science and religion 2ndry

Question 1

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - who is the study focused on

Answer 1

• Studies adolescents on their views of the relationship between science and religion – good because forming their own views at this time and they are in education learning about these things 847/8 (can see link between the two)

Question 2

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - popular belief re. science and religion

Answer 2

• Close relationship since Enlightenment 848
• ‘But the popular belief that religion and science exist in an inevitable state of conflict - what historians of science call “the warfare thesis” - is primarily the result of certain late-nineteenth-century antireligious activist intellectuals who promoted, through books and public forums, this historically inaccurate view in order to de-legitimate religious authority (Numbers, 2009; Smith, 2003)’ 848
- diverse response of US and GB Protestantism to evolutionary theory

Question 3

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - scientists attitudes to religion

Answer 3

• Ecklund’s study (2010) of ‘more than 1,700 elite scientists showed that most are open to and even incorporate particular aspects of religion into their lives’ 848
• ‘Today, more than a few high-profile scientists and philosophers of science continue to insist on the compatibility of faith and science (e.g., Collins, 2006; Flew, 2008) 849

Question 4

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - perspectives from barbour’s framework

Answer 4

• Identifies 4 perspectives from Barbour’s framework (1997, 2000):
• 1) Conflict – like “warfare” model – the two are not compatible and are in opposition
• 2) Independence – ‘the two are not in conflict because they operate in completely separate realms in terms of the questions they primarily address’ 849
• 3) Dialogue & Integration (very similar) – religion and science are compatible – integration holds that they ‘promote and enhance one another’, dialogue holds that there is a ‘common ground’ which exists between them 849

Question 5

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - impact of weber and other studies

Answer 5

• Weber has influenced sociologists to think that ‘social experiences shape and order the values, beliefs, and attitudes people maintain’ 849
• Other studies shown that the ‘cognitive frames can become embedded in one’s mental processing to the point they become intuitive’ 849 – HENCE UNABLE TO AGREE
• Previous studies point to conflict between science and religion 850 and it is assumed that this is most likely to come from conservative Christian denominations, ‘particularly evangelical Protestants’ 850

Question 6

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - studies that support compatibility of science and religion

Answer 6

• Studies to support their compatibility: Campbell 2005, for example, found ‘a strong positive correlation between both frequent attendance at religious services and a high importance of faith in one’s daily life with an agreement that a person could be religious and scientific’ 852
• Verhey 2005 – ‘found no differences among students’ willingness to accept evolutionary theory based on their religious commitment to creationism’ 852
• Suggests ‘young people may not experience the cognitive dissonance that adults do, even when they are highly involved or devoted to religious doctrine’ 852
• The evidence of integration and dialogue perspectives among young people may also be the result of their culture e.g. ‘being exposed and agreeing with New Age philosophies (e.g. astrology)’ for example 852

Question 7

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - Martin and Desmond

Answer 7

• Martin and Desmond (2010) – religious beliefs form a ‘social ontology’ e.g. ‘we believe conservative Protestant emerging adults conceptualise both religion and science in a particular way that encourages them to frame the two as being distinctly opposed’ 851
• Those who are most ‘entrenched in a particular ideology are the most likely to subscribe to “stereo-typical” positions’ (M and D) because they are have ‘a definitive social ontology’ and a ‘heightened awareness of the field’ (‘e.g. politics or religion’) 851

Question 8

lawson and worsnop

Answer 8

higher commitment to religious belief = less likely to accept evolution

Question 9

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - main study - National Study of Youth and Religion: science and religion

Answer 9

• 70% agree/strongly agree that science and religion conflict
• 31% they are entirely compatible
• 41% views of science have increased religious belief

Question 10

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - main study - National Study of Youth and Religion: beliefs, behaviours and practices

Answer 10

variable mean = 1.61/5 for how often they attend religious services

mean for how often respondents pray = 2.08. pray few times a month

people believed on average in half of the 4 questions concerning miracles, LAD, angels and demons

11% belief in astrology and16% in reincarnation

Question 11

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - main study - National Study of Youth and Religion: demographic characteristics

Answer 11

most parents went to college

52% are women

2% went to prot, 4% to catholic high school

Question 12

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - main study - National Study of Youth and Religion: link between specific beliefs and science

Answer 12

• belief that only people whose sins are forgiven through JC will go to heaven = 43% less likely to view science and religion are compatible, 30% less likely that faith has been strengthened by science

exclusivists are more likely to view science and religion as in conflict

Question 13

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - self-acknowledged limitations to study

Answer 13

• do not compare broad age groups/generations

- questions are from third wave, do not know how views have changed

Question 14

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - conclusion - support of warfare model

Answer 14

• Results support the warfare model – there is a conflict between science and religion:
o ‘The most definitive, overall trend is that emerging adults tend to believe religion and science conflict, that the two are not compatible. Only a minority of emerging adults view the two as compatible and say that science has strengthened their faith. Thus, the “warfare model” legacy of White (1896) and Draper (1897) lives on in the popular imagination, more than a century after the books that crystallized that view were published, and decades since historians of science have debunked that view’ 865

Question 15

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - conclusion - complexity to relationship

Answer 15

• But the relationship is not as simple as this – ‘Most, though not all, religious variables measured here tend to encourage the view of religion and science as compatible’ 856 Different people respond to the relationship differently
• In line with M and D 2010, ‘ascribing to these ideologies seems to be less about holding a consistent set of values (i.e. religion is good, science is bad) and more about framing the social world in a particular way’ – social ontology 856

Question 16

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - conclusion - multidimensional

Answer 16

• We should look and study it as a ‘multidimensional matter’ rather than a ‘linear’ one to enhance our understanding 856
• ‘it has shown that religion does in fact associate with different views of the relationship between science and religion among emerging adults – though in some perhaps unexpected ways’ 866

Question 17

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - conclusion - integrative approach

Answer 17

• ‘Many measures of strong religion do not associate with hostility toward or conflict with religion, but with a more friendly, “integrative” approach to religion and science’ BY CONTRAST ‘if anything, it seems to be the less religious and nonreligious emerging adults who are most likely to adopt a conflictive view of the relationship between religion and science, which could perhaps feed over time into fuelling cultural conflict over those boundaries’ 866

Question 18

conflicting or compatible, longest and smith - conclusion - why might science be able to function without religion

Answer 18

• Controversial – suggests science is more opposed to religion than the opposite (perhaps this is because science can function without religion, though cannot explain cause of universe or purpose etc. whereas religion – some may argue unless removed from world – has to face empirical change in world and incorporate it. After all, for Xions at least, it is God’s world and his creation)

Question 19

wuthnow

Answer 19

Creationists often “recognize that what they believe is difficult to defend without seeming arrogant, overconfident, and irrational” (Wuthnow 2005, p. 186

Question 20

number of atheist, edgell

Answer 20

hatred by US society of atheists ‘likely implies that there are actually more agnostics and atheists in the USA, who claim a conventional religious identity to avoid conflict.’ 65 (from Edgell et al’s study 2006 which revealed that they were distrusted – SEE PAGE)