The problem is that the survey of US scientists (at <http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html>) and the ARIS don't ask the same questions and that "One Nation, Under God? - U.S. Religious Demographic Information" (American Demographics, <http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2002_Jan_1/ai_82264532>, 1. Jan. 2002) that I quoted omits those who answered "somewhat religious" in the ARIS when discussion race and religious/secular outlooks, perhaps because it is not at all clear what it means to be "somewhat religious" -- it could very well include those who are thinking like Joanna and Dennis, i.e. those who are practically secular but don't want to consider themselves as merely "secular" or "somewhat secular." So, the breakdown above is mainly useful for looking at relative religiosity of different races only.
>also, from above: if i was to remove the chinese immigrants (since,
>wildly theorizing, they may be irreligious due to lack of organized
>religion in their country of origin), then i get about 36% of asian
>americans considering themselves religious, bringing it on par with
>white americans. i admit this is a bit of a stretch. i am quite
>puzzled by the data, since my hunch is that asian indians from
>india/pakistan/sri-lanka/bangladesh (i would guess the the 1.9
>million above + a bit more) are predominantly religious.
<snip>
>i do not have any sort of hard evidence. but neither have i seen
>evidence to contradict my experience that indians (scientists or
>otherwise) -- indian americans -- are as religious and perhaps more
>so, than white americans.
Your remarks on Indian-Americans made me curious, so I looked for surveys on Asian-Americans and religion that break data down by foreign-born Asian-Americans' countries of origin and native-born Asian-Americans' ancestral backgrounds, but apparently such surveys don't exist yet. I hope some scholars in sociology/ethnic studies/religion studies/etc. will conduct research on this topic. At least there are two readers here who would be interested. :-> My hypothesis is that the least religious Asian-Americans are Japanese-Americans and Chinese-Americans and the most religious ones are Filipino-Americans, Korean-Americans, and Vietnamese-Americans, with Asian-Americans who were born in or whose families and ancestors came from the subcontinent falling somewhere in-between.
Now, as I look into the demographics of US scientists, at least a small part of increasing secularization of US scientists (cf. <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050606/011942.html>) must be due to increases in proportions of the foreign born and US minorities (mainly Asian-Americans) among them. Richard B. Freeman and Emily Jin show a radical change in demographics of US scientists since the 1960s: "In 1966, 71% of PhD graduates were US-born white males;1 6% were females; less than 3% were US born minorities; and 21% were foreign born students. In 2000, 30% of PhD graduates were US-born white males; 26% were US born females, 9% were US minorities; and 41% were foreign-born" ("Where Do New US-Trained Science-Engineering PhDs Come From?" <http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/conf/chericonf2003/chericonf2003_03.pdf>, 15 Feb. 2003). According to the National Science Board, "in science and engineering occupations, the foreign born accounted for roughly 17 percent of workers with bachelor's degrees, 29 percent of those with master's degrees, and 38 percent of those with doctorates in 2000" ("Relinquishing Excellence: Closing the Door to Foreign Professionals Undermines the U.S. Economy," <http://www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2004_relinquishingexcellence.asp>, May 2004).
>[lbo-talk] Can Liberal Faiths Compete with Conservative Faiths? (An
>Appeal to Ignorance)
>Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
>Wed Jun 15 09:01:27 PDT 2005
<snip>
>Lance: >You didn't post complete numbers from the chart. Quakers
>have gone from 67,000 to 217,000. UU's have gone from 502,000 to
>629,000. ...<
>
>I can imagine a slogan: "Build a UU Majority!"
>
>(an excommunicated Unitarian ;-))
This is a bit old, but in case someone missed it. . . .
"Unitarian Jihad": <http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/08/DDG27BCFLG1.DTL> "Unitarian Jihad Name Generator": <http://homepage.mac.com/whump/ujname.html> "The First Reformed Unitarian Jihad Name Generator": <http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/jihad>
BTW, a new eruption of a 9/11 conspiracy theory thread finally returns me to the subject line: the importance of avoiding appeal to ignorance: <http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html>. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>