By Elaine Howard Ecklund
That the longstanding antagonism among technological know-how and faith is irreconcilable has been taken without any consideration. And within the wake of contemporary controversies over instructing clever layout and the ethics of stem-cell learn, the divide turns out as unbridgeable as ever.In technology vs. faith, Elaine Howard Ecklund investigates this unexamined assumption within the first systematic research of what scientists really imagine and consider approximately faith. during her examine, Ecklund surveyed approximately 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275 of them. She reveals that the majority of what we think in regards to the religion lives of elite scientists is inaccurate. approximately 50 percentage of them are non secular. Many others are what she calls "spiritual entrepreneurs," looking artistic how you can paintings with the tensions among technological know-how and religion outdoor the limitations of conventional faith. The booklet facilities round shiny photographs of 10 consultant women and men operating within the traditional and social sciences at best American study universities. Ecklund's respondents run the gamut from Margaret, a chemist who teaches a Sunday-school type, to Arik, a physicist who selected to not think in God good ahead of he made up our minds to develop into a scientist. just a small minority are actively adverse to faith. Ecklund finds how scientists-believers and skeptics alike-are suffering to interact the expanding variety of spiritual scholars of their study rooms and argues that many scientists are searching for "boundary pioneers" to pass the wooden traces isolating technology and faith. With huge implications for schooling, technology investment, and the thorny moral questions surrounding stem-cell examine, cloning, and different state of the art medical endeavors, technological know-how vs. faith brings a welcome dose of truth to the technological know-how and faith debates.
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Extra info for Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think
Sample text
4 Economists are often stereotyped as hard-nosed, hyperrational number The Voice of Faith crunchers, but Tobin had a warm, almost tender, way of speaking. Only in his late thirties, Tobin has achieved outstanding professional success. He is a full professor, chair of his department, and has already served as the major adviser for nearly thirty PhD students. Tobin talked openly with me about his experiences as a Catholic, in particular the tension he experiences between faith and science. ” He found that simply being raised Catholic was not enough for him to remain a person of faith through his late teens and early twenties.
The Voice of Science For some, not believing has everything to do with learning more about science. For others, science itself had little influence on their decision to not believe. In fact, for the majority of scientists I interviewed, it is not the engagement with science itself that leads them away from religion. 7 For others, religion is simply irrelevant to their life’s passion of science. ”8 This conception of science holds that science is inherently protected from personal bias because scientists work together in groups.
Scientists across all disciplines have adopted a “conflict paradigm,” although this group makes up only a small percentage (15 percent) of the 275 scientists I interviewed. A few scientists, some of whom alluded to Galileo’s conflict with the Catholic Church, flatly declared that there is no hope for achieving a common ground of dialogue between scientists and religious believers. 13 Beyond such public conflicts, 10 percent of scientists also mentioned personal conflicts with religion that led them to reject faith once they learned more about science.