The details for the 1999 study are in the tables below, which were produced with the computer program Statistical Program for the Social Sciences from the data matrix entered by the researcher (with a double checking re-entry and comparison by a computer expert) from the returned questionnaires.  Copies of the completed questionnaires and the program entry matrix are available to other researchers by arrangement, with request to rtw7555@cs.com.

 

            Permission is hereby granted to publish anything from the book, or from this web page, with appropriate credit and notice.

 

            Were the answered questionnaires an accurate representation of the entire scientist population? In the study of the 1990 AMWS and the 1998-1999 AMSW the population was scientists who received a baccalaureate degree from a Utah university.  From the 1990 group the response was 65%, from the 1998-99 it was 68%.

 

            The average response in this type of social science research is about 63%.  (Responses to the mailed questionnaires of the U.S. census are reported as running 62%).  With at least this proportion of responses, it is usually assumed that the non-responses are caused by factors unrelated to the subject matter of the questionnaires and thus do not significantly affect the results.

 

            In this kind of study the questionnaires come back in the mail over time.  They are numbered by date as they return by date.  The answers from those coming in by a specified date can be compared to the answers when all who reply are accounted for.  It can be seen this way whether stable statistics have been obtained at a certain number of responses.

 

            Results on a few important items from the first 104 responses are compared below to those from the final  (154) accounting:

 

                                                                                        

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	104	154
Study scientists self-identified as L.D.S.	65.4%	69.7%
Strong and Very Strong L.D.S. conviction	83%	87.7%
Strong and Very Strong L.D.S. conviction and also Belief in special creation (anti-evolution)	34%	38%
Strong and Very Strong L.D.S. conviction and also Belief in evolution as a method of God	31%	28%
Study scientists’ attitudes toward the L.D.S. church For promoting human welfare	77.9%	85.2%
Antagonistic	4.8%	3.9%
Study scientists belief in God	70.2%	77.9%
L.D.S. study scientists who believe  that Utah’ lead was somehow attributable  to L.D.S. church influence	80%	85%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The percentages above about evolution do not include percentages of those who replied that they agreed “Tentatively”.  They are percentages of “Agree”.  Percentages that do include the agreements “Tentatively” appear in the discussion below of answers about fields of science.)

 

            It is apparent that the first 104 responses gave a picture of the scientists’ positions similar to the entire 154.  There is little evidence that additional responses were changing the results significantly or would proceed to do so.

 

            (As a side-light, one respondent wrote on his questionnaire that he thought large numbers of the scientists at Brigham Young University, who could be expected to be disproportionately strong Mormons, would slant the results.  In fact, only 17 of the 154 returns were from the Orem-Provo, Utah, area.)

 

            The questionnaires returned, and their data, are therefore most probably representative of the whole and can support inferences about the whole which are reliable.

 

            (Exceptions would be answers with very small numbers.  For example, where the number in a response is 1 compared to another response of 2, it would be erroneous to conclude that the latter category represents a real 100% difference from the former in the whole population.)