Monday, August 18, 2008

Twenty Percent of Doctors and Health Workers Say God Can Reverse Hopeless Cases

The AP and MSNBC are reporting on a survey to appear in Archives of Surgery that shows surprising numbers of people believe that God may trump a doctor's terminal prognosis (click here). According to the survey, 57% of adults believe that said God's intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. Perhaps more surprising, nearly 20 percent of doctors and other medical workers said God could reverse a hopeless outcome.


3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are interesting statistics about which academics of various disciplines are theists. I can't find the source but my recollection is something like this.

Physicists are very likely to believe in God, while biologists are among the least likely of scientists. Philosophers used to be theists only rarely, but these days it's very common. Art historians are quite rarely theists. Professors of religious studies are rarely believers.

Mon Aug 18, 09:43:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger S and C said...

Interesting. It rings a bell with me, except I wonder what the deal is with the art historians? Any thoughts? ---SLC

Tue Aug 19, 08:11:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cultural relativism is very strongly correlated with non-theism. Since art history tends to be overrun with cultural relativism, I think that's the reason.

I once got to be in the room while there was a conversation between an art historian and a philosopher of aesthetics. It was like watching a rooster fight.

Tue Aug 26, 06:51:00 PM GMT-5  

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