List of nonreligious Nobel laureates
List of self-identified nonreligious Nobel laureates
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This list of nonreligious Nobel laureates comprises laureates of the Nobel Prize who have self-identified as atheist, agnostic, freethinker, or otherwise nonreligious at some point in their lives.[2]
Many of these laureates earlier identified with a religion. In an estimate by Baruch Shalev, between 1901 and 2000, about 10.5% of all laureates, and 35% of those in literature, fall in this category.[1] According to the same estimate, between 1901 and 2000, atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers won 8.9% of the prizes in medicine, 7.1% in chemistry, 5.2% in economics, 4.7% in physics, and 3.6% in peace.[1] Alfred Nobel himself was an atheist later in life.[3]
Shalev's book lists many Jewish atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers as religiously Jewish. For example, Milton Friedman, Roald Hoffmann, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Élie Metchnikoff, and Rita Levi-Montalcini are listed as religiously Jewish; however, while they were ethnically and perhaps culturally Jewish, they did not believe in a God and self-identified as atheists.[1]
Physics
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Chemistry
More information Year, Laureate ...
| Year | Laureate | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1903 | Svante Arrhenius | [56] |
| 1997 | Paul D. Boyer | [57] |
| 1975 | John Cornforth | [58] |
| 1911 | Marie Curie | [2] |
| 1935 | Frédéric Joliot-Curie | [59] |
| 1935 | Irène Joliot-Curie | [60] |
| 1985 | Herbert A. Hauptman | [61] |
| 1981 | Roald Hoffmann | [62] |
| 1996 | Harold W. Kroto | [63] |
| 1987 | Jean-Marie Lehn | [64] |
| 1978 | Peter D. Mitchell | [65] |
| 1994 | George Andrew Olah | [66] |
| 1909 | Wilhelm Ostwald | [67] |
| 1954 | Linus Pauling | [68] |
| 1962 | Max Perutz | [69][70] |
| 1958 | Frederick Sanger | [71] |
| 2011 | Dan Shechtman | [72] |
| 2020 | Emmanuelle Charpentier | [73] |
| 2018 | George Smith | [74] |
| 1993 | Michael Smith | [75] |
| 1934 | Harold Urey | [76] |
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Physiology or Medicine
More information Year, Laureate ...
| Year | Laureate | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Julius Axelrod | [77] |
| 1914 | Robert Bárány | [78] |
| 1958 | George Beadle | [79] |
| 1989 | J. Michael Bishop | [citation needed] |
| 2002 | Sydney Brenner | [80] |
| 1962 | Francis Crick | [81][82][83][84][85] |
| 1974 | Christian de Duve | [86] |
| 1945 | Howard Florey | [87] |
| 1906 | Camillo Golgi | [88] |
| 1929 | Frederick Gowland Hopkins | [citation needed] |
| 1963 | Andrew Huxley | [89] |
| 1965 | François Jacob | [90] |
| 2003 | Paul Lauterbur | [91] |
| 1907 | Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran | [92] |
| 1986 | Rita Levi-Montalcini | [93] |
| 1960 | Sir Peter Medawar | [94] |
| 1908 | Élie Metchnikoff | [95] |
| 1965 | Jacques Monod | [96] |
| 1946 | Hermann Joseph Muller | [97] |
| 2001 | Paul Nurse | [98] |
| 1904 | Ivan Pavlov | [99] |
| 1993 | Richard J. Roberts | [100] |
| 2017 | Michael Rosbash | [101] |
| 2002 | John Sulston | [102][103] |
| 1937 | Albert Szent-Györgyi | [104] |
| 1973 | Nikolaas Tinbergen | [105] |
| 1967 | George Wald | [106] |
| 1962 | James Watson | [107] |
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Economics
More information Year, Laureate ...
| Year | Laureate | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Milton Friedman | [108] |
| 1994 | John Harsanyi | [109] |
| 1974 | Friedrich Hayek | [110] |
| 1994 | John Forbes Nash, Jr. | [111] |
| 1994 | Reinhard Selten | [112] |
| 1998 | Amartya Sen | |
| 1978 | Herbert A. Simon | [113] |
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Peace
More information Year, Laureate ...
| Year | Laureate | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1933 | Norman Angell | [114] |
| 1908 | Klas Pontus Arnoldson | [115]: 151 |
| 1990 | Mikhail Gorbachev | [116] |
| 1962 | Linus Pauling | [68] |
| 1995 | Joseph Rotblat | [117] |
| 1975 | Andrei Sakharov | [118][119][120] |
| 1986 | Elie Wiesel | [121] |
| 1973 | Lê Đức Thọ | [122] |
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Literature
More information Year, Laureate ...
| Year | Laureate | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Samuel Beckett | [123] |
| 1903 | Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson | [124] |
| 1957 | Albert Camus | [125] |
| 1997 | Dario Fo | [126] |
| 1932 | John Galsworthy | [127] |
| 1991 | Nadine Gordimer | [128] |
| 1971 | Pablo Neruda | [129] |
| 1936 | Eugene O'Neill | [115]: 125 [130] |
| 2005 | Harold Pinter | [131] |
| 1950 | Bertrand Russell | [132] |
| 1998 | José Saramago | [133] |
| 1964 | Jean-Paul Sartre | [134] |
| 1925 | George Bernard Shaw | [115]: 125 |
| 1986 | Wole Soyinka | [135][136] |
| 1962 | John Steinbeck | [137][138] |
| 1996 | Wisława Szymborska | [139] |
| 2018 | Olga Tokarczuk | [140] |
| 2000 | Gao Xingjian | [141] |
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See also
Notes
- Einstein used many labels to describe his religious views, including "agnostic",[17]: 216 "religious nonbeliever",[17]: 218 and a believer in "Spinoza's God."[17]: 204 He was an active participant in various humanist and Ethical Culture groups, including the First Humanist Society of New York and the Rationalist Association (UK).[18] He disliked labels like "atheist" and "pantheist".[19] See also Religious and philosophical views of Albert Einstein.
References
- Shalev, Baruch Aba (2003). "Religion of Nobel prize winners". 100 years of Nobel prizes. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. pp. 57–61. ISBN 978-81-269-0278-1.
- Kimball, John (2015). Physics Curiosities, Oddities, and Novelties. CRC Press. p. 323. ISBN 978-1-4665-7636-0.
- Evlanoff, Michael; Fluor, Marjorie (1969). Alfred Nobel: The Loneliest Millionaire. W. Ritchie Press. p. 88.
- Obituaries, T. (2019, March 12). Zhores Alferov, Nobel prize-winning scientist whose work helped pave the way for the Communications Revolution – Obituary. The Telegraph. Retrieved March 15, 2023
- "Geoffrey Hinton Receives Nobel Prize in Stockholm". University of Toronto. 2024. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
- Anderson, Philip W. (2011). More and different notes from a thoughtful curmudgeon. Singapore: World Scientific. p. 177. ISBN 978-981-4350-14-3.
We atheists can . . . argue that, with the modern revolution in attitudes toward homosexuals, we have become the only group that may not reveal itself in normal social discourse.
- Brian, Dennis (2008). The Voice of Genius: Conversations with Nobel Scientists and Other Luminaries. Basic Books. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-465-01139-1.
- Nye, Mary Jo (2008). "Blackett, Patrick Maynard Stuart". In Gillispie, Charles Coulston (ed.). Complete dictionary of scientific biography. Vol. 19. Detroit, Mich.: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 293. ISBN 978-0-684-31559-1.
The grandson of a vicar on his father's side, Blackett respected religious observances that were established social customs, but described himself as agnostic or atheist.
- Dean, Chris. "Nicolaas Bloembergen - Science Video Interview". Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 2020-05-10. "When asked about being religious, Bloembergen said No."
- Simmons, John (2000). "Niels Bohr and the atom 1885–1962". The scientific 100: a ranking of the most influential scientists, past and present. New York, N.Y.: Kensington Pub. Corp. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-8065-2139-8.
His mother was warm and intelligent, and his father, as Bohr himself later recalled, recognized "that something was expected of me." The family was not at all devout, and Bohr became an atheist...
- Peterson, Richard (2010). "The Copenhagen spirit of science and birth of the nuclear atom". In Stewart, Melville Y. (ed.). Science and religion in dialogue. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 416. ISBN 978-1-4443-1736-7.
... after a youth of confirming faith Bohr himself was a non-believer.
- Favrholdt, David (1994). "Niels Bohr and realism". In Faye, Jan; Folse, Henry J. (eds.). Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. p. 88. ISBN 978-94-015-8106-6.
Planck was religious and had a firm belief in God; Bohr was not, but his objection to Planck's view had no anti-religious motive.
- Maila L. Walter (1990). Science and Cultural Crisis: An Intellectual Biography of Percy Williams Bridgman (1882–1961). Stanford University Press. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-0-8047-1796-0.
Raymond Bridgman was extremely disappointed with his son's rejection of his religious views. Near the end of his life, however, he offered a conciliatory interpretation that allowed him to accept Percy's commitment to honesty and integrity as a moral equivalent to religion.
- Ray Monk (2013). Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center. Random House LLC. ISBN 978-0-385-50413-3.
In many ways they were opposites; Kemble, the theorist, was a devout Christian, while Bridgman, the experimentalist, was a strident atheist.
- Brown, Andrew (1997). The neutron and the bomb: a biography of Sir James Chadwick (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 362. ISBN 978-0-19-853992-6.
He was a lifelong atheist and felt no need to develop religious faith as he approached the end...
- Dukas, Helen; Hoffmann, Banesh, eds. (1989). Albert Einstein, the human side: new glimpses from his archives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-691-02368-7.
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
- Calaprice, Alice, ed. (2000). The expanded quotable Einstein (New ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-07021-6.
- Dowbiggin, Ian (2003). A merciful end the Euthanasia movement in modern America. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-19-803515-2.
- Frankenberry, Nancy K. (2008). The faith of scientists in their own words. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-691-13487-1.
- Feynman, Richard P. (2011). Leighton, Ralph (ed.). "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-393-07981-4.
The elders began getting nervous, because I was an avowed atheist by that time
- Nachmansohn, David (1979). German-Jewish pioneers in science, 1900–1933. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-387-90402-3.
As he said, science was his God and nature his religion. He did not insist that his daughters attend religious instruction classes (Religionsunterricht) in school. But he was very proud of his Jewish heritage..
- Wouk, Herman (2010). The language God talks on science and religion (1st ed.). New York, NY: Little, Brown and Co. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-316-09675-1.
- Dean, Chris. "Riccardo Giacconi - Science Video Interview". Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: When asked about being religious, Giacconi said "No". Giacconi also said that he doesn't believe in an afterlife, apart from just a rearrangement of molecules and atoms of your body. He also expressed his idea that irrational thinking is very dangerous and wished that scientists should inject more rationality in the world.
- Dean, Chris. "Ivar Giaever - Science Video Interview". Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: Interviewer: "Are you religious?" Giaver: "Absolutely not. [...] I'm not religious and I don't like religion. I think religion is to blame for a lot of the ills in this world."
- Vitaly Ginzburg (2003). "Vitaly L. Ginzburg – Autobiography". Nobelprize.org, The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
I am an atheist, that is, I think nothing exists except and beyond nature. Within the limits of my, undoubtedly insufficient knowledge of the history of philosophy, I do not see in fact any difference between atheism and the pantheism of Spinoza.
- Victor M. Amela (June 20, 2017). "Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Prize in physics for the electroweak theory" (PDF). La Contra - La Vanguardia. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
I am a practising atheist.
- Watson, Gill. "Roy J. Glauber - Science Video Interview". Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: Glauber says that he has no feelings towards the intelligent designer approach to science [...] He says that what has been discovered (physical world) is enormously interesting but it tells us nothing about intelligent design and certainly nothing at all about life.
- "Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 15-10-01". www.hri.org. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: "He also said that he is atheist and humanist..."
- Metanexus: Wolfgang Pauli’s Journey Inward
- Laurikainen, K., “Quantum Physics, Philosophy, and the Image of God: Insights from Wolfgang Pauli,” *Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science* 25(4) (1990): 391–404.
- Jáuregui, Pablo (2014-03-15). "Si miras el mundo desde la perspectiva científica, no necesitas la religión". ELMUNDO (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-05-10.
Interviewer: Do you think that science and religion can be compatible, or do you consider, like the Darwinist Richard Dawkins, that the scientific vision cannot be reconciled with faith? Haroche: [...] In my case, I am not religious nor do I believe in God, but I have colleagues who are and are capable of maintaining a coexistence between their faith and their scientific work, without this interfering with the quality of their research. But to me this never ceases to amaze me, because I think that if you look at the world from a scientific perspective, you don't need religion.
- Sample, Ian (17 November 2007). "The god of small things". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
The name has stuck, but makes Higgs wince and raises the hackles of other theorists. "I wish he hadn't done it," he says. "I have to explain to people it was a joke. I'm an atheist, but I have an uneasy feeling that playing around with names like that could be unnecessarily offensive to people who are religious."
- Dean, Chris. "Masatoshi Koshiba - Science Video Interview". Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: Interviewer: Are you religious?" Koshiba: "/(You Mean) God?... I don't know... You know... science deals only (with?) those things which you can confirm by observation or by experiment...God doesn't come into that (category). So God...the problem of God, is not a problem in science."
- "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
I was a nominal church going Christian until I left home for Cambridge University on a scholarship when, to my great relief, I could drop all religion and become my natural atheist self.
- Dean, Chris. "Herbert Kroemer - Science Video Interview". Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: Interviewer: "You have no belief in a afterlife?" Kroemer: "That's correct." Interviewer: "...You don't see the evidence of a designer?" Kroemer: "No, I don't." Interviewer: "Could you say more about it?" Kroemer: "I think it's just wishful thinking."
- Schaefer, Henry F. (2008). Science and Christianity: conflict or coherence?. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-9742975-0-7.
I present here two examples of notable atheists. The first is Lev Landau, the most brilliant Soviet physicist of the twentieth century.
- Dan Falk (2005). "What About God?". Universe on a T-Shirt: The Quest for the Theory of Everything. Arcade Publishing. p. 195. ISBN 978-1-55970-733-6.
"Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money." - Leon Lederman
- Babu Gogineni (July 10, 2012). "It's the Atheist Particle, actually". Postnoon News. Archived from the original on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
Leon Lederman is himself an atheist and he regrets the term (God particle), and Peter Higgs who is an atheist too, has expressed his displeasure, but the damage has been done!
- Domínguez, Nuño (2019-10-09). "Michel Mayor: "There is no place for God in the Universe" | Science". El País. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
The religious vision says that God decided that there should only be life here on Earth and created it. Scientific facts say that life is a natural process. I think the only answer is to research and find the answer, but for me there is no place for God in the universe.
- Barrow, John D. (2000). The book of nothing: vacuums, voids, and the latest ideas about the origins of the universe (1st Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-375-72609-5.
- Eremoenko, Alexey (9 October 2014). "Q&A: Russian Nobel Laureate on Fun, God and the 'Ideal Physicist'". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
- "Jim Peebles - Session II". www.aip.org. 5 April 2002. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
Smeenk: I wanted to ask you another I guess more personal question. I don't know if you hold any religious views, but if you do, how do those interact with your research work? Peebles: I don't. Actually, I guess the term I like to use is a convinced agnostic. I get offended by people who try to give me religious arguments. Why should I pay attention to these arguments? But I also get a little offended by people who tell me, "Of course, religion is bunk." How do you know? It's just an entirely different field of operation and actually I do like the words and music of some religions, so I have sat with pleasure through services - aside from the sermon. So no, I don't have any religious feelings at all.
- Bernard Valeur; Jean-Claude Brochon (2001). New Trends in Fluorescence Spectroscopy: Applications to Chemical and Life Sciences. Springer. p. 17. ISBN 978-3-540-67779-6.
Jean and Francis Perrin held similar political and philosophical ideas. Both were socialists and atheists.
- Bodkin, Henry (2019-10-08). "Cambridge University planet hunter says mankind could find alien life in 30 years as he wins Nobel prize". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
He (Bodkin) added that, although not a believer himself, "Science inherited a lot from religions".
- "Very different paths to God". www.dailytelegraph.com.au. 2009-12-22. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: "I have been described by one of my colleagues as a "militant agnostic" with my tagline, "I don't know, and neither do you!". I take this hard-line, fence-sitting position because it is the only position consistent with both my scientific ethos and my conscience."
- Moore, Walter (1994). A life of Erwin Schrödinger. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-521-46934-0.
Schopenhauer often called himself an atheist, as did Schrodinger, and if Buddhism and Vedanta can be truly described as atheistic religions, both the philosopher and his scientific disciple were indeed atheists. They both rejected the idea of a "personal God" ...
- Diem-Lane, Andrea (2008). Spooky Physics: Einstein vs. Bohr. MSAC Philosophy Group. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-56543-080-8.
In terms of religion, Schrodinger fits in the atheist camp. He even lost a marriage proposal to his love, Felicie Krauss, not only due to his social status but his lack of religious affiliation. He was known as a freethinker who did not believe in god.
- Hargittai, I.; Hargittai, M. (2006). Candid Science VI: More Conversations with Famous Scientists. Imperial College Press. p. 749. ISBN 978-1-86094-885-5.
Jack Steinberger: I'm now a bit anti-Jewish since my last visit to the synagogue, but my atheism does not necessarily reject religion.
- Ginzburg, V. L. (2005). About Science, Myself and Others. CRC Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-7503-0992-9.
Nowadays, when we are facing manifestations of religious and. more often, pseudoreligious feelings, it is appropriate to mention that Igor Evgenevich was a convinced and unreserved atheist.
- Feinberg, E. L. & Leonidov, A. V. (2011). Physicists: Epoch and Personalities (2 ed.). World Scientific. p. 86. ISBN 978-981-283-416-4.
- Carroll, Rory (2013-06-21). "Kip Thorne: physicist studying time travel tapped for Hollywood film". the Guardian. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
Thorne grew up in an academic, Mormon family in Utah but is now an atheist. "There are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout and believe in God, ranging from an abstract humanist God to a very concrete Catholic or Mormon God. There is no fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. I happen to not believe in God.
- Dean, Chris. "Martinus J.F. Veltman - Science Video Interview". Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: Interviewer: "What is your view about God and religion?" Veltman: "We are living in a totally ridiculous world. We have all kinds of things from horoscopes to Zen Buddhism to faith healers to religions to what have you. [...] "So for science it's very essential that we take a position that through the scientific method that keeps us away of all the irrationalities that seem to dominate human activities. And I think we should stay there. And the fact that I'm busy in science has little or nothing to do with religion. In fact I protect myself, I don't want to have to do with religion. Because once I start with that I don't know where it will end. But probably I will be burned or shot or something in the end. I don't want anything to do with it. I talk about things I can observe and other things I can predict and for the rest you can have it."
- Azpurua, Ana Elena (March 24, 2008). "In Search of the God Particle". Newsweek. p. 3. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved March 25, 2008.
I don't believe in God, but I don't make a religion out of not believing in God. I don't organize my life around that.
- Thomas Fink (December 19, 2020). "A singular mind: Roger Penrose on his Nobel Prize". The Spectator. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
- Stein, Gordon, ed. (1985). The Encyclopedia of unbelief. Vol. 1 (Nachdr. ed.). Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. p. 594. ISBN 978-0-87975-307-8.
Svante Arrhenius (I859-I927), recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry (I903), was a declared atheist...
- "Paul D. Boyer - Biographical". Nobelprize.org, The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize. 1997. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
I was struck by how well Harold Kroto, one of last year's Nobelists, presented what are some of my views in his biographical sketch. As he stated, "I am a devout atheist–nothing else makes sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears to be so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator." I wonder if in the United States we will ever reach the day when the man-made concept of a God will not appear on our money, and for political survival must be invoked by those who seek to represent us in our democracy.
- Kroto, Harold (2015). "Sir John Cornforth ('Kappa'): Some Personal Recollections". Australian Journal of Chemistry. 68 (4): 697–698. doi:10.1071/CH14601.
- Perrin, Francis (2008). "Joliot, Frédéric". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 7. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 151.
Raised in a completely nonreligious family, Joliot never attended any church and was a thoroughgoing atheist all his life.
- Perrin, Francis (2008). "Joliot-Curie, Irène". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 7. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 157. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
It was to her grandfather, a convinced freethinker, that Irène owed her atheism, later politically expressed as anticlericalism.
- "Herbert Hauptman". The Telegraph. 27 Oct 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
Outside the field of scientific research, he was known for his outspoken atheism: belief in God, he once declared, is not only incompatible with good science, but is "damaging to the wellbeing of the human race."
- Cardellini, Liberato (October 2007). "Looking for Connections: An Interview with Roald Hoffmann" (PDF). Journal of Chemical Education. 84 (10): 1631–1635. Bibcode:2007JChEd..84.1631C. doi:10.1021/ed084p1631. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
atheist who is moved by religion.
- Harold W. Kroto (1996). "Harold Kroto – Autobiography". Nobelprize.org, The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
I am a devout atheist – nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator.
- Masood, Ehsan (22 July 2006). "Islam's reformers". Prospect. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
It is a scene I won't forget in a hurry: Jean-Marie Lehn, French winner of the Nobel prize in chemistry, defending his atheism at a packed public conference at the new Alexandria Library in Egypt
- "Peter Mitchell – Biographical". The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1978. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
- "Today, I consider myself, in Thomas Huxley's terms, an agnostic. I don't know whether there is a God or creator, or whatever we may call a higher intelligence or being. I don't know whether there is an ultimate reason for our being or whether there is anything beyond material phenomena. I may doubt these things as a scientist, as we cannot prove them scientifically, but at the same time we also cannot falsify (disprove) them. For the same reasons, I cannot deny God with certainty, which would make me an atheist. This is a conclusion reached by many scientists." George Olah, A Life of Magic Chemistry
- Kocka, Jürgen, ed. (2010). Work in a Modern Society the German Experience in European-American Perspective. New York: Berghahn Books, Inc. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-84545-797-6.
- Nobel, Prize (1962). Nobel nominations. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-0-86720-278-6.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - "Max Perutz Interview 2". The Vega Science Trust. Retrieved 19 June 2013.
- "Perutz rubbishes Popper and Kuhn". TSL EDUCATION LTD. 28 November 1994. Retrieved 19 June 2013.
Dr Perutz, said: "It is one thing for scientists to oppose creationism which is demonstrably false but quite another to make pronouncements which offend people's religious faith -- that is a form of tactlessness which merely brings science into disrepute. My view of religion and ethics is simple: even if we do not believe in God, we should try to live as though we did."
- Hargittai, István; Hargittai, Magdolna (2002). Candid science II: conversations with famous biomedical scientists (Verschiedene Aufl. ed.). London: Imperial College Press. pp. 73–83. ISBN 1-86094-288-1.
- Jha, Alok (2013). "Dan Shechtman: 'Linus Pauling said I was talking nonsense'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
Interviewer: Do you believe in a god? Shechtman: No.
- Domínguez, Nuño (16 September 2022). "Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier: 'We all need to ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in'". El País.
Q. Do you believe in God? A. My parents were Catholics, but they belonged to a very modern and up-to-date branch of Catholicism, with working-class priests. I grew up in this environment and practiced, but I haven't done it for a long time. For me, believing in God is believing in the good of the human being, the best version of humanity.
- Smith, George. "Author Archive: George Smith". Mondoweiss. United States. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
- Smith, Michael (1993). "Michael Smith – Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
My only prizes from the Sunday School were "for attendance", so I presume my atheism, which developed when I left home to attend university, although latent, was discernible.
- Wysong, Randy L. (1976). The creation-evolution controversy (7th print ed.). Midlanding, Michigan: Inquiry Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-918112-02-6.
- Craver, Carl F. (2008). "Axelrod, Julius". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 122.: "Although he became an atheist early in life and resented the strict upbringing of his parents' religion, he identified with Jewish culture and joined several international fights against anti-Semitism."
- Robert W. Baloh (2002). "Robert Bárány and the controversy surrounding his discovery of the caloric reaction". Neurology. 58 (7). Neurology.org: 1094–1099. doi:10.1212/WNL.58.7.1094. PMID 11940699. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
Although anti-Semitism was again on the rise in Austria, it is unlikely that anti-Semitism was a factor in the hostility toward Bárány because he was an agnostic who did not believe in Zionism.
- George Beadle, An Uncommon Farmer: The Emergence of Genetics in the 20th Century. CSHL Press. 2003. p. 273. ISBN 9780879696887. Beadle's views on this occasion were somewhat more tempered than David's characterization of him as a "vehement atheist," and from his earliest days "intolerant of religion and other forms of superstition.
- Istvan, Hargittai; Magdolna, Hargittai (2006-10-23). Candid Science Vi: More Conversations with Famous Scientists. World Scientific. ISBN 978-1-908977-53-3.
- Crick, Francis (1988). What mad pursuit: a personal view of scientific discovery. New York: Basic Books. p. 10. ISBN 0-465-09138-5.
- Crick, Francis (3–5 February 1990). "How I Got Inclined Towards Atheism". Atheist Centre 1940–1990 Golden Jubilee International Conference Souvenir. Vijayawada, India: Positive Atheism. Archived from the original on 21 May 2012. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
- Steyn, Mark (October 2004). "The Twentieth-Century Darwin". The Atlantic Monthly.
- Siegel, Ralph M.; Callaway, Edward M. (2004). "Francis Crick's Legacy for Neuroscience: Between the α and the Ω". PLOS Biology. 2 (12): e419. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020419. PMC 535570. PMID 17593891.
Francis Crick was an evangelical atheist.
- Highfield, Roger (20 Mar 2003). "Do our genes reveal the hand of God?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
Crick, 86, said: "The god hypothesis is rather discredited."
- Ruse, Michael. "Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning by Christian de Duve (Introductory essay)". The International Society for Science and Religion library project. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
- Trevor Illtyd Williams (1984). Howard Florey, Penicillin and After. Oxford University Press. p. 363. ISBN 978-0-19-858173-4.
As an agnostic, the chapel services meant nothing to Florey but, unlike some contemporary scientists, he was not aggressive in his disbelief.
- Paolo Mazzarello; Henry A. Buchtel; Aldo Badiani (1999). The hidden structure: a scientific biography of Camillo Golgi. Oxford University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-19-852444-1.
It was probably during this period that Golgi became agnostic (or even frankly atheistic), remaining for the rest of his life completely alien to the religious experience.
- "Obituary: Andrew Huxley". The Economist. June 16, 2012. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
He did not even mind the master's duty of officiating in chapel, since he was, he explained, not atheist but agnostic (a word usefully invented by his grandfather), and was "very conscious that there is no scientific explanation for the fact that we are conscious."
- Jacob, The Statue Within, pp 20–57. Quotes from pp 42 and 53.
- Dawson, M. Joan. Paul Lauterbur and the Invention of MRI. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2013. Print. "Paul became an atheist, revering intellectual honesty and the quest for truth."
- Smith, Warren Allen (1 January 2000). Who's who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-theists. Barricade Books. p. 648. ISBN 978-1-56980-158-1. Retrieved 16 May 2018.
- Costantino Ceoldo (2012-12-31). "Homage to Rita Levi Montalcini". Retrieved 20 July 2013.
Born and raised in a Sephardic Jewish family in which culture and love of learning were categorical imperatives, she abandoned religion and embraced atheism.
- Medawar, Peter (1996). The strange case of the spotted mice and other classic essays on science (5th ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. pp. 207–211. ISBN 978-0-19-286193-1.
- Tauber, Alfred I.; Chernyak, Leon (1991). Metchnikoff and the Origins of Immunology: From Metaphor to Theory: From Metaphor to Theory. Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-19-534510-0.
... his personal religious commitment was to atheism, although he received strict Christian religious training at home. Metchnikoff's atheism smacked of religious fervor in the embrace of rationalism and science.
- Lubbock, Richard. "Peaks, Dust, & Dappled Spots". Books in Canada: The Canadian Review of Books. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
In his final chapter de Duve turns to the meaning of life, and considers the ideas of two contrasting Frenchmen: a priest, Teilhard de Chardin, and an existentialist and atheist, Jacques Monod.
- Pontecorvo, G. (1968). "Hermann Joseph Muller. 1890-1967". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 14: 349–389. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1968.0015. ISSN 0080-4606. JSTOR 769450. S2CID 61317945.
Muller, who through Unitarianism had become an enthusiastic pantheist, was converted both to atheism and to socialism (p. 353).
- Nurse, Paul (2001). "Sir Paul Nurse – Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
I gradually slipped away from religion over several years and became an atheist or to be more philosophically correct, a sceptical agnostic.
- Windholz, George (September 1986). "Pavlov's Religious Orientation". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 25 (3): 320–327. doi:10.2307/1386296. JSTOR 1386296.
Pavlov's follower E.M. Kreps asked him whether he was religious. Kreps writes that Pavlov smiled and replied: "Listen, good fellow, in regard to [claims of] my religiosity, my belief in God, my church attendance, there is no truth in it; it is sheer fantasy. I was a seminarian, and like the majority of seminarians, I became an unbeliever, an atheist in my school years."
- Reville, William (April 20, 2006). "A bright journey to atheism, or a road that ignores all the signs?". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
- "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2020-05-11.: "I should avoid any confusion at this point and state unequivocally that I am a devout atheist and quite anti-religion."
- The nobel prize in physiology or medicine 2002. NobelPrize.org. Retrieved March 15, 2023
- "Adofo Pérez Esquivel". Nobel Prize Committee.
- National Institutes of Health. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi discusses religion - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi - profiles in Science. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved March 15, 2023
- Deirdre Barrett (2010). Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-0-393-06848-1.
Tinbergen had never been a religious man. Wartime atrocities, however, had highlighted the absence of a deity for him while both sides invoked one aligned with themselves, and this turned him into a militant atheist.
- Wald, George (1964). "The Origins of Life". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 52 (2). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 52, no. 2: 595–611. Bibcode:1964PNAS...52..595W. doi:10.1073/pnas.52.2.595. JSTOR 72476. PMC 300313. PMID 16591211.
Biologist George Wald dismissed anything besides physicalism with, "I will not believe that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible: spontaneous generation arising to evolution.
- Highfield, Roger (20 March 2003). "Do our genes reveal the hand of God?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
- Ebenstein, Lanny (2007). Milton Friedman a biography (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-230-60345-5.
- Weymark, John A. (2006). "John Charles Harsanyi" (PDF). Working Paper No. 06-W07.
- Elzinga, Kenneth G.; Givens, Matthew R. (Spring 2009). "Christianity and Hayek". Faith & Economics (53): 53–68.
- Nasar, Sylvia (2012). A Beautiful Mind (Reprint ed.). Faber & Faber. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-571-26607-4.
- Hunter Crowther-Heyck (2005). Herbert A. Simon: The Bounds of Reason in Modern America. JHU Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-8018-8025-4.
His secular, scientific values came well before he was old enough to make such calculating career decisions. For example, while still in middle school, Simon wrote a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal defending the civil liberties of atheists, and by high school he was "certain" that he was "religiously an atheist," a conviction that never wavered.
- Ceadel, Martin (2009). Living the great illusion: Sir Norman Angell, 1872–1967. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-19-957116-1.
- Barker, Dan (2011). The good atheist: living a purpose-filled life without God. Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press. ISBN 978-1-56975-846-5.
- "Gorbachev a closet Christian?". Chicago Tribune. 23 March 2008. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008.
- Rotblat, Joseph; Ikeda, Daisaku (2007). A Quest for Global Peace: Rotblat and Ikeda on War, Ethics and the Nuclear Threat. London: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-278-3. OCLC 123195789.
- Gorelik, Gennady; Antonina W. Bouis (2005). The World of Andrei Sakharov: A Russian Physicist's Path to Freedom. Oxford University Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-19-515620-1.
Apparently Sakharov did not need to delve any deeper into it for a long time, remaining a totally nonmilitant atheist with an open heart.
- Gorelik, Gennadiĭ Efimovich; Antonina W. Bouis (2005). The World of Andrei Sakharov: A Russian Physicist's Path to Freedom. Oxford University Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-19-515620-1. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
Sakharov was not invited to this seminar. Like most of the physicists of his generation, he was an atheist.
- Todd K. Shackelford; Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford, eds. (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War. Oxford University Press. p. 465. ISBN 978-0-19-973840-3.
The Soviet dissident most responsible for defeating communism, Andrei Sakharov, was an atheist.
- Wiesel, Elie Wiesel (2010). And the sea is never full memoirs 1969- (Unabridged ed.). New York: Alfred Knopf. p. 318. ISBN 978-0-307-76409-6.
- "Cal Thomas: Energy freedom is common ground". The Spokesman-Review. 24 October 2007.
- Cronin, Anthony (1999). Samuel Beckett: the last modernist (1st Da Capo Press ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-306-80898-2.
They were both agnostics, though both set a high associative value on the language in which the traditional religions of their forebears had been expressed, and in conversation and writing were not averse to ironic reference to certain metaphysical concepts.
- Paulson, Arthur C. (1930). "Bjørnson and the Norwegian-Americans, 1880–81". Studies and Records. 5. Norwegian-American Historical Association: 84–109. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
- Maze, John Robert (2010). Albert Camus: plague and terror, priest and atheist. Bern: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-0343-0006-3.
- Behan, Tom (2000). Dario Fo: revolutionary theatre. London: Pluto. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-7453-1362-7.
- Frechet, Alec (1982). John Galsworthy: A Reassessment. Springer. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-349-05995-9.
Like many Edwardian writers, Galsworthy was an agnostic, and stated it openly: in other words, he did not deny the possibility of a divine force or essence – he was not an atheist – but could not believe in the God of existing religions.
- Bazin, Nancy Topping, ed. (1990). Conversationwith Nadine Gordimer. London: University Press of Mississippi. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-87805-445-9.
I'm an atheist. I wouldn't even call myself an agnostic. I am an atheist. But I think I have a basically religious temperament, perhaps even a profoundly religious one.
- Feinstein, Adam (2008). Pablo neruda. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 36, 38, 97. ISBN 978-1-59691-781-1.
- Diggins, John Patrick (2007). Eugene O'Neill's America desire under democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-226-14882-3.
O'Neill, an agnostic and an anarchist, maintained little hope in religion or politics and saw institutions not serving to preserve liberty but standing in the way of the birth of true freedom.
- "Pinter 'on road to recovery'". 2002-08-26. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
- "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?". www.positiveatheism.org. Retrieved 2020-05-10.: "I never know whether I should say 'Agnostic' or whether I should say 'Atheist'... As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove (sic) that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist."
- Eberstadt, Fernanda (18 June 2010). "José Saramago, Nobel Prize-Winning Portuguese Writer, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
- Sartre, Jean-Paul (1985). Existentialism and human emotions (1st Carol Pub. Group ed.). New York: Philosophical Library. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8065-0902-0.
- "Wole Soyinka". Academy of Achievement. Washington D.C. Archived from the original on 20 December 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
- Wole Soyinka (2007). Climate of Fear: The Quest for Dignity in a Dehumanized World. Random House LLC. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-307-43082-3.
I already had certain agnostic tendencies—which would later develop into outright atheistic convictions— so it was not that I believed in any kind of divine protection.
- Beegel, Susan F.; Shillinglaw, Susan; Tiffney, Jr., Wesley N. (2007). Steinbeck and the Environment Interdisciplinary Approaches. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-8173-5487-9.
- Benson, Jackson J. (1984). The true adventures of John Steinbeck, writer: a biography. Viking Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-670-16685-5.
Ricketts did not convert his friend to a religious point of view — Steinbeck remained an agnostic and, essentially, a materialist — but Ricketts's religious acceptance did tend to work on his friend, ...
- Onet.Religia (2020). "Ateizm. Definicja, symbole. Ateiści w Polsce". Onet.pl. Wiadomosci.onet.pl. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
... Według badań Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego z 2015 roku, w Polsce żyje 2,6 proc. Zadeklarowanych ateistów. Wśród nich są m.in. Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Piotr Najsztub, Wojciech Smarzowski, Kuba Wojewódzki, Jerzy Urban, Janusz Palikot, Jan Hartman, Maria Peszek, Robert Biedroń, Magdalena Środa, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Kazimierz Kutz czy Roman Polański. Ateistami byli również m.in. Kora Jackowska, Zbigniew Religa, Jacek Kuroń, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Tadeusz Różewicz, Stanisław Lem, Wisława Szymborska, Witold Gombrowicz i Marek Edelman.
- "Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk: why populist nostalgia will pass". Financial Times. 14 February 2020. Retrieved 2020-12-06.
- Gao Xingjian (2000). "Nobel Lecture – Literature 2000". Nobelprize.org, The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
... I would like to say that despite my being an atheist I have always shown reverence for the unknowable.
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