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A significant number of Americans view atheists as immoral elitists, aloof and unconcerned with the common good, and they view science and scientists as responsible. Many in the public think that all scientists are atheists and that all atheist scientists are New Atheists, militantly against religion and religious people. But what do everyday atheist scientists actually think about religion? The research presented in this book shows that there are varieties of atheism among scientists and that not all atheist scientists see conflict between science and religion.
List of contents
- Chapter 1: Why Study Atheism Among Scientists?
- Chapter 2: "Tried and Found Wanting": How Atheist Scientists Explain Religious Transitions
- Chapter 3: "I Am Not Like Richard": Modernist Atheist Scientists
- Chapter 4: Ties That Bind: Culturally Religious Atheists
- Chapter 5: Spiritual Atheist Scientists
- Chapter 6: What Atheist Scientists Think about Science
- Chapter 7: How Atheist Scientists Approach Meaning and Morality
- Chapter 8: From Rhetoric to Reality: Why Religious Believers Should Give Atheist Scientists a Chance
- Appendix A: Studying Atheist Scientists
- References
- Index
About the author
Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology, and director of the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University. She is the author of over 100 research articles and six books, including Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think and (with Christopher P. Scheitle) Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think.
David R. Johnson is Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University. He is the author of A Fractured Profession: Commercialism and Conflict in Academic Science and co-author (with Elaine Howard Ecklund) of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion.
Additional text
Ecklund and Johnson have a put together a fine work of scholarship showing that, if a scientist identifies as an atheist or a skeptic of Christianity or other religions, they rarely resemble the antitheism of Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and their followers.
