Dorian de Wind

As to the figures they come up with? It doesn’t matter what anyones opinion on the issue is, at least as far as the question of material fundamentalism is concerned. My point is that the opinion isn’t based in science, though it’s probably a reflection of the present day culture of science. That’s not a big surprise since science is exclusively concerned with the physical universe and it’s heavily weighted towards those who hold the ideologies of materialism, positivism, and even the absurd superstition of scientism. That does cause problems for some science, especially in the behavioral and cognitive areas through over confidence in the ideological basis of the scientists assumptions (and an absurd confidence in the development of these very young fields studying what is some of the most complex and unobservable phenomena yet attempted).

All in all, it doesn’t bother me.

Anyway, here’s 3 links to surveys about what scientists believe, god-wise. I agree that a survey about a science matter is useless, since majority opinion in science means little to nothing. But a survey about belief does tell you something. These links are all about a survey, but each may have (just skimmed them again for the first time in a while) varying info about the survey. As I mentioned, I don’t think it will actually give you the info you want, and if you don’t believe that surveys can tell you anything, it puzzles me why you asked to see any. Seems pointless.

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My personal experience talking with people with some knowledge of science is that even those who lean towards materialism have positions that are too complex and varied to show up in any but the most expensive polls and I’m guessing the results would show that there was no “majority” opinion on the overly broad questions surrounding materialist orthodoxy. I’ve also noticed that when an intelligent person is discussing these issues that the phrase “I don’t know” or “no one knows” crops up all through the discussion. The problem I’ve got with dogmatic materialists is that their opinion is that they do know and that everyone should agree with them because they are absolutely certain that they’ve got the truth. Well, that’s not science, it’s opinion AND it’s exactly the same thing as Biblican fundamentalism, just without a God. It’s my experience that Dawkins or Kurtz or some other big name materialist takes the place of one. Used to be Russell, clearly materilist fundamentalism has seen better days.