On Tuesday 15th November Dr Hannah Waite will be giving us a seminar talk entitled – ‘Science and Religion: Is Gender an issue?’.
During the Michaelmas term we will be hosting our research seminar series online. Join us at 1pm UK time followed by Q&A. Zoom webinar details are available by registering below.
Abstract: The science and religion conversation has been shaped, sometimes even dominated, by men, with more men writing and publishing in this area than women. This can risk distorting the debate and there is little public opinion research regarding how men and women view science and religion differently. This paper draws on new quantitative data (n = 5153) from a three-year UK study exploring the understanding and opinions of science and religion. In this paper, I examine the gender differences between how men and women view the in/compatibility between science and religion. We find that men are more likely to view science and religion as incompatible. We argue that probable causes of this gender difference are a combination of (a) men having a negative view of religion more generally, and (b) men possessing a more scientistic epistemology than women. These results highlight that gender plays a significant part in how the public understand the in/compatibility of science and religion and offers an exciting new dimension of research.
