• Question: are you Religious and if you are what religion do you follow and also does this effect your work?

    Asked by Unicorn lady333 to Alex, Ali, Kerry, Philip, Theo on 12 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Garmaddon1, 635eura27, 534eura27.
    • Photo: Kerry O'Shea

      Kerry O'Shea answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I consider myself to be agnostic, because there is no definitive evidence either for or against the existence of God. I feel that this fits in quite well with being a scientist, given that science is based on gathering evidence to support a hypothesis or theory.

    • Photo: Alison Thomson

      Alison Thomson answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I’m also agnostic, and I agree with Kerry – it’s all about gathering evidence to support a hypothesis. I’ve I’m given solid evidence then I would be inclined to change my opinion in favour of that hypothesis.

    • Photo: Theo Laftsoglou

      Theo Laftsoglou answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Science is a quest for the absolute truth and every scientist that has ever been has contributed to it, which has allowed humanity as a whole to have progressed to where it is now. So, since I’m not religious and in fact I’m an atheist, it doesn’t affect my work!

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      No, I am not religious; I actually define myself a profoundly atheist. That is, I have had plenty of time and opportunity to examine the question and always come up with the same answer, which is best expressed by the Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman:

      “It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil – which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.”

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