So, why do people who study science and people who believe in science also believe in religion? The conclusion of sociology and religious philosophy survey shows that in the total population of the world, there are far more people who believe in religion than those who don't. This is not surprising, because people can find their own needs from religion, at least spiritual comfort. However, a recent survey published by Scientific American magazine shows that about 40% of scientists in the United States are religious people, and the number of scientists in other western countries is similar. No one has investigated how many scientists in China are religious. It is estimated that about 5% of scientists are religious people. As we all know, some top scientists in the world, such as Newton, Kepler, Einstein, etc., eventually became followers of God to varying degrees, and their status as world-class scientists has not been shaken. So, will religion and science be harmoniously unified into one person? Religion has existed since the birth of mankind, but no one can tell how old it is. Moreover, religion is very popular, and no one can deny that there is no period in human history, and there is no nation in the world without religion. Therefore, since the birth of mankind, religion has influenced the thoughts and behaviors of millions of people from beginning to end, thus affecting the development of society. Doing good and finding a sense of belonging to the soul have become the two main reasons for the prevalence of religion. Therefore, the religious beliefs of scientists, like the religious beliefs of ordinary people, all contain the idea of doing good, because no matter what religion (except cults) generally has the doctrine of persuading people to do good, but today this idea of doing good has new contents and manifestations, which is unbelievable. For example, whether in western society or eastern society, ordinary engineers and technicians or people engaged in cultural work, especially white-collar workers, are now circulating such concepts and rules. If you want to find a job and win the trust of others, you must believe in something. Because most religious people have fears, they will pursue good deeds according to their religious beliefs. Such employees are also easier to manage, and the company is certainly willing to hire such people. On the other hand, the competition in social life is extremely cruel, the living environment is getting worse and worse, the living space is getting narrower and narrower, and interpersonal relationships are becoming extremely complicated, which will cause unbearable burdens to people's minds. Therefore, the flow of people is divided into two aspects, one is to seek psychological counseling and treatment, the other is to seek spiritual respite and short-term peace and join the arms of religion. The temporary substitutes that science can't explain, besides having the same emotional and spiritual needs as ordinary people and being influenced by religion, the essence of scientific research and work is to discover and create truth, goodness and beauty, and these two phenomena are bound to be linked with goodness, so it seems logical for some researchers to believe in religion when the concept of doing good is combined with religion. Regarding the religious belief of scientists, Nobel Prize winner Yang Zhenning once told an interesting joke to the effect that physics is one of the representatives of experimental science. Physics, that is, problems that science can't solve, can only be solved by philosophy, and philosophy can't give the answer to the question, so it depends on religion. This shows the foundation of religion among the public and scientists. Just as myths and legends are the art of human childhood, people can't understand or control many things, so they can only imagine that some people beyond their abilities are controlling things that people can't understand for the time being. Every nation will produce colorful myths on the basis of childhood and religion, such as the ancient Greek and Roman myths, the ancient China myth Shan Hai Jing, and the Arabian myth Arabian Nights. It can be considered that human's understanding of nature and society is still very shallow and extremely limited, so many problems can't be explained clearly by current science, but some people have to turn to religion under the circumstances that they can't explain at present. An obvious example is the theory of evolution. Although the theory of evolution explains the principles of organism from low level to high level, life from single cell to multi-cell, natural selection of species' survival, and utilization of biological functions, the specific explanation of how people changed from apes to people, or how the initial life came into being, is vague, because scientific research has not obtained enough first-hand information to explain the detailed process and principle of this biological evolution. At present, the theory that can best explain how life comes into being is the BIGBANG theory based on experiments, that is, when planets outside the earth hit the earth, life comes into being and develops, from low molecules to polymers, from inorganic substances to organic substances, from single cells to multi-cells, and from single genes to multi-genes. But so far, no scientific experiment can discover or simulate how organisms evolved into different nature, such as different phylum, family, genus and species. Moreover, how apes evolved into humans and from what creatures still need a lot of long-term research to clarify. According to the results of genetic research, some scientists think that monkeys come from pigs, some from chickens and some from whales. Some researchers think that people evolved not from monkeys, but from dolphins. Also, even if we think that the Big Bang gave birth to the first organic life, we still don't know how the "Big Bang" first gave birth to the essential element of life-carbon, how it was synthesized into organic matter, and what the exact conditions of life were. Moreover, according to an essential feature of science-scientific conclusions can be repeated in the same and similar situations, but today, no scientist can re-interpret the process and result of life. Therefore, creationists challenged: "We have not witnessed the birth of life on earth. So any statement about the origin of life is just a theory, not a fact. " In the United States, Alabama passed a law in 1995, requiring all public schools to write this sentence on the title page of biology textbooks. These conditions will inevitably affect researchers' belief and scientific understanding of evolution, and of course, they can also better influence the thinking of the general public. However, scientists also have a tit-for-tat clever rebuttal to the above problems. When some scientists' past research results or conclusions are outdated and wrong in the face of new research results and conclusions, the collapse of spiritual home and conversion to religion will also affect scientists' spiritual beliefs and attitudes towards life. They may have three attitudes: one is to try to accept and learn new things; Second, refusing to accept new theories and ideas, killing yourself in your own spiritual home or remembering the lost spiritual home; The third is to convert to religion, believing that only God and "God" can solve problems that scientific research cannot solve. There are many scientists who hold the first attitude, and the most typical one is the German mathematician Minkowski (1864- 1909). After Einstein's theory of relativity appeared, some scientists felt that the classic buildings of physics, chemistry and other disciplines established on the basis of the original Newton's principle and lavoisier's principle began to shake, and also shook their spiritual home. However, Minkowski welcomed Einstein's theory of relativity with joy. When 1908 was seriously ill, he said, "What a pity! I will die when the theory of relativity is developing vigorously!" This also shows his acceptance, accommodation and support for the new scientific theory. But other scientists took the opposite attitude. Boltzmann, a famous Austrian physicist, committed suicide alone in the forest in the summer of 1906, Drude, a German scientist, also committed suicide in the summer of 1906, and P Erenfest, a theoretical physicist in the Netherlands and Einstein's best friend, committed suicide in 1933. Lorenz, a Dutch theoretical physicist who won the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics, explained this in a sideways way: "Today, many people put forward completely opposite opinions to what he said yesterday. In this period, there is no standard for truth, and I don't know what science is. I regret that I didn't die five years before these contradictions appeared. " Einstein made a clear explanation when he mourned Allen feaster. He said, "In recent years, this situation has worsened, because theoretical physics has recently experienced a strange storm-like development. It is always difficult to learn and tell what a person can't fully accept in his heart. This is even more difficult for an honest and frank person who thinks that clarity means everything. Besides, people over 500 will always encounter more and more difficulties in adapting to new ideas. I don't know how many readers can fully appreciate the tragedy after reading these lines. However, it was mainly this that made him commit suicide. " The last scientist has no choice but to convert to religion when his own research and everyone's research can't satisfactorily explain a certain problem in the face of a new theory. Darwin waited patiently for 20 years for various reasons before publishing his theory of evolution. One of the important reasons is that he feels that his theory can't completely deny the creationism in many places, and his theory is not perfect in many places, so he can't fully explain the evolution process of human beings and creatures with his own efforts and those of future generations. This is why his theory of evolution, which changed the process of human thinking and behavior, did not win the Nobel Prize. According to the rules of the Nobel Prize Committee, only one invention, discovery or improvement is awarded, and theoretical innovation is not judged unless the theory is verified by facts. Darwin in his later years lamented deeply and helplessly that the theory of evolution is too profound for human intelligence, and it is too difficult to explain it completely and satisfactorily. He made a helpless remark that all of us will chew carefully today and even in the future: a dog may also guess Newton's mind. Let everyone hope and believe everything he can. Of course, the above ambiguous words are not enough to prove that Einstein and Darwin are religious, but Newton turned to God when he could not explain his theory scientifically and satisfactorily. He couldn't explain how the initial motion of the planets came into being, so under the influence of Aristotle's philosophy, all the planets started to move from rest under the action of the first driving force. As we all know, the so-called first driving force refers to "God". Newton's last belief in religion is a typical process from the unexplained problems in physics (science) to philosophy and then to religion to find the answers. All these inevitably lead us to the following conclusion: when science is greatly developed and the scientific spirit is widely rooted in people's hearts, the religious beliefs of scientists and the public will decrease. (Wang Duanliang is extracted from the third issue of Knowledge Encyclopedia in 2004)