According to the interesting conclusions of a new investigation conducted by experts at the Rice University, it would appear that as few as 15 percent of all scientists based at major research universities tend to perceive religion and science as mutually exclusive, and always in conflict.
What these results indicate is that science and religion indeed mix at times, although separating between them comes off as tremendously important. The work was prompted by the fact that history tends to put the two in opposite corners of the same boxing ring.
Surprisingly, not many investigators believe that the two should necessarily be separated by clearly-established boundaries. The team published its results in the September issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
The paper is entitled “Scientists Negotiate Boundaries Between Religion and Science,” and was authored by Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, together with sociologists Jerry Park (Baylor University) and Katherine Sorrell, (PhD student at the University of Notre Dame, in Paris).
“When it comes to questions about the meaning of life, ways of understanding reality, origins of Earth and how life developed on it, many have seen religion and science as being at odds and even in irreconcilable conflict,” Howard Ecklund explains.
Her survey was applied to a selected sample of 275 researchers, from 21 elite research universities throughout the United States. Only 15 percent of respondents saw religion and science as being at odds at all times. However, only 50 percent of scientists expressed some form of religious identity.
“Much of the public believes that as science becomes more prominent, secularization increases and religion decreases,” Ecklund says about the broader social implications of advancing technology.
“Findings like these among elite scientists, who many individuals believe are most likely to be secular in their beliefs, definitely call into question ideas about the relationship between secularization and science,” she goes on to say.
In many cases, scientists who disagree with a perpetual conflict between the two positions tend to define religion more broadly than usual, to include forms of spirituality that do not belong to any faith, institution or denomination.
Another thing they do is they use integration models, which is to say that they give examples of renowned scientists who somehow managed to reconcile science and religion in their personal lives.
The third and final mechanism is the organization of active discussions on the boundaries that should separate science and religion at all times – for example, not teaching Intelligent Design or other such non-sense as being on par with the theory of evolution, or a theory at all.
“The kind of narrow research available on religion and science seems to ask if they are in conflict or not, when it should really ask the conditions under which they are in conflict,” Ecklund explains.
“Our research has found that even within the same person, there can be differing views. It's very important to dispel the myth that people believe that religion and science either do or don't conflict. Our study found that many people have much more nuanced views,” she concludes.
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