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However, many other scientists do profess religious belief, and this percentage has been stable over nearly 100 years. In 1916, a survey was conducted of professional scientists on their faith in God; in 1997, this study was repeated. In both studies, roughly 40% of the biologists, physicists and mathematicians who responded to the survey declared that they believed in a God who, by the survey's strict definition: a being who actively communicates with humankind and to whom one may pray. Roughly 15% replied "agnostic" or ''no definite belief''; another 42% in 1916 and about 45% in 1997 said they did not believe in a God as specified in the questionnaire (although perhaps believed in some larger notion of God) [Angier1997].

Numerous leading scientists have openly acknowledged a belief in God, and have declared that they see no need for science and religion to be in conflict. Here are just a few examples:

• Francisco J. Ayala (Professor of Biological Sciences at U.C. Irvine; recipient of the National Medal of Science and the Templeton Prize) [Ayala2009, pg. 74]:

  If science and religion are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction because they concern different matters. Science and religion are like two different windows for looking at the world. The two windows look at the same world, but they show different aspects of that world. Science concerns the processes that account for the natural world: how planets move, the composition of matter and the atmosphere, the origin and adaptations of organisms. Religion concerns the meaning and purpose of the world and of human life, the proper relation of people to the Creator and to each other, the moral values that inspire and govern people's lives. Apparent contradictions only emerge when either science or belief, or often both, cross over their boundaries and wrongfully encroach upon one another's subject matter.

• Francis Collins (former Director of the Human Genome Project; now Director of the National Institutes of Health) [Collins2006, pg. 6]:

  In my view, there is no conflict in being a rigorous scientist and a person who believes in a God who takes a personal interest in each one of us. Science's domain is to explore nature. God's domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science. It must be examined with the heart, the mind, and the soul -- and the mind must find a way to embrace both realms.

• George Coyne (Former Director of the Vatican Observatory) [Coyne2006]:

  [O]ur scientific understanding of the universe, untainted by religious considerations, provides for those who believe in God a marvelous opportunity to reflect upon their beliefs. Please note carefully that I distinguish, and will continue to do so in this presentation, that science and religion are totally separate human pursuits. Science is completely neutral with respect to theistic or atheistic implications which may be drawn from scientific results.

• Freeman Dyson (noted mathematical physicist) [Dyson2006]:

  As human beings, we are groping for knowledge and understanding of the strange universe into which we are born. We have many ways of understanding, of which science is only one. ... Science is a particular bunch of tools that have been conspicuously successful for understanding and manipulating the material universe. Religion is another bunch of tools, giving us hints of a mental or spiritual universe that transcends the material universe.

• Kenneth Miller (noted biologist at Brown University and co-author of the most widely used biology textbook) [Miller2007]:

  I think that faith and reason are both gifts from God. And if God is real, then faith and reason should complement each other rather than be in conflict. ... Does that mean that scientific reason, by taking some of the mystery out of nature, has taken away faith? I don't think so. I think by revealing a world that is infinitely more complex and infinitely more varied and creative than we had ever believed before, in a way it deepens our faith and our appreciation for the author of that nature, the author of that physical universe. And to people of faith, that author is God.

• Arthur Peacocke (noted biologist and Dean of Clare College, Cambridge) [Peacocke2002, pg. 233-242]:

  The world can now, with the aid of the sciences, be seen more convincingly than ever before as the creation of an ever-working ever-present Ultimate Reality, who transcends and yet is immanent in it -- and can also be present in and to us humans. That is our hope, reinforced by our new perspectives on the cosmic process.

• John Polkinghorne (British theologian, physicist and Anglican Priest) [Polkinghorne1998, pg. 99-100]:

  Science and theology ... share one fundamental aim which will always make them worthy of the attention of those imbued with intellectual integrity and the desire to understand: in their different ways and in their different domains, each is concerned with the search for truth. In itself, that is sufficient to guarantee that there will continue to be a fruitful developing dialogue between them.

• Allan Sandage (Research Staff Astronomer Emeritus at the Observatories of the Carnegie institution of Washington) [Sandage2002]:

  My view is somewhat different. I believe that the realms of science and religion are nearly orthogonal. It seems to me that scientists and theologians have climbed closely adjacent but different peaks. When each has reach their separate summits they can view one another, even exchange arguments and claims of hegemony over one another, but they are not close enough to one another for either to play king of the other's mountain.

It is also worth nothing that at least one major scientific society has openly declared that science and religion are not in conflict. In its report Science, Evolution and Creationism, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine declared [NAS2008, pg. 12]:

Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. ... Religious faith, in contrast, ... typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.