The public’s view that science and religion can’t work in collaboration is a misconception that stunts progress, according to a new survey of more than 10,000 Americans, scientists and evangelical Protestants. The study by Rice University also found that scientists and the general public are surprisingly similar in their religious practices.
Elaine Howard Ecklund. Photo courtesy: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University
The study, “Religious Understandings of Science (RUS),” was conducted by sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund and presented today in Chicago during the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference. Ecklund is the Autrey Professor of Sociology and director of Rice’s Religion and Public Life Program.
“We found that nearly 50 percent of evangelicals believe that science and religion can work together and support one another,” Ecklund said. “That’s in contrast to the fact that only 38 percent of Americans feel that science and religion can work in collaboration.”
The study also found that 18 percent of scientists attended weekly religious services, compared with 20 percent of the general U.S. population; 15 percent consider themselves very religious (versus 19 percent of the general U.S. population); 13.5 percent read religious texts weekly (compared with 17 percent of the U.S. population); and 19 percent pray several times a day (versus 26 percent of the U.S. population).
“This is a hopeful message for science policymakers and educators, because the two groups don’t have to approach religion with an attitude of combat,” Ecklund said. “Rather, they should approach it with collaboration in mind.”
Ecklund said that the way the science-religion relationship is portrayed in the news media influences the misperception.
“Most of what you see in the news are stories about these two groups at odds over the controversial issues, like teaching creationism in the schools. And the pundits and news panelists are likely the most strident representatives for each group,” she said. “It might not be as riveting for television, but consider how often you see a news story about these groups doing things for their common good. There is enormous stereotyping about this issue and not very good information.”
Ecklund noted that portions of the two groups are likely to stay put in their oppositional camps. As an example, she found that evangelical Protestants are twice as likely as the general population (11 percent) to consult a religious text or religious leader for questions about science.
Other key findings:
- Nearly 60 percent of evangelical Protestants and 38 percent of all surveyed believe “scientists should be open to considering miracles in their theories or explanations.”
- 27 percent of Americans feel that science and religion are in conflict.
- Of those who feel science and religion are in conflict, 52 percent sided with religion.
- 48 percent of evangelicals believe that science and religion can work in collaboration.
- 22 percent of scientists think most religious people are hostile to science.
- Nearly 20 percent of the general population think religious people are hostile to science.
- Nearly 22 percent of the general population think scientists are hostile to religion.
- Nearly 36 percent of scientists have no doubt about God’s existence.
Ecklund found another counterintuitive result in the survey. The conventional wisdom is that religious people who work in science will have more doubts about their faith, but the survey revealed the opposite: Evangelical scientists practice religion more than evangelical Protestants in the general population.
“Those scientists who identify as evangelical are more religious than regular American evangelicals who are not in science,” Ecklund said.
“Evangelical scientists feel that they’ve been put under pressure or they find themselves in what they view to be more hostile environments,” she said. “They potentially see themselves as more religious, because they’re seeing the contrast between the two groups all the time.”
RUS is the largest study of American views on religion and science. It includes the nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 Americans, more than 300 in-depth interviews with Christians, Jews and Muslims — more than 140 of whom are evangelicals — and extensive observations of religious centers in Houston and Chicago.
The study is being provided to the AAAS Dialogue on Science Ethics and Religion program to help foster dialogue between religious groups and scientists.
The study was supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Editor’s note: The study is now available online at http://elainehowardecklund.blogs.rice.edu/files/2014/02/RU_AAASPresentationNotes_2014_0220.pdf.
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I think this study will prove to be seriously flawed. I know too many physicians and engineers who are young earth creationists. To lump them in with scientists is a stretch to far. The AAAS already has some “conclusions” published on their website and “MAY” is the keyword in their headline. I think it would be wise to include a similar qualifier here.
My initial reaction is that this study is seriously flawed and if the AAAS is so supportive they should publish it in Science. They already have a story on their website (http://www.aaas.org/news/religious-and-scientific-communities-may-be-less-combative-commonly-portrayed):
“Religious and Scientific Communities May Be Less Combative Than Commonly Portrayed”
“MAY” is the keyword here, and that cannot be emphasized enough. I can see this becoming a BIG problem for the AAAS.
To claim that Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawkins theories support Intelligent Design as one of the above writers states is assinine.
Dr. Ecklund is to be congratulated for the size scope and depth of the scientific research on this important topic. There can be no arguing that the findings though counter to commonly held beliefs are valid. Now if she could get funding to study how politicians and educators compare we would have even more insight into the sometimes mark missing public policy decisions and educational curriculum that continue to block the dialog Dr Ecklund calls for. Brilliant research with far reaching implications. Kudos to Rice and the Templeton Foundation for supporting it.
There is no conflict between science and religion. They are inseparably entwined. The creation story is an allegory. It was written in such a way for it to be easily understood by a largely illiterate audience of the time. Much of the misunderstanding arises from strict literal interpretations of the story which distort and misrepresent the message that God is trying to convey. We know that God’s time is vastly different from man’s time for the two come from and belong to two different dimensions. A day in God’s work schedule could be the equivalent of a billion earth years. And so as Genesis says, God worked for six(6) days and rested on the 7th. That is a whopping 6 billion earth years, which coincidentally corresponds roughly to the planet’s geologic age. That is plenty of time for the first atom and the first molecule to form primitive unicellular microorganism which in turn evolved into the most complex plants and animals of today. God figured it out for Darwin.
At the moment of creation(the Big Bang of Sir Fred Hoyle) God gave each and all heavenly bodies specific laws to follow, which are known today as the laws of nature. Astronomers and astrophysicists now grudgingly admit that the universe indeed had a beginning. And the very fine tuning of the universe clearly points to Intelligent Design, according to Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. And the startling findings of the Human Genome Project headed by Francis Collins added further evidence in support of this conclusion. The complexity of human genetics and the finely-tuned universe could have not come into existence by mere accident. Thus, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution becomes tenable if it is seen in the context of God’s Grand Design.
From the very beginning God endowed man with intellect and free will. With this gift of intelligence man created a powerful tool he calls “science”. There is nothing new in the universe: all we are doing is discover what has been there for the past 13 billion years or so. Science is the tool man uses to discover, understand and appreciate the grandeur and majesty of God’s creation. Clearly, science and religion belong to each other.###
The study’s initial findings were announced Sunday, Feb. 16, at the AAAS conference in Chicago. It will be submitted for publication shortly.
David Ruth
Rice Media Relations
is it possible to read the study itself?
Joe: The study is now available online here: http://elainehowardecklund.blogs.rice.edu/files/2014/02/RU_AAASPresentationNotes_2014_0220.pdf
Saying that “scientists should be open to considering miracles in their theories or explanations” is like saying that “scientists should be open to disregarding the evidence they have and supplement their finding with their own unsubstantiated opinions”.
It is unethical and irresponsible.
Some things just can’t be explained and many scientists do leave room for “miracles”. Something unexplained or unable to be reproduced does not necessarily need to be called ” unscientific”.
I’m not clear on how “scientist” is defined in this study. Many engineers, for example, claim to be scientists and yet understand very little about scientific methods of investigation. The Creationist ranks are full of such “scientists” who support utterly discredited ideas like “Intelligent Design”. Similar work has repeatedly show that non-belief is MUCH more prevalent among those with bona fide scientific training. I’m entirely unconvinced in the validity of the conclusions reached in the study described.
The study seems make it’s conclusion based on the acceptance that people have in entwining science and religion, well, the data from a bunch of people saying scientists should accept miraculous explanations shows almost half of surveyed people have no idea how science works. Probably if asked many people would also put intelligent design under science. Religious ideas are based on faith and nothing more, if science was accepted within it would be always replacing the religious idea with evidence, today the thunder is an act of Thor, tomorrow the electrical explanation comes and science will overcome the miraculous explanation, it would be like that until there would be no more miracle left.
Where could I find the study – or when and where will it be published?
IMHO religion and philosophers try to figure out the nature of “God” and the nature of the spiritual universe while science tries to figure out the physical universe and how God works.
Science doesn’t know all the laws of nature now just as they didn’t know about radio waves, and nuclear energy.