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Miracle Or Selection Bias?
R. Alex Whitlock
The Business Wire cites a study by HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of The Jewish Theological Seminary with what might be considered sensational results:
A national survey of 1,100 physicians, conducted by HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City over the past weekend, found that 74% of doctors believe that miracles have occurred in the past and 73% believe that can occur today.
The poll also indicated that American physicians are surprisingly religious, with 72% indicating they believe that religion provides a reliable and necessary guide to life.
Fascinating, but it might be undermined by the next paragraph:
Those surveyed represent physicians from Christian (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox Christian and other), Jewish (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular) Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions.
Isn't there one "tradition" missing here? Atheism, for instance. If they surveyed doctors that fit within the religious traditions described above then it stands to reason that a majority would believe in the metaphysical. If, on the other hand, they were included and the article doesn't consider atheism a "religious tradition" in the sense that the others are, they still should find a way to put that in there, I'd think.
Even if true, however, it may not be altogether surprising. As the saying goes "there are no atheists in the trenches." That's a broad overgeneralization, of course, but it stands to reason that those that are either personally in danger (such as soldiers) or are surrounded by people in danger (as is the case with doctors) that many would need faith in some higher being in order to, among other things, stay sane.
Observations
Hello,
I stumbled across your site while googling around about this survey. First of all, I think your point about having an atheist category is vlid to a degree. I haven't been able to find the survey on line. Perhaps they had such a category but it wasn't mentioned explicitly in the news release. Also, with some of the categories there were certainly some atheist as a significant number of Reform Jews and others actually consider themselves atheist with the Reform Jewish title (for example) being more of an ethnic identity. I agree less with your point about the trenches. If anything, I would expect doctors to tend to have an exagerated belief in thier own abilities. I think when doctors say they believe in miracles they are simply reporting what they've seen with thier own eyes.
Michael,
Since you're new to the site (hope you return!), I should let you know that I am not an atheist or an advocate for atheism. If I had to guess, I'd say that there probably was an "atheist" category on the test and the article itself fumbled on the clarification. If not, however, I don't think that "reform jew" and such cut it since most of the atheists I know come from a Christian European heritage and by raw numbers, since those Catholic and Protestant heritaged folk outnumber those from Jewish heritage, I can't accept that as compensation for what is a pretty big oversite.
If you do make a discovery one way or the other, though, please let me know.
I'll try to stop back once in a while. Could be that the survey was done on the assumption that someone calling themselves an atheist would say that there are no miracles and therefore that category just wasn't a point of interest for the survey designers. We'll have to wait for more info.
Truth is, without clearly defining what the term "miracle" means, we can't attach too much significance to this. Many doctors might say that a recovery in a case were the mathematical odds of one (before the fact) were approaching 0% is a miracle. But that doesn't necessarily mean they attach "super-natural" significance to the recovery.
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