Science, Belief and Society

Stephen H. Jones is a Lecturer at the University of Birmingham and serves as current General Secretary of the Muslims in Britain Research Network (MBRN). He specialises in contemporary Muslim communities and public perceptions of science and religion and has published widely on these themes. Rebecca Catto is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Kent State University, USA. She is interested in secular-religious interactions in Britain and North America. Rebecca has published widely on atheism, Christian mission, youth and religion, state-religion relations, and science and religion.Tom Kaden is Academic Council at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Bayreuth, where he is working on a general sociology of conflict. Previously he worked as a Research Associate at York University in Toronto, Canada, where he explored the relationship between religion and science for Canadian life scientists and members of the public.

• Foreword ~ Grace DavieEditor’s Introduction: Science, Belief and the Sociological Tradition ~ Stephen H. Jones, Tom Kaden and Rebecca CattoPart I: Methodological Challenges in the Study of Science and BeliefThe Sociological Study of Science and Religion in Context ~ Fern Elsdon-Baker and Will Mason-WilkesSurvey-based Research on Science and Religion: A Review and Critique ~ Jonathan P. HillLanguage, Labels and Lived Identity in Debates about Science, Religion and Belief ~ Tom Kaden, Stephen H. Jones and Rebecca CattoResearching Clergy Attitudes towards Science: A Reflective Account of Key Methodological Challenges ~ Lydia ReidPART II: Belief in the Study of Science and TechnologyFrom ‘Science and Religion’ to ‘Transcendence in Science’, or: What We Can Learn from the (History of) Science and Technology Studies ~ Silke GülkerRational Believers: Religion, Tradition and Spirituality among Indian Scientists ~ Renny ThomasMuslim Perceptions of Biological Evolution: A Critical Review of Quantitative and Qualitative Research ~ Jessica Carlisle, Salman Hameed and Fern Elsdon-BakerPART III: Science, Culture and Non-religionFeeling Rational: Affinity and Affinity Narratives in British Science–Non-religion Relations ~ Lois LeeAvoiding the ‘Anti-intellectual Abyss’: How Secular Humanists in Sweden try to Define the Boundaries between Science, Religion, Pseudoscience and Postmodernism ~ Susanne KindAtheism and the Social Sciences ~ Stephen LeDrewPART IV: Religion, Conflict and ModerationScience and the Unearned Virtues of the ‘Really Religious People’: Exploring the Association between Perceived Religiosity and Science Rejection among Students in the Midwestern United States ~ David E. LongDiscourses on Science and Islam: A View from Britain ~ Amy UnsworthConclusion: Future Directions in the Sociological Study of Science and Belief ~ Stephen H. Jones, Rebecca Catto and Tom Kaden

"This timely and rich volume engages sociological considerations of science and belief and extends our understanding of how different groups across the world reconcile or reject diverse aspects of these two ways of knowing." Shiri Noy, Denison University