The preliminary results of the PhilPapers survey are now online. Here are some coarse results that may interest Prosblogion readers, though I doubt that they will surprise anyone.
Graduate Student
God: theism or atheism?
Accept or lean toward: atheism 527 / 829 (63.5%)
Accept or lean toward: theism 173 / 829 (20.8%)
Other 129 / 829 (15.5%)
Faculty
God: theism or atheism?
Accept or lean toward: atheism 678 / 931 (72.8%)
Accept or lean toward: theism 136 / 931 (14.6%)
Other 117 / 931 (12.5%)
Results run higher for theism among philosophers of religion, historians, metaphysicians, and logicians among those with a Ph.D. They run lower among philosophers of science.
Is the greater acceptance of theism among graduate students (a) statistically insignificant, (b) evidence that the next generation of philosophers will be slightly more theistic, or (c) evidence that propensity to atheism increases with increasing time spent studying philosophy?
I would bet on (b), but I'm really in no position to say.
Speaker: Or is it the case that (d) atheism is a predictor of success in academic philosophy (i.e. the theists get "weeded out"). If (d), is this because the theists are less talented philosophers, because they are more likely to voluntarily change to another career, because of discrimination, or for some more complicated reason or combination of reasons?
A longitudinal study could decide the question, but in order to tell the difference between (c) and (d) you would have to track specific individuals.
I agree that (b) is probably true (surely there were more theists among late twentieth century philosophers than among early twentieth century philosophers), but I wouldn't be too surprised if either (c) or (d) or both were also true.
Maybe that Athenian jury was onto something.
There's definitely a sociological change among those going into philosophy now, largely as a result of the development of philosophy of religion specifically from a theistic perspective in the last few decades. There's also a much stronger support for academia and philosophy in particular from within several spheres of Christianity that were shunning academia, including some strong masters programs in philosophy at evangelical and Catholic institutions, the former of which is especially significant given the past relation between classic fundamentalism and academia that evangelicalism is now abandoning.