Inquiry, Not Science, as the Source of Secularization in Higher Education

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John H. Evans discusses that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application.

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Institution: University of California San Diego

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John H. Evans discusses that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application.

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 30, 2024

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The speaker discusses their motivation to dispel public myths, particularly regarding the assumed conflict between religion and science. They highlight that while religion traditionally uses sacred texts to make fact claims and science relies on observation, this dichotomy may not be as clear-cut as often portrayed.

Historically, many believe there is a significant conflict between religion and science, especially concerning topics like evolution, as exemplified by the Galileo and Darwin controversies. However, contemporary scholars argue that the real conflict lies in moral issues rather than factual disagreements. For instance, the Scopes Monkey Trial exemplifies how concerns about moral implications—rather than factual claims—underlied the legal challenges to teaching evolution.

The speaker's study investigates whether studying science leads to a decline in religious beliefs among college students. Previous research indicates that scientists tend to be less religious than the general population, but learning science does not necessarily lead to secularization. Instead, inquiry-based majors (e.g., social sciences and humanities) are more strongly correlated with a decline in religious adherence.

Using a large dataset of student surveys, the study identifies that about 11.3% of students lose their faith during college, with inquiry majors (like women's studies and anthropology) leading to the highest rates of secularization. Interestingly, traditional natural science majors, such as biology, do not have the same effect. It appears that the mindset developed through questioning underlying assumptions is what contributes most to students' secularization, rather than specific scientific knowledge.

Finally, the research suggests that misunderstandings between the public and scientists stem more from moral disagreements than factual disputes. To foster constructive dialogue, both groups should better understand the nature of their conflicts, focusing on values and beliefs rather than solely on facts.

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Well, the, the main motivation for most of my work, is

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to dispel myths in the public sphere.

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And, and to be kind of glib about it,

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if people are really gonna dislike each other in public

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sphere, I want 'em

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to dislike each other for the right reasons.

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Okay? So it'd be good to actually know,

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what your supposed opponent actually believes.

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Now, one of the perennial themes in Western thought is the

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relationship between religion and science.

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In particular, people have focused on the idea

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that religion makes fact claims about the natural world

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using sacred texts.

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And science makes fact claims about the natural world

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using observation.

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So the classic example everyone uses is Galileo,

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who supposedly got in trouble with the Catholic church due

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to his claim that the earth went around,

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the sun instead of the inverse.

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Uh, I mean, historians have told us a lot more complicated

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than that, but that's one of the things that pops

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into people's minds.

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Um, I don't like to go that far back,

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but much more immediate influence is the claims

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of Darwin in the 19th century.

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Um, so for example,

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if you look at, Darwin was claiming that humans,

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have evolved from earlier primates, instead

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of the traditional, Christian narrative, which is

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that humans were created in an instant, by God.

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Um, so the idea that religion

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and science are in conflict is just one

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of the many assumptions that most Westerners learn.

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Uh, there's no moment in school

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where they explicitly teach you this,

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but I think it's just part of the, the ethos,

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particularly I think in Britain and the United States.

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So there's a large academic tradition that tries to be more,

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more realistic about any conflict

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between religion and science.

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So the question is, are religion

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and science in conflict over fact claims

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about the natural world?

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So to give you a little bit more background from

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what historians tell us, I could be convinced that religion

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and science were in such a conflict up

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until the 20th century,

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but given what we know about contemporary religion,

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it doesn't really make sense that that would be the case.

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So the other bit of background to know about this study is

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that it's a change in

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what scholars think any conflict might be about.

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So people often think any conflict is about fact claims

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about the natural world.

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But recent research shows that in actuality, conflict

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between religion and science is actually about morality.

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And I'll give you just one classic case from

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the American perspective.

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In 1925,

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there was a something called the Scopes Monkey trial,

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which was a case of a teacher who was convicted

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of teaching evolution in the public schools,

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which was illegal in Tennessee at the time.

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And that case is this huge thing in American culture,

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which was supposedly this back

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and forth between the lawyer, about this.

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And it was portrayed as the defender

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of fundamentalist Protestantism saying, no,

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the Bible says this.

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And the person, other person say, no, science tells us this.

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Well, in actuality, when you look at that more closely,

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this fundamentalist defender

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wasn't concerned about the fact claim, per se.

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He thought that learning Darwinism had corrupted the morals

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of the people of Germany, and that it,

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it ultimately caused the rise of World War I.

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So there's been a reassessment of

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what is actually going on here.

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So that's an important

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background, I think for everyone to know.

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Ed just described this theory for you

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and to test the theory that religion

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and science are in conflict over facts

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about the natural world.

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Academics have for almost a century, looked at the impact

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of learning science on religious belief.

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So if learning science leads to less religious belief,

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there's something about the scientific method

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that's incompatible with religion.

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And then this theory

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of conflict over fact claims would be correct.

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So for almost a hundred years,

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sociologists have examined the religiosity of scientists

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who obviously have a lot of scientific training.

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Okay, well, the finding is that they are

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somewhat less religious than other people.

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Uh, not hugely so, but there is, a difference.

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And the more you go up the prestige scale, like members

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of the National academies

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and things like this, they're less religious than your

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average, you know, college professor of biology.

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But there is this effect.

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Um, now the tradition I'm using in this paper is something

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people have also done a lot of, which is, let's look at

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learning science by undergraduate students at

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college and university.

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So if leading science leads, if learning science leads

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to students having less religion,

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then there is something about learning

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secular observational analysis of the natural world

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that is in conflict with religion.

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Um, so,

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and then let's put some more fine grained versions of this.

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Uh, there are are so many claims for which

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there's no conflict

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that we wanna get specific about what kind of claims.

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So if I were to find the most art Protestant fundamentalist

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in the United States and ask them how to determine the speed

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of butterfly wings,

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they would describe the scientific method for me perfectly.

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There's just these few things which, which they dissent.

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So ma and most of the religions in the United States,

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there's no fact conflict even

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among the leaders with science.

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So Catholicism has no fact claim conflict with science,

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what's called mainline Protestantism in the

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United States. In the uk

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This would be roughly equivalent to the Church of England.

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There is no fact conflict among people

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who are called evangelicals and fundamentalists.

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There are a few fact claims that are in conflict, all having

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to do with human origins.

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Where does humans come from? How old's earth?

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That kind of thing. Um, so those are the more specific

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literature that I'm, embedding this study in.

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So, you know, if you look at what else we know,

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if you look at historians

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and other social scientists, it's unlikely that the mere act

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of investigating nature

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with a secular lens somehow leads you to not believe in God.

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It must be something slightly different.

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So I, I wanted to design a study

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and I took advantage of a sort

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of an unusual data set in the United States, which is,

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there's a institute at uc, Los Angeles,

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that has interviewed at incoming college students

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since 1966.

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And I was able to use surveys

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with over a hundred thousand of these students.

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And importantly, they ask these students, a bunch

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of questions when they enter

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and then when they leave college.

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And these surveys are used to say,

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what does college do to you?

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So to take an obvious one, students

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who show up very idealistic when they leave are

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less so, okay?

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But they also have measures of religion.

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So in year one, they say, so

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what is your religious preference?

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One of the options was none. Okay?

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So it is like people with no religion.

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And they also asked how often you attend religious services.

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And so with this, I can measure a change

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between year one and year four.

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So I can identify students

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who had a religious affiliation in year one,

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but don't in their final year of college.

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I can also measure how much their

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participation in religion dropped

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across, those four years.

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And so let's, in regular language, you,

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you could say which students secularized,

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while they were in college.

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Now again, the traditional theory would be learning what

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causes the most secularization.

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And the answer would be learning science

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would cause the most secularization.

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Well, luckily, for this dataset,

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they also ask in their senior year, what was your major?

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And there's 86, majors that they asked about.

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And I'll skip the details of that for now.

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Um, there's also a more fine grain version, which is

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I asked about like loss of religion.

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Well, I also wanna see loss of a particular religion.

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So again, do people who start off

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as conservative Protestants, which are fundamentalists

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and evangelicals, do they have a more greater loss

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of religion because it's actually going

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after what they believe?

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So I tested

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the idea that science majors cause this,

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secularization among students.

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Um, but I also want to test something else,

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which is if it's not facts about the natural

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world, what is it?

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And there's another academic literature

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that suggests it's inquiry into your taking

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for granted assumptions.

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Okay? So it turns out you can divide the majors in

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universities into those that teach people

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to inquire about their basic assumptions

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and those that don't.

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So for example, in biology, you might think

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that all these animals are unrelated to humans,

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but in actuality, if you look at the DNA,

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we're like whatever it is, 99% like a chimpanzee, okay?

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Or in, sociology you might think

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that gender works like such and such,

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but in actuality it's something else.

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Okay? Now I contrast this to applied disciplines

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where the point is not to question foundational notions

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of knowledge or claims, but just apply them.

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So for example, engineering is basically applied

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science, okay?

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You're not supposed to ask if calculus works,

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you're just supposed to apply it, okay?

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Similarly, education is applied, business is applied,

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nursing is applied.

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There's a whole bunch of these. You can divide undergraduate

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experience into these two camps.

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Okay? So maybe that's the difference

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of what's happening in college.

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So, with that I was able to compare,

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all these groups of majors

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to see which is the most secularizing.

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So when you do all the math here on this study,

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the top line, which is not exactly addressed in the

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hypothesis, but interesting to know, is that 11.3%

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of students in the United States lose their faith in college

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and 55% declined attendance over time.

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That is sort of well known among sociologists of religion.

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That's not surprising,

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but no one's actually looked at what sort

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of college experience, leads to this.

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Um, so what major led to the most religious decline?

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So if there is an incompatibility

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between examining the natural world

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and religion, it should be biology.

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Okay? And then maybe physics would be maybe next in line.

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Okay? So what are the top secularizing major?

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So let the listener make their guess in their head, okay?

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And then I'll tell you the number one secularizing

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major women's studies.

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Okay? Number two, anthropology.

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Okay, then physics, okay, then philosophy,

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then earth science, then art, then microbiology.

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Okay? Biology is actually kind

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of in the middle somewhere in terms

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of its secularizing force. So

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It turns out that it's not natural science,

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learning natural science that secularizes, if anything,

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it's social science in the humanities

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that secularize not the natural science.

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So look at this all together.

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There is a relationship

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between whether your major is

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science or non-science secular.

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There's not this relationship, I'm sorry,

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but there's a very large effect of having an inquiry

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type major versus an applied major inquiry.

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Be it inquiring into the nature of atoms

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or inquiring about the nature of society

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that leads to less religion.

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Why would that be? Generally

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what it's doing is you learned religion as a child, okay?

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And you were told you just have faith in this.

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They're essentially training people to not just take things

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on faith, okay?

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But it doesn't have to do with

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investigating the natural world per se.

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It's more like a mindset towards questioning that leads

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to secularization.

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So then I got one step more specific, which is,

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is this secularized impact of inquiry type majors stronger

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for people who started out as conservative Protestants,

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who are again, the one sort of fairly different group.

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I mean the Catholicism in the United States at least,

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and mainland Protestantism

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and other religions have really made a deal

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with the secular world.

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And so as a young person,

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you wouldn't feel any conflict really at all.

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Okay? But there are more beliefs in conservative prostatism

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that are distinct from what's taught in most universities

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that would be violated by these inquiry sort of majors.

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So just to take one example,

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conservative Protestants in the United States tend

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to teach traditional gender roles.

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Okay? Well that's not

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what you're being taught in a sociology

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or women's studies department.

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Okay? And so was that the case? Yes.

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The conservative Protestants had a stronger secularizing

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effect from these inquiry sorts of majors.

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The academic implications of this is that the mere fact

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of the secular investigation

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of the natural world is not in conflict

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with contemporary religion.

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Um, this makes sense.

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But then what is a religion and science conflict about?

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'cause we hear about this all the time.

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Scientists are very concerned about this.

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And again, I'm speaking, this is an American dataset,

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so I'm more speaking, to that.

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Um, but what hap needs

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to happen in the United States at least, is

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that scientists in particular need to realize

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that when the public doesn't agree with them, it's not

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because of any sort of fact conflicts, it's

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because of moral conflicts.

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And one of the great missteps in the covid,

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era was scientists basically

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saying, let me tell you more facts.

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Lemme tell you more facts. That's not for the vast

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Majority of people,

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up they believe science have the ability to develop facts.

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It's more about morals.

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And so I think I'm trying to shift the debate,

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in that question.

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Um, so the main implication of the study is that we need

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to figure out exactly what's going on between religion

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and science, which allows

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for a more constructive debate forward in the public sphere.

Quick Answers

Disputing Myths: Religion and Science's Conflict

00:00:00 - Well, the, the main motivation for most of my work, is to dispel myths in the public sphere. And, and to be kind of glib about it, if people are really gonna dislike each other in public sphere, I want 'em to dislike each other for the right reasons. Okay? So it'd be good to actually know, what your supposed opponent actually believes. Now, one of the perennial themes in Western thought is the relationship between religion and science. In particular, people have focused on the idea that religion makes fact claims about the natural world
00:00:33 - And science makes fact claims about the natural world using observation. So the classic example everyone uses is Galileo, who supposedly got in trouble with the Catholic church due to his claim that the earth went around, the sun instead of the inverse. I mean, historians have told us a lot more complicated than that, but that's one of the things that pops into people's minds. I don't like to go that far back, but much more immediate influence is the claims of Darwin in the 19th century.
00:01:08 - if you look at, Darwin was claiming that humans, have evolved from earlier primates, instead of the traditional, Christian narrative, which is that humans were created in an instant, by God. so the idea that religion and science are in conflict is just one of the many assumptions that most Westerners learn.
00:01:38 - where they explicitly teach you this, but I think it's just part of the, the ethos, particularly I think in Britain and the United States. So there's a large academic tradition that tries to be more, more realistic about any conflict between religion and science. So the question is, are religion and science in conflict over fact claims about the natural world? So to give you a little bit more background from
00:02:09 - and science were in such a conflict up until the 20th century, but given what we know about contemporary religion, it doesn't really make sense that that would be the case. So the other bit of background to know about this study is that it's a change in what scholars think any conflict might be about. So people often think any conflict is about fact claims about the natural world.
00:02:39 - between religion and science is actually about morality. And I'll give you just one classic case from the American perspective. In 1925, there was a something called the Scopes Monkey trial, which was a case of a teacher who was convicted of teaching evolution in the public schools, which was illegal in Tennessee at the time. And that case is this huge thing in American culture, which was supposedly this back and forth between the lawyer, about this.

Religion and Science: Moral Conflicts Explored

00:03:12 - of fundamentalist Protestantism saying, no, the Bible says this. And the person, other person say, no, science tells us this. Well, in actuality, when you look at that more closely, this fundamentalist defender wasn't concerned about the fact claim, per se. He thought that learning Darwinism had corrupted the morals of the people of Germany, and that it, it ultimately caused the rise of World War I.
00:03:40 - what is actually going on here. So that's an important background, I think for everyone to know. Ed just described this theory for you and to test the theory that religion and science are in conflict over facts about the natural world. Academics have for almost a century, looked at the impact of learning science on religious belief. So if learning science leads to less religious belief, there's something about the scientific method that's incompatible with religion.
00:04:10 - of conflict over fact claims would be correct. So for almost a hundred years, sociologists have examined the religiosity of scientists who obviously have a lot of scientific training. Okay, well, the finding is that they are somewhat less religious than other people. not hugely so, but there is, a difference. And the more you go up the prestige scale, like members of the National academies and things like this, they're less religious than your
00:04:43 - But there is this effect. now the tradition I'm using in this paper is something people have also done a lot of, which is, let's look at learning science by undergraduate students at college and university. So if leading science leads, if learning science leads to students having less religion, then there is something about learning secular observational analysis of the natural world that is in conflict with religion.
00:05:14 - and then let's put some more fine grained versions of this. there are are so many claims for which there's no conflict that we wanna get specific about what kind of claims. So if I were to find the most art Protestant fundamentalist in the United States and ask them how to determine the speed of butterfly wings, they would describe the scientific method for me perfectly. There's just these few things which, which they dissent. So ma and most of the religions in the United States,
00:05:46 - among the leaders with science. So Catholicism has no fact claim conflict with science, what's called mainline Protestantism in the United States. In the uk This would be roughly equivalent to the Church of England. There is no fact conflict among people who are called evangelicals and fundamentalists. There are a few fact claims that are in conflict, all having to do with human origins. Where does humans come from? How old's earth? That kind of thing. so those are the more specific

Exploring College's Impact on Religious Belief

00:06:17 - So, you know, if you look at what else we know, if you look at historians and other social scientists, it's unlikely that the mere act of investigating nature with a secular lens somehow leads you to not believe in God. It must be something slightly different. So I, I wanted to design a study and I took advantage of a sort of an unusual data set in the United States, which is, there's a institute at uc, Los Angeles, that has interviewed at incoming college students
00:06:48 - And I was able to use surveys with over a hundred thousand of these students. And importantly, they ask these students, a bunch of questions when they enter and then when they leave college. And these surveys are used to say, what does college do to you? So to take an obvious one, students who show up very idealistic when they leave are less so, okay? But they also have measures of religion.
00:07:19 - what is your religious preference? One of the options was none. Okay? So it is like people with no religion. And they also asked how often you attend religious services. And so with this, I can measure a change between year one and year four. So I can identify students who had a religious affiliation in year one, but don't in their final year of college. I can also measure how much their participation in religion dropped
00:07:51 - And so let's, in regular language, you, you could say which students secularized, while they were in college. Now again, the traditional theory would be learning what causes the most secularization. And the answer would be learning science would cause the most secularization. Well, luckily, for this dataset, they also ask in their senior year, what was your major? And there's 86, majors that they asked about.
00:08:23 - there's also a more fine grain version, which is I asked about like loss of religion. Well, I also wanna see loss of a particular religion. So again, do people who start off as conservative Protestants, which are fundamentalists and evangelicals, do they have a more greater loss of religion because it's actually going after what they believe? So I tested
00:08:57 - secularization among students. but I also want to test something else, which is if it's not facts about the natural world, what is it? And there's another academic literature that suggests it's inquiry into your taking for granted assumptions. Okay? So it turns out you can divide the majors in universities into those that teach people to inquire about their basic assumptions

Impact of College Majors on Religious Beliefs

00:09:25 - So for example, in biology, you might think that all these animals are unrelated to humans, but in actuality, if you look at the DNA, we're like whatever it is, 99% like a chimpanzee, okay? Or in, sociology you might think that gender works like such and such, but in actuality it's something else. Okay? Now I contrast this to applied disciplines where the point is not to question foundational notions
00:10:01 - So for example, engineering is basically applied science, okay? You're not supposed to ask if calculus works, you're just supposed to apply it, okay? Similarly, education is applied, business is applied, nursing is applied. There's a whole bunch of these. You can divide undergraduate experience into these two camps. Okay? So maybe that's the difference of what's happening in college.
00:10:33 - all these groups of majors to see which is the most secularizing. So when you do all the math here on this study, the top line, which is not exactly addressed in the hypothesis, but interesting to know, is that 11.3% of students in the United States lose their faith in college and 55% declined attendance over time. That is sort of well known among sociologists of religion. That's not surprising,
00:11:01 - of college experience, leads to this. so what major led to the most religious decline? So if there is an incompatibility between examining the natural world and religion, it should be biology. Okay? And then maybe physics would be maybe next in line. Okay? So what are the top secularizing major? So let the listener make their guess in their head, okay? And then I'll tell you the number one secularizing
00:11:34 - Okay? Number two, anthropology. Okay, then physics, okay, then philosophy, then earth science, then art, then microbiology. Okay? Biology is actually kind of in the middle somewhere in terms of its secularizing force. So It turns out that it's not natural science, learning natural science that secularizes, if anything, it's social science in the humanities that secularize not the natural science.
00:12:08 - There is a relationship between whether your major is science or non-science secular. There's not this relationship, I'm sorry, but there's a very large effect of having an inquiry type major versus an applied major inquiry. Be it inquiring into the nature of atoms or inquiring about the nature of society that leads to less religion. Why would that be? Generally

Science vs. Religion: Morals Over Facts

00:12:39 - And you were told you just have faith in this. They're essentially training people to not just take things on faith, okay? But it doesn't have to do with investigating the natural world per se. It's more like a mindset towards questioning that leads to secularization. So then I got one step more specific, which is, is this secularized impact of inquiry type majors stronger
00:13:12 - who are again, the one sort of fairly different group. I mean the Catholicism in the United States at least, and mainland Protestantism and other religions have really made a deal with the secular world. And so as a young person, you wouldn't feel any conflict really at all. Okay? But there are more beliefs in conservative prostatism that are distinct from what's taught in most universities that would be violated by these inquiry sort of majors. So just to take one example,
00:13:42 - to teach traditional gender roles. Okay? Well that's not what you're being taught in a sociology or women's studies department. Okay? And so was that the case? Yes. The conservative Protestants had a stronger secularizing effect from these inquiry sorts of majors. The academic implications of this is that the mere fact of the secular investigation of the natural world is not in conflict
00:14:13 - this makes sense. But then what is a religion and science conflict about? 'cause we hear about this all the time. Scientists are very concerned about this. And again, I'm speaking, this is an American dataset, so I'm more speaking, to that. but what hap needs to happen in the United States at least, is that scientists in particular need to realize that when the public doesn't agree with them, it's not because of any sort of fact conflicts, it's because of moral conflicts. And one of the great missteps in the covid,
00:15:11 - saying, let me tell you more facts. Lemme tell you more facts. That's not for the vast Majority of people, up they believe science have the ability to develop facts. It's more about morals. And so I think I'm trying to shift the debate, in that question. so the main implication of the study is that we need to figure out exactly what's going on between religion and science, which allows for a more constructive debate forward in the public sphere.

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