Seminarians, Popes and Evolution: A View from Brazil
By Marcio Antonio Campos Are seminarians who know what popes have said on evolution more likely to make peace with Darwin? When Pope Francis said in 2014 that God was not “a magician, complete with an all powerful magic wand”, parts of the press went mad, as if the Catholic Church had finally made peace […]
Tyndall, Draper, and “Eastern” Religions
By Bernard Lightman When John Tyndall, well known physicist and superintendent of the prestigious Royal Institution, delivered his “Belfast Address” in 1874 as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science he touched off a storm of controversy that lasted for several years. The lecture was a tour de force, covering the entire […]
‘For the Study of’: A one-sided agenda on religion and science?
By Willem B. Drees Is it significant that the name of the International Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society has explicitly ‘for the study of’ in the name? It might be merely a smart move in a secularized academic context, where engagement with religious convictions is more easily accepted if the […]
STEMM and Belief in Diverse Contexts Conference: reflections from Africa
From 7-9 July 2021 we held our annual INSBS conference, STEMM and Belief in Diverse Contexts: Publics, Praxis, Policy and Pluralism. Postponed in 2020 and held online in 2021 because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, in this post three of our members from Africa reflect on their online conference experience. Belief and Science is not […]
All the Light Here Comes from Above: Edward Hitchcock, Man of Science, Man of Faith
by Robert T. McMaster Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864) was not the only star in the firmament of American science in the nineteenth century, but he was certainly one of the brightest. Raised among the wheat and rye fields of Deerfield, Massachusetts, he was expected to pursue a farmer’s life, but early in life he developed a […]
Science and Social Stereotypes
***This blog post originally appeared on the University of Birmingham website, 10 February 2021, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the University of Birmingham.*** 11 February was the United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To mark the occasion network members Carissa Sharp and Stephen Jones explore the reasons […]
How to Build an Academic Network
By Stephen H. Jones and Paula Brikci On 5th February, the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society launched a call for grants to support the development of regional academic networks. In this blog, drawing on the insights of scholars from across the field, Stephen H. Jones and Paula Brikci look at what makes a good academic network […]
Crusading for Moral Authority: Christian Nationalism and Opposition to Science in the United States
By Joseph O. Baker, Samuel L. Perry and Andrew L. Whitehead On August 30 2020, Los Angeles megachurch pastor John MacArthur told his congregation “There is no pandemic.” Grace Community Church was meeting in defiance of local and state ordinances against large in-person gatherings. After citing a common misinterpretation of data about COVID-19 from the […]
Half of College Biology Students in the United States Think Evolution is Atheistic
by Liz Barnes Does someone have to be an atheist to accept evolution? According to the philosophy of science and many science educators the answer is no. However, my recent study has revealed that over half of college biology students in the United States think that in order to accept evolution fully, they would have […]
The Secret Social Lives of Science
By Stephen H. Jones Read enough science journalism and eventually you will become familiar with two tropes that seem to contradict one another. On the one hand, journalists will often write about ‘science’ as though it is an unquestioned authority, with the more opportunistic members of the profession using the term to try to convince […]
