Sol Barbera, Author at International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society

S4 Episode 4: How do religious views affect abortion policies in the US and South America?

In the fourth episode of season four, Dr Amy Adamczyk, Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of City University of New York, and Dr Reynaldo Rivera and Dr Maria Sol Barbera, from the School of Communications at the Universidad Austral in Buenos Aries in Argentina, discuss their research on how different contexts and personal religious beliefs shape people’s health-related attitudes and behaviours, in particular medical interventions such as abortion and assisted conception, at the beginning of life. (This episode was recorded in August 2024)

A dis-enchanted world? Research on the non-religious in Argentina

Summary: The researchers of this project previously participated in “Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum” and produced 64 interviews and 7 focus groups on the perceptions of Argentinians (scientists and from the general public) about the relationship between science and religion. This project has already produced 2 written articles (another one is in the process of being written), and has allowed a first exploration of a previously unstudied topic in Argentina. This exploratory study revealed some trends which deserve more research for a deeper understanding. Some of these are related to non-religious individuals. First, we observed important differences between agnostics and atheists (with have no relevant differences in their identities in Argentina) and non-religious individuals. While the former show greater distancing from supernatural ideas, the latter tend to reject religious institutions, but not necessarily beliefs such as God, Jesus Christ, energy, spirits and life after death. Secondly, non-religious people with