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Elaine Howard Ecklund

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Elaine Howard Ecklund
Ecklund in 2019
Born
United States
Alma materRice University, postdoctoral
Cornell University, BS, MA, PhD
Known forScience and religion
Scientific career
FieldsScience and religion
Gender
Immigration
Race
Culture
InstitutionsRice University, 2008-present
University at Buffalo, SUNY, 2006-2008
Websiteelainehowardecklund.com

Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences and a Professor of Sociology in the Rice University Department of Sociology. She is also the director of the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance at Rice, and a Rice scholar at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. She is a faculty affiliate in the Rice Department of Religion. Ecklund received a B.S. in human development and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University. Her research focuses on institutional change in the areas of religion, immigration, science, medicine, and gender. She has authored numerous research articles, as well as five books with Oxford University Press,[1] a book with New York University Press, and a book with Brazos Press. Her latest book, co-authored with David R. Johnson, is Varieties of Atheism in Science (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think

In 2010, Ecklund published the book "Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think," for which she conducted surveys of nearly 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275. Ecklund sampled natural and social scientists from 21 elite universities omitting many universities in the South and Mid-West where religion plays an important part in every-day life and politics [2].

The book's findings challenge prevalent assumptions about the religious beliefs of elite scientists, revealing a nuanced and diverse landscape that defies common misconceptions. The 'insurmountable hostility' between science and religion is a caricature - a thought-cliché, perhaps useful as a satire on groupthink, but hardly representative of reality."[3]

In her book, she mentions her most recent finding that at least 50% of scientists consider themselves to have religious traditions. Some of Ecklund's other findings about scientists' self-descriptions:

  • 34% were atheists (12% of whom also called themselves spiritual), 30% were agnostic, 27% had some belief in God (9% had doubts but affirmed their belief, 5% had occasional belief, 8% believed in a higher power that is not a personal God), and 9% of scientists said they had no doubt of God's existence. While more atheistic than the rest of the U.S. population, the research demonstrates that about a third (36%) of these scientists maintain some belief in God, a considerably smaller proportion than the approximately 90% in the general American population.
  • Most scientists who expressed some belief in God considered themselves "religious liberals".
  • Some atheist scientists still considered themselves "spiritual".
  • Religious scientists reported that their religious beliefs affected the way they think about the moral implications of their work, not the way they practice science.[3]

Ecklund says scientists who believe in God may live "closeted lives" to avoid discrimination. Others are what she calls "spiritual entrepreneurs", seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religion. The book centers on portraits of 10 representative men and women working in the natural and social sciences at top American research universities. Ecklund reveals how scientists—believers and skeptics alike—struggle to engage the religious students in their classrooms. She argues that many are searching for "boundary pioneers" to cross the picket lines separating science and religion and overcome the "conflict thesis".

Criticism

Jason Rosenhouse, an associate professor of mathematics at James Madison University, critical of some of Ecklund's research summaries. In particular, he contests her claim that "as we journey from the personal to the public religious lives of scientists, we will meet the nearly 50 percent of elite scientists like Margaret who are religious in a traditional sense" (page 6, Ecklund, 2010). Rosenhouse says that "religious in a traditional sense" is never clearly defined. He suggests that she may be referring to her finding that 47% of scientists affiliate themselves with some religion, but says that calling them "religious in a traditional sense" is therefore misleading because only 27% of scientists have any belief in a God, even though many more than that associate with religious cultures.[4]

Other work

In 2006, Ecklund published Korean American Evangelicals: New Models for Civic Life, an examination of the civic narratives, practices, and identities of second-generation Korean-American evangelicals. The book looks at how Korean Americans use religion to negotiate civic responsibility, as well as to create racial and ethnic identity. The work compares the views and activities of second generation Korean Americans in two different congregational settings, one ethnically Korean and the other multi-ethnic, and includes more than 100 in-depth interviews with Korean American members of these and seven other churches around the country. It also draws extensively on the secondary literature on immigrant religion, American civic life, and Korean American religion. The book was reviewed in several academic journals.[5]

Ecklund's completed research projects include the Religion among Academic Scientists (RAAS) study; the Religion, Immigration, Civic Engagement (RICE) study; the Perceptions of Women in Academic Science (PWAS) study; the Religious Understandings of Science (RUS) study; the Ethics among Scientists in International Context (EASIC) study; the Religion among Scientists in International Context (RASIC) study; the Religion, Inequality, and Science Education (RISE) study; and research on religion and medicine.

Ecklund's research project, Religion among Scientists in an International Context (RASIC), is the largest cross-national study of religion and spirituality among scientists. The project was funded by a multimillion-dollar grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. The study began with a survey of biologists and physicists at different points in their careers at top universities and research institutes in France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States—national contexts that have very different approaches to the relationship between religious and state institutions, different levels of religiosity, and different commitments to scientific infrastructure—and was followed by qualitative interviews. The study surveyed 22,525 scientists, and 9,422 scientists responded to the survey; the study included qualitative interviews with 609 of these scientists. In 2016 Ecklund, along with co-authors, published "Religion among Scientists in International Context: A New Study of Scientists in Eight Regions" in the journal Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World.

Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the Ethics among Scientists in International Context (EASIC) study explored how scientists understand ethical issues in relation to science, with particular attention to the ways scientists' perspectives on religion may or may not influence their ethical perspectives. To that end, researchers interviewed 211 physicists in China, the United Kingdom, and the United States about how they approach ethical issues associated with research integrity and the effects of industry financing.

Ecklund has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed social scientific, medical, and other journals.[6] With an interest in translating academic research to a broader public, she has written blogs and essays for The Scientist, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Social Science Research Council, Science and Religion Today, The Washington Post, USA Today, the Huffington Post and the Houston Chronicle.

Religion and Public Life Program

Ecklund served as the director of the Religion and Public Life Program (RPLP) at Rice University from 2010 to 2022.[7] The RPLP was launched in 2010 as part of the Social Sciences Research Institute at Rice University.[8]

Influence

Ecklund's work has been covered in The Economist,[9] Time,[10] BBC,[11] the Huffington Post,[12][13][14]Yahoo! News,[15] Scientific American,[16] USA Today, Inside Higher Ed,[17][18] The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nature, Discover,[19] The Washington Times,[20] Institute of Physics, Science & Theology News, Newsweek,[21] The Washington Post,[22] CNN, MSNBC, Chicago Public Radio, Houston Public Radio, Xinhua News,[23] and other outlets.

Books

  • Ecklund, Elaine Howard, and David R. Johnson (2021). Varieties of Atheism in Science. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197539163.
  • Ecklund, Elaine Howard (2020). Why Science and Faith Need Each Other: Eight Shared Values That Move Us beyond Fear. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. ISBN 9781587434365.
  • Ecklund, Elaine Howard, David R. Johnson, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Kirstin R. W. Matthews, Steven W. Lewis, Robert A. Thomson, Jr., and Di Di (2019). Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190926755.
  • Ecklund, Elaine Howard, and Christopher P. Scheitle (2017). Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190650629.
  • Ecklund, Elaine Howard, and Anne E. Lincoln (2016). Failing Families, Failing Science: Work-Family Conflict in Academic Science. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 9781479843138.
  • Ecklund, Elaine Howard (2010). Science vs Religion: What Scientists Really Think. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539298-2.
  • Ecklund, Elaine Howard (2006). Korean American Evangelicals: New Models for Civic Life. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530549-4.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Ecklund Homepage". Archived from the original on August 3, 2012. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  2. ^ Ecklund, Elaine Howard (2010). Science vs. religion: what scientists really think. Oxford New York Auckland: Oxford University Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-19-539298-2.
  3. ^ a b Dreher, Rod (April 30, 2010). "Science vs. Religion: What do Scientists Say?". Beliefnet. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  4. ^ Dreher, Rod (April 2010). "Science and Religion: What do Scientists Say". Crunchy Cons with Rod Dreher. Beliefnet. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
  5. ^ Reviewed in: The Christian Century. 124 (23) November 13, 2007; American Journal of Sociology. 113 (3) November 2007; Choice. 45 (2) October 2007; The Journal of Religion. 89 (4) October 2009; Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 46 (3) September 2007; Interpretation. 62 (1) January 2008; Sociology of Religion. 70 (1) Spring 2009; Social Forces. 88 (2) December 2009. (Information from Book Review Digest database. Retrieved May 25, 2010.)
  6. ^ Ecklund CV Archived May 31, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved June 2, 2014; similar findings obtained from searches on PsycINFO (10) and PubMed (3), May 25, 2010.
  7. ^ "Elaine Howard Ecklund | Religion and Public Life Program | Rice University". rplp.rice.edu. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  8. ^ "Elaine Howard Ecklund | Religion and Public Life Program | Rice University". rplp.rice.edu. Retrieved August 19, 2023.
  9. ^ "Faith and Reason: Scientists are Not as Secular as People Think". The Economist. February 20, 2014. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  10. ^ Kluger, Jeffrey (February 7, 2014). "The Science of Stupid: Galileo is Rolling Over in His Grave". Time. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  11. ^ Crutchley, Peter (October 20, 2013). "Kelvin's Conundrum: Is it Possible to Believe in God and Science?". BBC. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  12. ^ Freeman, David (March 17, 2014). "New Survey Suggests Science & Religion are Compatible, but Scientists Have their Doubts". Huffington Post, Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  13. ^ "'Religious Understandings of Science' Study Reveals Surprising Statistics". Huffington Post. (February 19, 2014). Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  14. ^ "Science Group, Evangelicals Seek New Collaboration Between Science and Religion". Huffington Post. February 18, 2014. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  15. ^ "Science, Religion Go Hand-in-Hand in US". Agence France-Presse. Yahoo! News. February 16, 2014. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  16. ^ Gentile, James M. (December 4, 2012). "Gender Bias and the Sciences: Facing Reality". Scientific American. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  17. ^ Jaschik, Scott (February 17, 2014). "Survey Suggests a Smaller Science-Religion Divide than Many Perceive". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  18. ^ Flaherty, Colleen (February 12, 2014). "Paper Says Physical Scientists Smarter and Less Religious than Social Scientists". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  19. ^ Mooney, Chris (May 7, 2010). "Latest POI is Up: 'Elaine Howard Ecklund–How Religious Are Scientists?'". Discover. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  20. ^ "Scientists' Spirituality Surprises". The Washington Times. August 14, 2005. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  21. ^ Miller, Lisa (January 27, 2007). "Beliefwatch: Ivy League". Newsweek. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  22. ^ Cadge, Wendy (December 7, 2009). "Spirituality: Rx When Medicine Fails". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  23. ^ Dodd, Gareth (July 2, 2007). "Study: Upbringing Why Most Scientists Not Religious". Xinhua News. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
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