On the idea of law school --> patent law

This is an encouraging point:

The outlook is also pretty rosy for aspiring lawyers with technical backgrounds. Sure, the market is saturated with liberal arts graduates, but firms are so desperate for science graduates that they’re hiring them into technical-adviser programs and then paying for the folks to go to law school and hiring them after graduation. The Recorder reports the programs exist at Ropes & Gray, Morrison & Foerster, Wilson Sonsini, and other firms.

Indeed...full article below:

Silicon Valley Pushes to Turn Scientists Into Lawyers
Amy Miller
2010-09-08 12:00:00 AM

There are plenty of patent attorneys in Silicon Valley, but there aren't enough like Alexander Shvarts.

The Ropes & Gray associate possesses a combination of science and communication skills increasingly demanded from patent attorneys. He's not only a techie with a degree in computer science from Cornell University, which helps him understand complicated patents and work with their inventors; he also likes writing and schmoozing with clients. "This fits my personality perfectly," Shvarts said.

That's why Ropes & Gray accepted Shvarts into the firm's technical adviser program, which first trained him to be a patent agent and then paid his tuition at Fordham University School of Law. Now the 32-year-old is based in Ropes & Gray's Palo Alto, Calif., office, and travels to universities to persuade other future engineers and scientists to become patent lawyers in Silicon Valley, too.

Ropes & Gray may have a long list of big-name clients such as Apple Inc. and Pfizer Inc., but getting the right candidates to join the program isn't easy. "One of the biggest challenges we have is recruiting," Shvarts said. "These people can go wherever they want."

Ropes & Gray's technical adviser program isn't unique. For years, firms such as Morrison & Foerster; Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner; and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati have sent people with science degrees to law school and hired them as patent attorneys after graduation.

But the competition for patent attorneys like Shvarts is so keen in Silicon Valley that Ropes & Gray has pushed hard to expand its program there, with some success. In 2009, the Palo Alto office had only one person in the program. This year, two have transferred to Palo Alto from New York City and three more have been hired.

"That's the result of an active effort on our part," said Ropes & Gray IP partner Joseph Guiliano, who completed Fish & Neave's program in 1993, more than 10 years before the firm merged with Ropes & Gray. "We want that practice to expand."

This year, Wilson Sonsini has 17 people who are at various stages of the firm's technical adviser program, and they work exclusively in the firm's life sciences and clean tech practices. That, too, is an increase from past years, attorneys said.

"Law schools don't produce enough of the people we're looking for," said Wilson Sonsini IP partner Vern Norviel. "We are always actively recruiting, and going around to the top-notch Ph.D. programs. We're always trying to find these people."

'AN ART THAT MUST BE PRACTICED'

Ropes & Gray's program is fairly typical. Those selected work in the firm's patent office for one to two years before starting law school, and many become registered patent agents. While in law school, they work either full-time or part-time at the firm. If all goes as planned, they're offered an associate job -- with pay at the second- or third-year level -- right after graduation.

"By the time they set foot in law school, they can honestly say they have clients," Guiliano said.

Programs like Ropes & Gray's address a central problem in the legal profession, said IP recruiter Katharine Patterson of Patterson Davis Consulting in San Francisco. To even take the patent bar, you must have a technical degree. But passing the exam doesn't necessarily prepare someone to be a patent attorney. "This is an art that must be practiced," she said.

So why is it so hard to recruit scientists and engineers, given the attraction of earning a law degree for free, and graduating with on-the-job experience and an almost guaranteed roster of clients?

There's a host of reasons, lawyers said. People with advanced technical degrees have a lot of options. If they don't want to be researchers, they can become heads of cutting-edge companies, for example. A few who went through Wilson Sonsini's technical adviser program have left the firm, but they weren't lured away by other firms, Norviel said. They became CEOs of health care companies.

"These people are very on top of their game," he said. "They don't have to be lawyers. They could do any number of things."

Enticing patent lawyers from other firms can be challenging. Ropes & Gray IP attorney Mark Rowland said he suspects that after recent law school graduates develop a client base, they're reluctant to move to another firm. And the structure of patent prosecution programs differ from firm to firm.

"At some firms they are almost solo operators, and we have a different model," Rowland said. "They're working on their own, and they prefer it that way."

NO GUARANTEES

The program may be filling a need, but at Ropes & Gray, there are no guarantees, for the firm or the participants. People aren't obligated to join Ropes & Gray as patent attorneys after they graduate, and the firm doesn't have to offer them a job. But the vast majority are hired, even if they don't stay for long.

A few participants have left Ropes & Gray because they decided to work in house for a client that they developed a strong relationship with, Guiliano said. That's not always a bad thing, though, as they can end up hiring the firm as outside counsel.

"It's kind of a mixed bag," Guiliano said. "The opportunities get spread out a bit."

It's a chance both firms and future prospects are willing to take. Current and former participants who were interviewed agreed that they made a smart, and economical, career move by joining the Ropes & Gray program.

For Shvarts, patent law combines his love of writing and communicating with his obsession for high-tech gadgetry. He can stay up-to-date on the latest technologies while working for some cutting-edge companies. "I've done just about everything you can do in IP law," Shvarts said.

None said it was easy, though. Juggling law school and working at the firm requires careful time management, not to mention finding time to study for the bar.

"There are growing pains along the way," said Matthew Bertenthal, 26, a patent agent in the program at Ropes & Gray's Silicon Valley office. "But at the same time, I feel like this is the best thing I could have done."

Bertenthal graduated from Cornell University with a computer and electrical engineering degree, but he liked writing and interacting with people too much to spend his days in a computer lab. Now he's attending Fordham University School of Law, but has spent the last semester at Santa Clara University School of Law. "I wouldn't be going to law school any other way," he said.

Like many of the people chosen for the program, Yang Xu, 31, has more than one advanced science degree. She's earned both a master's and a Ph.D in organic chemistry.

She tried working as a chemist for a biotech company for a couple of years, but soon realized that it wasn't want she wanted to do for the next 10 years. "To me, it felt very repetitive," she said.

Xu hasn't lost her love of science. But now that she's a technical adviser for Ropes & Gray and is preparing to apply to law school, she gets to see the broader landscape of the IP world, something she'd wanted for a long time.

"I'm starting all over again," Xu says. "But it's really exciting."

I think so too.

More light, less heat

That's sort of a theme around my workplace. We do light-emitting diodes and want more luminous power and lower resistivity (losing energy to heat). But it applies just as well to discussions of policy.

It's crossing my mind -- now that the midterm elections are over -- to wonder what will really happen given the Republicans larger role in governing, as well as the possibility that they may take the Senate and/or the presidency in 2012. How will they govern? Assuming continuing gains for the GOP in 2012, the composition of the House and Senate still will not likely be very different than 2004 (including the fact that many of the members of Congress will be the same exact people), ergo compromising will be a necessity, right?

How will we fix the crushing budget deficits, whose causes are well-established? If you don't already realize this, the major pieces of the federal budget are: (FY 2010)

1) medicare/medicaid (20.90%)
2) social security (19.63%)
3) dept of defense (18.74%)
= ~60%

The President's budget for 2010 has total spending of the gov't at $3.55 trillion. Our budget deficit for 2010 is $1.2 trillion, or almost 1/3 of that amount.

So basically 3/5 of our entire federal budget goes to these three things (not counting special appropriations for the wars). If politicians aren't serious about cutting these three programs in careful, smart, but serious ways, then we literally cannot balance our budget.

The the long-awaited deficit reduction commission's draft report will send recommendations to the President that include extending the age of retirement and means-testing to save Social Security, overhauling and simplifying the tax code while lowering rates for the wealthy, and some other interesting items. They couldn't get enough agreement on the proposals to make it a final report, because 14 out of 18 members couldn't agree on this. Paul Krugman thinks that lowering income taxes even further on billionaires is a ridiculous way to balance the budget. I'm not expert enough to analyze the merits of these recommendations on the economics. What I do know, however, is that Social Security has always been the "third rail" in politics -- touch it and you're dead.

Introducing the proposed changes into Social Security that will basically give the shaft to lower-income people, regardless of the fiscal merits, is simply not going to happen. It is a political non-starter. And, surprisingly to some of my conservative friends, this is *even more* true of Republicans than Democrats. Listen to SC Republican Senator Jim DeMint -- one of the most right-wing of all Republicans, if not *the* most right-wing -- commenting on Meet the Press about the concept of overhauling Social Security:

GREGORY: I want to be very specific, because going back to 2008 spending levels will not get anywhere close to balancing the budget. So, you're saying that everything has to be on the table. Cuts in defense. Cuts in Medicare. Cuts in Social Security. Is that right?

DEMINT: Well, no, we're not talking about cuts in Social Security. If we can just cut the administrative waste, we can cut hundreds of billions of dollars a year at the federal level. So, before we start cutting -- I mean, we need to keep our promises to seniors, David. And cutting benefits to seniors is not on the table.

GREGORY: But then, but where do you make the cuts? I mean, if you're protecting everything for the most potent political groups, like seniors, who go out and vote, where are you really gonna balance the budget?

DEMINT: Well, look at Paul Ryan's roadmap to the future. We see a clear path to moving back to a balanced budget over time. Again, the plans are on the table. We don't have to cut benefits for seniors. And we don't need to cut Medicare -- like the Democrats did in this big Obamacare bill. We can restore sanity in Washington without cutting any benefits to seniors or veterans.

Mark my words: while people may loathe Democrats and accuse them of having a "tax and spend" mentality, Republicans will be bigger spenders,just as they always have been, but without the honesty of even trying to balance the budget, just as they always have been. Compare the two parties' approaches to health care:

When Republicans passed the Medicare drug benefit (Part D) of 2003, they lied about its costs and just pretended it didn't have to be paid for. Pop quiz: which costs more -- the GOP's Part D or the Dems' health care reform?

Ans: Part D. Part D is estimated to cost $951 billion over the decade 2009-2018. (See Table III.C.19, page 120, shown below) In addition, the cost of that plan only grows with time as our aging population increases. Almost every penny of that is pure deficit spending.



Republicans wrote the bill so that big pharma companies get far more money from Medicare Part D for the exact same drugs than the Dept of Veterans Affairs pays for them. In the House, only 25 Republicans voted against the budget-busting bill while all but 16 Democrats voted no. The main player in writing the legislation in the House left his job and took a $2 million a year lobbying job with...a pharmaceutical company...(all facts that have been documented pretty easily by lots of principled people)

What about the other major political party and their health care reform bill (ACA)?

The Dems' plan requires $382 billion of spending total over the period 2010 - 2019 to expand insurance coverage and close the Part D "donut hole". (See Table 2, page 18 of the PDF, shown below)



These costs are financed in part by cutting wasteful spending to private insurers for Medicare "Advantage" plans and raising Medicare premiums on those making over $250,000 a year. Those revenues combine to give back the government $525 billion during that same period, thus *lowering* the deficit by $140 billion! On top of that, in the next decade, it is estimated to save far more!



When Dems passed the Affordable Care Act they used CBO scoring and raised some Medicare taxes on the rich to pay for the costs associated with expanding coverage. They pushed to allow drug prices to be negotiated. The bill lowers the deficit by over a hundred billion dollars in the first decade.

In short, if you believe that Democrats are the party who spends too much, or adds more to the deficit, you're simply living in a fantasy world. Facts are hard, cold and stubborn things.

Ed Brayton has an interesting view on this. He thinks that Republicans are able to get away with this bullshit for strategic reasons:

For all the Republican rhetoric about smaller government and "tax and spend liberals," the fact is that over the past 50 years the size of government has grown more under Republican presidents than under Democratic ones -- and so has the size of the debt because of their reluctance to raise taxes.

From 1962-2001, the average growth in total federal spending under Republican presidents has been 7.57%; under Democrats, 6.96%. Bush certainly did not help those averages any after 2001. During that same period, the average yearly deficit under Democrats was $36 billion; the average under Republicans was $190 billion. So under Republicans, spending grows more but revenues grow less because they always insist on tax cuts.

And that means taxes must go up at some point to pay the cost of the deficit spending plus the interest on that borrowing. I think part of the GOP strategy for the past 50 years (40 at least) has been to drive up the deficit intentionally by raising spending and cutting taxes, knowing that when the Democrats are in control they will have to raise taxes. Then they can say, "See, the Democrats are always raising your taxes!" -- but without acknowledging that it was made necessary by their own borrow and spend policies.

The fact is that neither party has any interest in actually reducing spending. The difference is that the Democrats are generally more willing to pay for it with taxes while the Republicans refuse to do so. And I think that is a deliberate strategy on their part.

Perhaps...

Tom Toles is spot on:

Capturing the moment

I found a hypothetical speech written by Theodore C. Sorensen for the as-yet-unknown 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, which seems perhaps even more apt today.  Try to imagine this coming from Sarah Palin:

My fellow Democrats: With high resolve and deep gratitude, I accept your nomination.

It has been a long campaign—too long, too expensive, with too much media attention on matters irrelevant to our nation’s future. I salute each of my worthy opponents for conducting a clean fifty-state campaign focusing on the real issues facing our nation, including health care, the public debt burden, energy independence, and national security, a campaign testing not merely which of us could raise and spend the most money but who among us could best lead our country; a campaign not ignoring controversial issues like taxation, immigration, fuel conservation, and the Middle East, but conducting, in essence, a great debate—because our party, unlike our opposition, believes that a free country is strengthened by debate. Subscribe Online & Save 33%

There will be more debates this fall. I hereby notify my Republican opponent that I have purchased ninety minutes of national network television time for each of the six Sunday evenings preceding the presidential election, and here and now invite and challenge him to share that time with me to debate the most serious issues facing the country, under rules to be agreed upon by our respective designees meeting this week with a neutral jointly selected statesman.

Let me assure all those who may disagree with my positions that I shall hear and respect their views, not denounce them as unpatriotic as has so often happened in recent years. I will wage a campaign that relies not on the usual fear, smear, and greed but on the hopes and pride of all our citizens in a nationwide effort to restore comity, common sense, and competence to the White House.

In this campaign, I will make no promises I cannot fulfill, pledge no spending we cannot afford, offer no posts to cronies you cannot trust, and propose no foreign commitment we should not keep. I will not shrink from opposing any party faction, any special interest group, or any major donor whose demands are contrary to the national interest. Nor will I shrink from calling myself a liberal, in the same sense that Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, John and Robert Kennedy, and Harry Truman were liberals—liberals who proved that government is not a necessary evil, but rather the best means of creating a healthier, more educated, and more prosperous America.

They are the giants on whose shoulders I now stand, giants who made this a better, fairer, safer, stronger, more united America.

By making me your nominee, you have placed your trust in the American people to put aside irrelevant considerations and judge me solely on my qualifications to lead the nation. You have opened the stairway to what Teddy Roosevelt called the “bully pulpit.” With the help of dedicated Americans from our party, every party, and no party at all, I intend to mount that stairway to preach peace for our nation and world.

My campaign will be based on my search for the perfect political consensus, not the perfect political consultant. My chief political consultant will be my conscience.

Thank you for your applause, but I need more than your applause and approval. I need your prayers, your votes, your help, your heart, and your hand. The challenge is enormous, the obstacles are many. Our nation is emerging from eight years of misrule, a dark and difficult period in which our national honor and pride have been bruised and battered. But we are neither beaten nor broken. We are not helpless or afraid; because in this country the people rule, and the people want change.

True, some of us have been sleeping for these eight long years, while our nation’s values have been traduced, our liberties reduced, and our moral authority around the world trampled and shattered by a nightmare of ideological incompetence. But now we are awakening and taking our country back. Now people all across America are starting to believe in America again. We are coming back, back to the heights of greatness, back to America’s proud role as a temple of justice and a champion of peace.

The American people are tired of politics as usual, and I intend to offer them, in this campaign, something unusual in recent American politics: the truth. Neither bureaucracies nor nations function well when their actions are hidden from public view and accountability. From now on, whatever mistakes I make, whatever dangers we face, the people shall know the truth—and the truth shall make them free. After eight years of secrecy and mendacity, here are some truths the people deserve to hear:

We remain essentially a nation under siege. The threat of another terrorist attack upon our homeland has not been reduced by all the new layers of porous bureaucracy that proved their ineptitude in New Orleans; nor by all the needless, mindless curbs on our personal liberties and privacy; nor by expensive new weaponry that is utterly useless in stopping a fanatic willing to blow himself up for his cause. Indeed, our vulnerability to another attack has only been worsened in the years since the attacks of September 11th—worsened by our government convincing more than 1 billion Muslims that we are prejudiced against their faith, dismissive of international law, and indifferent to the deaths of their innocent children; worsened by our failure to understand their culture or to provide a safe haven for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees displaced by a war we started; worsened by our failure to continue our indispensable role in the Middle East peace process.

We have adopted some of the most indefensible tactics of our enemies, including torture and indefinite detention.

We have degraded our military.

We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner—by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership.

At home, as health care costs have grown and coverage disappeared, we have done nothing but coddle the insurance, pharmaceutical, and health care industries that feed the problem.

As global warming worsens, we have done nothing but deny the obvious and give regulatory favors to polluters.

As growing economic inequality tarnishes our democracy, we have done nothing but carve out more tax breaks for the rich.

During these last several years, our nation has been bitterly divided and deceived by illicit actions in high places, by violations of federal, constitutional, and international law. I do not favor further widening the nation’s wounds, now or next year, through continuous investigations, indictments, and impeachments. I am confident that history will hold these malefactors accountable for their deeds, and the country will move on.

Instead, I shall seek a renewal of unity among all Americans, an unprecedented unity we will need for years to come in order to face unprecedented danger.

We will be safer from terrorist attack only when we have earned the respect of all other nations instead of their fear, respect for our values and not merely our weapons.

If I am elected president, my vow for this country can be summarized in one short, simple word: change. This November 2008 election—the first since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president’s nor the incumbent vice president’s name will appear on the national ballot, indeed the first since 1976 in which the name of neither Bill Clinton nor George Bush will appear on the national ballot—is destined to bring about the most profound change in the direction of this country since the election of 1932.

To meet the threats we face and restore our place of leadership in the free world, I pledge to do the following:

First, working with a representative Iraqi parliament, I shall set a timetable for an orderly, systematic redeployment and withdrawal of all our troops in Iraq, including the recall of all members of the National Guard to their primary responsibility of guarding our nation and its individual states.

Second, this redeployment shall be only the first step in a comprehensive regional economic and diplomatic stabilization plan for the entire Middle East, building a just and enduring peace between Israel and Palestine, halting the killing and maiming of innocent civilians on both sides, and establishing two independent sovereign states, each behind peacefully negotiated and mutually recognized borders.

Third, I shall as soon as possible transfer all inmates out of the Guantanamo Bay prison and close down that hideous symbol of injustice.

Fourth, I shall fly to New York City to pledge in person to the United Nations, in the September 2009 General Assembly, that the United States is returning to its role as a leader in international law, as a supporter of international tribunals, and as a full-fledged member of the United Nations which will pay its dues in full, on time, and without conditions, renouncing any American empire; that we shall work more intensively with other countries to eliminate global scourges, including AIDS, malaria, and other contagious diseases, massive refugee flows, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and that we will support the early dispatch of United Nations peacekeepers to halt the atrocities in Darfur. I shall make it clear that we do not covet the land of other countries for our military bases or the control of their natural resources for our factories. I shall make it clear that our country is not bound by any policies or pronouncements of my predecessor that violate international law or threaten international peace.

Fifth, I shall personally sign the Kyoto Protocol, and seek its ratification by the United States Senate, in order to stop global warming before it endangers all species on earth, including our own; and I shall call upon the Congress to take action dramatically reducing our nation’s reliance on the carbon fuels that are steadily contributing to the degradation of our environment.

Sixth, I shall demonstrate sufficient confidence in the strength of our values and the wisdom and skill of our diplomats to favor communications, negotiations, and full relations with every country on earth, including Cuba, North Korea, Palestine, and Iran.

Finally, I shall restore the constitutional right of habeas corpus, abolish the unconstitutional tapping of private phones, and once again show the world the traditional American values that distinguish us from those who attacked us on 9/11.

We need not renounce the use of conventional force. We will be ready to repel any clear and present danger that poses a genuine threat to our national security and survival. But it will be as a last resort, never a first; in cooperation with our allies, never alone; out of necessity, never by choice; proportionate, never heedless of civilian lives or international law; as the best alternative considered, never the only. We will always apply the same principles of collective security, prudent caution, and superior weaponry that enabled us to peacefully prevail in the long cold war against the Soviet Union. Above all, we shall wage no more unilateral, ill-planned, ill-considered, and ill-prepared invasions of foreign countries that pose no actual threat to our security. No more wars in which the American Congress is not told in advance and throughout their duration the true cost, consequences, and terms of commitment. No more wars waged by leaders blinded by ideology who have no legal basis to start them and no plan to end them. We shall oppose no peaceful religion or culture, insult or demonize no peace-minded foreign leader, and spare no effort in meeting those obligations of leadership and assistance that our comparative economic strength has thrust upon us. We shall listen, not lecture; learn, not threaten. We will enhance our safety by earning the respect of others and showing respect for them. In short, our foreign policy will rest on the traditional American values of restraint and empathy, not on military might.

In the final analysis, our nation cannot be secure around the world unless our citizens are secure at home—secure not only from external attack, but secure as well from the rising tide of national debt, secure from the financial and physical ravages of uninsured disease, secure from discrimination in our schools and neighborhoods, secure from the bitter unrest generated by a widening gap between our richest and poorest citizens. They are not secure in a country lacking reasonable limitations on the sale of handguns to criminals, the mentally disturbed, and prospective terrorists. And our citizens are not secure when some of their fellow citizens, loyal Islamic Americans, are made to feel they are the targets of hysteria or bigotry.

I believe in an America in which the fruits of productivity and prosperity are shared by all, by workers as well as owners, by those at the bottom as well as those at the top; an America in which the sacrifices required by national security are shared by all, by profiteers in the back offices as well as volunteers on the front lines.

In my administration, I shall restore balance and fairness to the national tax system. I shall level the playing field for organized labor. I shall end the unseemly favors to corporations that allow them to profit without competing, for it is through competition that we innovate, and it is through innovation that we raise the wages of our workers. It shames our nation that profits for corporations have soared even as wages for average Americans have fallen. It shames us still more that so many African American men must struggle to find jobs.

We will make sure that no American citizen, from the youngest child to the oldest retiree, and especially no returning serviceman or military veteran, will be denied fully funded medical care of the highest quality.

To pay for these domestic programs, my administration will make sure that subsidies and tax breaks go only to those who need them most, not those who need them least, and that we fund only those weapons systems we need to meet the threats of today and tomorrow, not those of yesterday.

The purpose of public office is to do good, not harm; to change lives, help lives, and save lives, not destroy them. I look upon the presidency not as an opportunity to rule, but as an opportunity to serve. I intend to serve all the people, regardless of party, race, region, or religion.

Let us all, here assembled in this hall, or watching at home, constitute ourselves, rededicate ourselves, as soldiers in a new army. Not an army of death and destruction, but a new army of voters and volunteers, in a new wave of workers for peace and justice at home and abroad, new missionaries for the moral rebirth of our country. I ask for every citizen’s help, not merely those who live in the red states or those who live in the blue states, but every citizen in every state. Although we may be called fools and dreamers, although we will find the going uphill, in the words of the poet: “Say not the struggle naught availeth.” We will change our country’s direction, and hand to the generation that follows a nation that is safer, cleaner, less divided, and less fearful than the nation we will inherit next January.

I’m told that John F. Kennedy was fond of quoting Archimedes, who explained the principle of the lever by declaring: “Give me a place to stand, and I can move the world.” My fellow Americans—here I stand. Come join me, and together we will move the world to a new era of a just and lasting peace.

Source

The majority of college professors believe in God

So basically it's time to quit whining about colleges "making" students into atheists, as I've pointed out before.  (Although college does make them more liberal, and conservatives have all but vilified the intellect.)

According to their study 51.5 percent of professors, responding to the question of whether they believe in God, chose the response, "While I have doubts, I feel that I do believe in God," or the statement, "I know God really exists and I have no doubts about it." While atheists and agnostics in the United States make up about 3 and 4.1 percent of the population, respectively, the prevalence of atheism and agnosticism was much higher among professors: 9.8 percent of professors chose the statement, "I don't believe in God," while another 13.1 percent chose, "I don't know whether there is a God." In other words, religious skepticism is much more common among professors than in the general American population. However, the majority are still believers.

How do these numbers break down by discipline? Gross and Simmons explore how belief in God is distributed among the 20 largest disciplinary fields. In terms of atheists, professors of psychology and mechanical engineering lead the pack with 50 percent and 44.1 percent respectively. Amongst biologists, 33.3 percent were agnostic and 27.5 percent were atheist. Interestingly, 21.6 percent of biologists say that they have no doubt that God exists. In contrast, 63 percent of accounting professors, 56.8 percent of elementary education professors, 48.6 percent of finance professors, 46.5 percent of marketing professors, 45 percent of art professors, and 44.4 percent of both nursing professors and criminal justice professors stated that they know God exists.

Gross and Simmons also attempted to discover the proportion of professors who think of themselves as religiously progressive, moderate, or traditional. They found that professors in the social sciences and humanities are more than twice as likely identify themselves as religiously progressive (32.5 percent and 35 percent, respectively), while a larger number of physical and biological scientists see themselves as moderate (32.2 percent) as opposed to progressive or traditionalist.

The research also describes the religious affiliation of professors in the United States: 37.9 percent can be classified as Protestant, 15.9 percent identify themselves as Roman Catholic, and 9 percent as "Other Christian." Jewish professors make up about 5.4 percent of the sample, and 2.6 percent are Muslim. Overall, 18.6 percent stated that they were "born-again Christians." Around 46 percent of professors who identified themselves as "traditionalist" were also born-again Christians. Although, as noted above, 51.5 percent of professors say they believe in God, 31.2 percent claim to have no religious affiliation. In other words, they don't belong to any particular religion, but still believe in a higher power.