Science, Belief and Society: International Perspectives on Religion, Non-Religion and the Public Understanding of Science, 2019
Public discourse about science and belief is permeated by all manner of labels: terms like 'creat... more Public discourse about science and belief is permeated by all manner of labels: terms like 'creationism,' 'Intelligent Design,' 'Darwinism' and 'New Atheism.' Some of these labels describe a belief about evolution. Others signify a conviction about how science and religion relate. Still others describe an organization, social movement, cultural trend or group of people. In a few cases, the same label (e.g. 'creationist' or 'New Atheist') serves all of these functions, with the term being used to describe both a set of beliefs and the population that supposedly holds these beliefs. Labels also, as we will see, feature in social-scientific research, where they often form the basis of survey questions designed to measure people's understanding and acceptance of aspects of science. What is not typically questioned, however, is what people actually think about such labels. Are people aware of these terms? Do they identify with them, referring to themselves as 'creationists' or 'New Atheists'? Do these labels accurately represent people's perspectives?
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Papers by Tom Kaden
argue that it can be regarded as a sociopolitical movement and a de facto state with different sources of authority and means of power pertaining to each. Both realms of authority guarantee and reinforce each other, thus providing the Islamic State with a stability that is often overlooked in
public debates about its prospects.
giving meaning to life. While there are many similarities that clearly position New Atheism within the history of scientism, we find that the form of scientism the New Atheists employ owes at least as much to the current state of the religious field
as to their scientistic predecessors.
mit gesellschaftsanalytischen Ausführungen verwoben, was zu zahlreichen Rezeptionsproblemen geführt hat. Wir rekonstruieren zunächst knapp die beiden Dimensionen des Werks, um anschließend dessen Aufnahme in der
Religionssoziologie genauer zu untersuchen.
Befürworter wie Gegner der Theoriereduktion kommen offenbar nicht umhin, sich mit diesem Nagel-Modell auseinanderzusetzen. In jüngster Zeit erfreut sich Kenneth F. Schaffners Weiterentwicklung dieses Modells besonderer Aufmerksamkeit (Winther 2009). So diente sein „General Reduction Paradigm“ (Schaffner 1967: 144) sowie sein „General Reduction-Replacement (GRR) Model“ (Schaffner 1993: 331) als Vorbild für ein „Generalized Nagel-Schaffner Model of Reduction (GNS)“, mit dem gezeigt werden soll, „that a Nagelian account of reduction is essentially on the right track“ (Dizadji-Bahmani et al. 2010: 393-394).
Im Folgenden soll es nicht um das Für und Wider dieser Modelle gehen, sondern nur um einen ihrer Aspekte, nämlich um die Bestimmung der Beziehung einer Vorgängertheorie T2 zu ihrer Nachfolgerin T2* im Sinne einer starken oder positiven Analogie.
argue that it can be regarded as a sociopolitical movement and a de facto state with different sources of authority and means of power pertaining to each. Both realms of authority guarantee and reinforce each other, thus providing the Islamic State with a stability that is often overlooked in
public debates about its prospects.
giving meaning to life. While there are many similarities that clearly position New Atheism within the history of scientism, we find that the form of scientism the New Atheists employ owes at least as much to the current state of the religious field
as to their scientistic predecessors.
mit gesellschaftsanalytischen Ausführungen verwoben, was zu zahlreichen Rezeptionsproblemen geführt hat. Wir rekonstruieren zunächst knapp die beiden Dimensionen des Werks, um anschließend dessen Aufnahme in der
Religionssoziologie genauer zu untersuchen.
Befürworter wie Gegner der Theoriereduktion kommen offenbar nicht umhin, sich mit diesem Nagel-Modell auseinanderzusetzen. In jüngster Zeit erfreut sich Kenneth F. Schaffners Weiterentwicklung dieses Modells besonderer Aufmerksamkeit (Winther 2009). So diente sein „General Reduction Paradigm“ (Schaffner 1967: 144) sowie sein „General Reduction-Replacement (GRR) Model“ (Schaffner 1993: 331) als Vorbild für ein „Generalized Nagel-Schaffner Model of Reduction (GNS)“, mit dem gezeigt werden soll, „that a Nagelian account of reduction is essentially on the right track“ (Dizadji-Bahmani et al. 2010: 393-394).
Im Folgenden soll es nicht um das Für und Wider dieser Modelle gehen, sondern nur um einen ihrer Aspekte, nämlich um die Bestimmung der Beziehung einer Vorgängertheorie T2 zu ihrer Nachfolgerin T2* im Sinne einer starken oder positiven Analogie.
This wide-ranging book critically reviews the ways in which religious and non-religious belief systems interact with scientific methods, traditions and theories. Contributors explore how, for some secularists, ‘science’ forms an important part of social identity. Others examine how many contemporary religious movements justify their beliefs by making a claim upon science. Moving beyond the traditional focus on the United States, the book shows how debates about science and belief are firmly embedded in political conflict, class, community and culture.
Tom Kaden beleuchtet in seiner religionssoziologischen Untersuchung die Geschichte dieser professionellen Kreationisten seit den 1960er-Jahren bis in die jüngste Vergangenheit und bezieht dabei systematisch die säkulare Opposition dagegen mit ein. Mithilfe der Feldtheorie Pierre Bourdieus zeigt er, wie Kreationismus in seinen verschiedenen Varianten als Resultat eines ständigen Aushandlungs- und Anpassungsprozesses professioneller Kreationisten und Antikreationisten verstanden und erklärt werden kann.
Die Arbeit wurde mit dem Promotionspreis des Graduiertenzentrums Geisteswissenschaften der Research Academy Leipzig 2014 und mit dem Rolf-Kentner-Dissertationspreis des Heidelberg Center for American Studies 2015 ausgezeichnet.
Achim Seiffarth, Die Sprache Max Webers. Eine soziologische Untersuchung. Marburg: Tectum 2016, 547 S., kt., 39,95 € (SMW)
Answers in Genesis and creationism in general are seen as important exponents of the conflict between science and religion in the United States. Out of many examples of this, a website that features numerous texts dealing with the compatibility of science and religion from a Christian perspective is simply called “noanswersingenesis.org.au”. The analysis of conflict dimensions that become visible in the Ark shows that this generic understanding is at the same time too narrow and too wide. It is too wide, because the mission of Answers in Genesis is by no means the refutation of all of science, or the fundamental opposition against scientific rationality per se. On the contrary, it was argued that the Ark and creationism in general actually represent a certain form of rationalization of religious beliefs.
On the other hand, the view that the Ark is “merely” another iteration of the conflict between science and religion is too narrow. The Ark is a focal point of entertainment, apologetics, economy, hermeneutics, and science. To adopt Answers in Genesis’ interpretation of its own Ark means to adopt an entire worldview. What formula could be employed to encompass all those different aspects of the Ark? The historian Frank Turner coined the phrase “contesting cultural authority” to summarize his analyses of Victorian British conflict situations surrounding science and religion, “whereby groups advocating different ideas came to the fore, claimed the right to be heard, and established institutions that fostered their own ideas and values” (Turner 1993: xii). The scientific naturalists of the 19th century, like Thomas Huxley and John Tyndall, were interested in the autonomy of their fields of scientific research from religious influence. For them, this differentiation was the precondition to gain scientific authority , on which they tried to build their cultural authority. Answers in Genesis seeks to gain cultural authority through the opposite operation. The organization is interested in a Christianization or Re-Christianization of American society, hence in a collapse of religious and secular logic (science being part of this), and it clearly expresses this claim with regard to cultural authority.