The Science & Belief in Society Podcast

In this episode, hosts Richard Grove and James Riley meet with Dr. Vivian Dzokoto, a Cultural Psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in the United States, to discuss her work on the cultural differences in how people think about "the mind." Dr. Dzokoto has published research on a wide range of topics. However, one of the key characteristics of her research is the examination of culture a...

In this episode, hosts Rachael Shillitoe and Richard Grove, meet with Elaine Howard Ecklund, Professor of Sociology at Rice University and David R. Johnson, Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University, to discuss their new book, Varieties of Atheism in Science, out now with Oxford University Press. Elaine and David reflect on the findings of their study which draw...

New-age spirituality, wellness and alternative health practices have been cast in a new light as the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded. The relationship between these practices and established or mainstream science and public health has tended to be an uneasy one, and this unease has only increased during the pandemic, with online spiritualist and wellness communities providing fertile ground for the...

The Media of Mediumship project is running jointly at the University of Stirling and the Science Museum Group. The project team comprises Principal Investigator Professor Christine Ferguson , Co-Investigator Dr Efram Sera-Shriar and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Emma Merkling . In this very spooky episode, Christine, Efram and Emma tell us how from the late-19th Century on, novel technologies of...

A sneak peak of what's coming up in Season Two of The Science & Belief in Society Podcast

In the final episode of Season 1 of the Science & Belief in Society Podcast, we’re re-joined by Dr Tom Aechtner, Senior Lecturer in Religion and Science in the School Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland. Tom talks us through the persuasive and rhetorical tactics used by both pro- and anti-evolutionist media and explains what science communicators can learn from...

In this episode, we talk with Dr Lois Lee about the relationship between science and non-religion and the perceived affinity between the two. Through her ground-breaking research on non-religion and unbelief, Lois discusses the role that science plays in lives of the non-religious and how this role varies across different non-religious groups. Drawing on empirical research and disaggregating what...

In this episode James and Will welcome Dr James Ungureanu, Historian in Residence in the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Queensland. Dr Ungureanu discusses his recent book Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of...

In this episode we talk with Dr Bankole Falade about his recent social psychological and media research on science and religion in South Africa and Nigeria. Bankole introduces the concepts of polyphasia and cognitive dissonance, explains how they are helpful in understanding how and why individuals are able to reconcile apparently contradictory beliefs, and why these concepts are useful for resear...

In this episode, we welcome Dr Alexander Hall, who discusses his research into the popular media representation of science and religion in the 20thcentury. He introduces us to ways of presenting science which became common on television and radio over the second half of the 20th century, which he calls the ‘evolutionary epic’ and the ‘humanist blockbuster’: grand, sweeping stories about nature and...

The Pew Research Centre is a fact tank which focuses on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. They study U.S. politics and policy; journalism and media; internet, science and technology; religion and public life; global attitudes and trends; and U.S. social and demographic trends. To carry out such research, the team at Pew Research Centre conduct public opinion polling, demographic rese...

In this episode, Dr Renny Thomas introduces his research on science and religion in India. Renny explains how his ethnographic work in Indian laboratories allowed him to explore belief systems among Indian scientists. He discusses some of the challenges of ethnographic research in scientific settings, from gaining access to negotiating insider/outsider status in the field. Renny’s work challenges...

Our guest for this latest instalment of the Science & Belief in Society Podcast is Dr. Kimberly Rios, Associate Professor at Ohio University, whose research explores the relationship between science, religion and identity from a social psychological perspective. In this episode, Kim talks about how our perception of things as seemingly fixed as the length of a straight line are shaped by group...

Recently, we caught up with Dr Tom Aechtner, Senior Lecturer in Religion and Science at the University of Queensland, to record an episode for the Science & Belief in Society podcast series. That episode, on Tom’s work around persuasion tactics in science and religion mass media communication, will be launched in Summer 2021. Tom has also been researching vaccination scepticism and anti-vaccin...

In this episode, we talk with Dr Shiri Noy about the value of quantitative and qualitative methods in understanding public attitudes to science and religion in the US; how theoretical insights from political and cultural sociology help to better make sense of this relationship, and, for reasons that will become clear, we also talk quite a lot about Battenberg cake. Dr Shiri Noy is an Assistant Pro...

In this episode, Professor Fern Elsdon-Baker introduces the Network and explains the importance of multi-disciplinary and international research into science and belief. Professor Fern Elsdon-Baker is the Director for the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society and the Principal Investigator on the Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum of Global Perspec...

Trailer for the Science and Belief in Society Podcast.