The Successes of the INSBS with Prof. Fern Elsdon-Baker

John Evans, Tata Chancellor’s Chair in Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology, and Co-Director of the Institute of Practical Ethics of the University of California San Diego, talks about how his research shows that the religion and science debate should increasingly focus on moral conflict between religion and science, rather than on facts.  

Fern Elsdon-Baker, Professor of Science, Knowledge and Belief in Society at the University of Birmingham, looks back at the successes of the network she founded in bringing together researchers from all over the world and from awide variety of disciplines, from psychology to politics and theology to sociology, to gain a deeper understanding of the relationships between science and belief in peoples’ lives.

In the final episode of the season, James and Will are joined by Dr Adam R. Shapiro, an historian of science, whose work focuses on public understandings and misunderstandings of science and the relationship between science and religion. Adam provides an overview of some of the emerging trends in the history of science and religion and situates his own work within this wider disciplinary movement. The discussion ranges from the development of and public controversies surrounding two space telescopes - the James Webb Space Telescope and the 30 Metre Telescope on Mauna Kea; the role of Natural Theology in the American Declaration of Independence; Adam's contribution to the second edition of Thomas Dixon's Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction; and where and how Adam sees the field moving beyond 'complexity'.

In the penultimate episode of the season, Will and Rebecca are joined by Dr Carissa Sharp, Assistant Professor in Psychology of Religion in the School of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK and Dr Carola Leicht, Reader in Organisational Behaviour at the University of Kent, UK. Carissa and Carola discuss their almost decade-long collaboration, using social psychological methods to explore questions of science-religion conflict and how religious and nonreligious social identities drive perceptions of conflict in unexpected ways. Carola presents the in-depth results of her work on atheist and "new atheist" perceptions of science and religion, before Carissa discusses how stereotypes impact both religious and non-religious perceptions. Carissa goes on to discuss a recent grant success supporting her work to develop psychological cross-training for theologians.

In this episode Will is joined by a new co-host Dr Rebecca Hughes, a social psychologist at the University of Birmingham. Will and Rebecca welcome Renate Ysseldyk, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada specializing in Social and Health Psychology, and Emily Tippins, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa, who recently completed her Masters of Science working with Renate at Carleton University. Renate and Emily discuss how religious and non-religious individuals in Canada coped with the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic and the differential relations between religiosity, trust in science (or lack thereof) and vaccine intentions that exist between religious and non-religious individuals. They complicate this picture further by highlighting the role that political orientation plays in vaccine intentions and trust in science, showing that it can play a greater role than religious/non-religious identity. Renate and Emily discuss the wider societal implications of this, and vaccine hesitancy more generally.

In this timely episode James and Will welcome Amy Adamczyk, Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Amy discusses her sociological exploration of attitudes towards abortion, in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), and the role that religious and other socio-demographic factors play in shaping these attitudes. Amy presents the results of a comparative quantitative analysis of attitudes to abortion across 70 countries, before presenting findings of more in-depth qualitative work into attitudes in the US and China, and the role of liberalism in these different contexts. In the Chinese context, abortion is a less contentious issue, and Amy discusses the comparative hardening of attitudes to abortion in the US in the context of the Supreme Court's overturning of the Roe vs Wade decision, which had guaranteed the right to abortion across the US. Amy discusses the international implications of this decision, whilst considering the socio-economic and other demographic factors that influence 'country-level' attitudes to abortion and ARTs.

In this episode James and Will welcome Professor Reynaldo Rivera, Full Professor in the School of Communication and Design, post-doctoral researcher Dr Arturo Fitz Herbert and researcher Sol Barbera from Austral University (Argentina). Reynaldo, Arturo and Sol discuss there work as project partners on the Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum of Global Perspectives project, which sees teams of researchers in 8 countries investigate the relationship between science and religion using diverse sociological, social psychological, historical and media/cultural studies methods. Focusing on the Argentinian case, the Austral team present findings from their qualitative and media studies work, showing how the relationship between science and religion is perceived and presented as operating in very different ways depending on the social context (e.g. in professional science vs in more public arenas). The Austral team also discuss their efforts to identify scholars in the region (Latin America) working on similar topics and pull together a network of such scholars - the CRYS Network - to share research and best practice, which has even included establishing their own Spanish-language Science and Belief podcast!

In this episode James and Will welcome Dr Thokozani Kamwendo, post-doctoral researcher at Durham University, and Dr Caroline McCalman, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham, for a roundtable discussion on the relationship between scholarship in Science & Belief and Science & Technology Studies (STS). Thoko is the editor of a collection exploring this relationship, with Caroline providing a single-authored and a co-authored contribution. As well as hosting the podcast, both James and Will are scholars at the intersection of these disciplines, and are also contributing a chapter each to the volume. In a departure from the usual format, James and Will hand over the hosting duties (at least temporarily) to Thoko, who leads us through the motivation for the volume, before Caroline, James and Will outline their own contributions, before engaging in a more wide-ranging discussion of the value of this kind of inter-disciplinary project for both STS scholars and scholars of Science & Belief.

In this episode we welcome Dr Neil Stephens, Associate Professor in Technology and Society at the University of Birmingham. Neil discusses his 15+ year study of ‘cultured meat’; the processes of its scientific and technological development, how religious authorities have been involved in these processes, and the broader epistemological, ontological and sociological implications of his research. We go on to discuss the March for Science, the value of borrowing concepts from different disciplines, and more broadly, what Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Science and Belief scholars can learn from one another.

In this episode (our first recorded in-person) we talk with distinguished historian of science Professor Bernard Lightman. We discuss his wide-ranging contributions to the historical study of science and religion, from his early work on the origins of agnosticism, to his views on more recent shifts and trends in the field - and the differences between T.H. Huxley and Richard Dawkins.