Summary: This research project lies on the field of empirical virtue epistemology as to provide a survey-based foundation to evaluate what factors contribute or hinder fruitful and harmonic conversations between science and religion. The study will be performed with evangelical science and religion study groups in Brazil by means of an online questionnaire that uses as its basis an Intellectual Virtue Scale – a comprehensive psychometrically validated scale available to measure intellectual virtues/vices. We are going to analyze the configurations of group-level profiles of these groups and compare with individual level virtues/vices and how they make up group tendencies of virtuosity/viciousness. Finally, we will study the implicative associations of these profiles with the results from the scale as to determine, for example, what epistemic virtues are practiced, cherished or valued by a certain group that make it more open-minded towards the findings of science, and what intellectual vices there are that make it refractory to established scientific facts. This work is especially relevant in a context where religious communities have a historic record of denying scientific theories that they perceive as hostile to their faith, such as evangelical communities in Brazil that closely replicate a common scenario we know to be popular in North America — the repudiation of the theory of evolution, for example. This scenario of scientific denial has been exacerbated manyfold during the current Covid-19 pandemic, when evangelicals have been notoriously responsible for disseminating conspiracy theories and going against established scientific facts, measures, and protocols. Thus, we aim, with this research, to contribute for a better understanding of the factors that play out in these dynamics of relating science and religion in order to foster a more harmonious and fruitful dialogue between these important cultural forces.
Author
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Tiago Garros is a researcher on the intersections between natural sciences and Christian faith. He is the Coordinator of TheoLab, a Templeton funded project hosted at TeachBeyond Brazil. He holds a Master’s and PhD in Theology from Faculdades EST (Superior School of Theology – Brazil) and a Licentiate Degree in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
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