Renny Thomas, Author at International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society

S4 Episode 8: Are scientists allowed to be religious at work?

In the eighth episode of season four, Dr Carissa Sharp, a social psychologist at the University of Birmingham, Dr Renny Thomas, a sociologist at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Bhopal, and Dr Arturo Fitz Herbert, from the Communications Department of the Universidad Austral in Buenos Aires in Argentina join Deborah Cohen to discuss what scientists really believe in, and crucially what the public thinks they ‘should’ or ‘do’ believe in! (This episode was recorded in September 2024) This podcast is 33 minutes and 48 seconds long. The keywords associated with this episode are: sociology of science sociology of religion social identity public perceptions You can learn more about the findings of the Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum project (including contributions from Arturo and Carissa) in a major new open-access book, International Perspectives on Science, Culture, and Belief: From Complexity to Globality (edited by

Episode 4: Science and Religion amongst Indian Scientists with Dr Renny Thomas

Renny Thomas is Assistant Professor (Sociology and Social Anthropology), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, India. Before joining IISER, he taught at the Department of Sociology, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, New Delhi (2015-2021). Renny received his PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and was the 2017-2018 Charles Wallace Fellowship in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University, Belfast, UK. You can read his Researcher Profile here. In this episode, Renny introduces his research on science and religion in India. Renny explains how his ethnographic work in Indian laboratories allowed him to explore belief systems among Indian scientists. He discusses some of the challenges of ethnographic research in scientific settings, from gaining access to negotiating insider/outsider status in the field. Renny’s work challenges orientalist assumptions and helps us to move beyond the science and religion literature dominated by Western perspectives by examining the science-religion relationship