Can someone love science and still believe in God?

How many scientists believe in God?

The best-known numbers come from the Pew Research Center. In May and June 2009, Pew surveyed members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a large scientific society whose members work in every field. Of those scientists, 33% said they believe in God and 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. Another 41% believe in neither. In a 2006 Pew survey of the general public, by comparison, 83% of Americans said they believed in God and only 4% believed in neither.

So the scientists were much less religious than other Americans. Nearly half of them (48%) had no religious affiliation, compared with 17% of the public. Yet about half still believed in God or a higher power. Chemists were more likely to believe in God (41%) than scientists in the other major fields, and younger scientists were more likely to believe than older ones. Pew notes that AAAS members may not represent all U.S. scientists. The survey is also from 2009, so today’s numbers may differ.

The split is old. Pew notes that in 1914, the psychologist James Leuba asked about 1,000 U.S. scientists about God. 42% said they believed in a personal God and 42% said they did not. When the historian Edward Larson repeated the survey in 1996, the results were similar: 40% believed and 45% did not.

Outside the U.S., the picture shifts again. A team led by the social scientist Elaine Howard Ecklund at Rice University surveyed 9,422 biologists and physicists in eight regions: France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Taiwan, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S. In India, Italy, Taiwan and Turkey, more than half of the scientists called themselves religious. In Hong Kong, 39% of scientists did, compared with 20% of the general public there. And in every region, only a minority of scientists saw science and religion as in conflict: 32% in the U.K. and 29% in the U.S.

What do scientists of faith and of no faith say?

Numbers are easier to picture with people. Francis Collins is a physician and geneticist who led the Human Genome Project to its completion in 2003. He is also a Christian, and in 2006 he wrote a bestselling book about faith and science, The Language of God. When President Barack Obama chose him in 2009 to lead the National Institutes of Health, Pew reports, some scientists and commentators publicly asked whether his devout faith should rule him out. The U.S. Senate confirmed him unanimously on August 7, 2009. He won the Templeton Prize in 2020, and the prize’s page quotes him saying that in 43 years as a Christian he had never met a clash between science and faith that could not be reconciled.

Now look at a single Nobel Prize. In 1979, three physicists shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for a theory that unites two of nature’s basic forces, electromagnetism and the weak force. One winner was Abdus Salam, born in 1926 in what is now Pakistan. At the Nobel banquet, he quoted the Quran and said that, for physicists, “the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited.”

Another winner was Steven Weinberg, a longtime professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He was an atheist, and he was often asked about it in interviews. He once told PBS that if science finds no purpose built into the universe, people can still give it one through how they live, through love, discovery and art. Same theory, same prize, and two very different answers about God.

What is the strongest objection?

First, how do believing scientists fit the two together? One common answer rests on a working rule called methodological naturalism. Science explains things only with natural causes and natural laws. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains, this rule is about how science is done. It makes no statement about whether anything supernatural exists. A believer and an atheist can both follow it at the lab bench.

The strongest objection is that this neat split does not always hold. Religions do make some claims about events in the world. The Stanford Encyclopedia gives two examples: that Jesus appeared after his death, and that the early Hebrews passed through the parted waters of the Red Sea. Claims about events cannot simply be walled off from evidence. The National Academies note that science has already called some religious beliefs into question, such as the ideas that the Earth was created very recently and that the Sun goes around the Earth. And some philosophers still argue that science and religion really are in conflict.

Believers have replies. The National Academies note that many religious groups have issued statements accepting evolution, and that the groups that reject it tend to read their texts in a strictly literal way. The philosopher Alvin Plantinga goes further. He argues that the real conflict is not between science and religion, but between science and naturalism, the belief that nature is all there is. Careful thinkers stand on both sides. The Stanford Encyclopedia calls the relationship between religion and science a subject of continued debate in philosophy and theology.

What do people often get wrong?

“Scientists are all atheists.” The surveys above show that this is not so. In Pew’s 2009 survey, about half of the scientists believed in God or a higher power.

“Religious people see science as the enemy.” Pew’s 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study, a survey of 36,908 U.S. adults, found Americans split: 50% said science and religion are mostly in conflict, and 47% said they are mostly compatible. But the more religious people were, the more likely they were to call the two compatible. Among highly religious Americans, 35% saw conflict, compared with 73% of those with low religious engagement. About two-thirds of U.S. Muslims and 74% of Latter-day Saints called science and religion mostly compatible.

“If people see a war, believers must feel torn.” In a 2014 Pew survey, 59% of Americans said science and religion are often in conflict. Yet only 30% said their own religious beliefs conflicted with science, and 68% said they did not. Among those who did feel a conflict, the most common topic was the creation of the universe, including evolution (36%).

“Science has settled the God question.” Neither side can claim this. The National Academies say supernatural beings are not part of nature, so science cannot investigate them.

Where can people of faith and skeptics agree?

• Evidence decides questions about nature. The National Academies explain that when careful observations conflict with a scientific explanation, the explanation must eventually change or be dropped. Believing and nonbelieving scientists both work by that rule.
• A “God of the gaps” helps no one. The National Academies warn that pinning whatever science cannot yet explain on God weakens both science and religion. Theologians have made a related point: as science fills a gap, faith built on that gap can be undermined.
• Wonder is shared. Salam spoke of wonder that grows the deeper we look. Weinberg spoke of meaning found in love, discovery and art. Many readers, whatever they believe, will recognize both feelings.
• Good science has room for both. A devout Christian was confirmed unanimously to lead the National Institutes of Health. An atheist shared a Nobel Prize with a man who quoted scripture at the banquet.

How can you check this yourself?

• Read the exact question. Pew’s 2009 survey asked separately about God and about a universal spirit or higher power. Different wording gives different numbers.
• Check who was surveyed. Pew itself notes that AAAS members may not represent all U.S. scientists, and the Ecklund study covered only biologists and physicists. A survey of one group does not speak for everyone.
• Check the date. Pew’s survey of scientists is from 2009. Beliefs can shift over time.
• Read the National Academies’ own words. The National Academies’ evolution resources page answers “Does science disprove religion?” in a short question-and-answer section.
• Ask someone. If you know a scientist, ask how they think about faith. You may hear an answer you did not expect, from either side.

The answer stays the same after all this detail. Yes, people can love science and believe in God, and many do. Many others love science and do not believe. Whether God exists is a question science cannot settle.