According to a book-length study of the beliefs and characteristics of Nobel Laureates,287 overall only 10.5% described themselves as ‘atheist, agnostic, freethinker or otherwise nonreligious at some point in their lives’. What is striking, however, is that while the figure reaches as high as 35% for Laureates in literature, the figures for science are 8.9% in physiology/medicine, 7.1% in chemistry, and 4.7% in physics.
