AAAS News Release - "A Sociologist and a Journalist Assess How Science and Religion Get Along" Although nearly a quarter of Americans think scientists are hostile to religion and about 30% of scientists surveyed by a Rice University sociologist consider themselves atheists, the true picture of what scientists think about religion and spirituality is more complex than popular conceptions, the sociologist told a recent AAAS gathering.
Elaine Howard Ecklund, who surveyed nearly 1700 natural and social scientists at leading research universities and conducted in-depth interviews with 275 of them, said that nearly half of the scientists identified with a religious label and even 22% of the atheist scientists in her survey expressed feelings of spirituality about nature and the mysteries of the world. Ecklund spoke at a 15 December session co-sponsored by the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion and the AAAS Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology. Elaine Howard Ecklund. AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion: Re-Envisioning the Science and Religion Dialogue, 16 June 2010. Social Sciences and Society - TierneyLab Blog. Science and Human Rights Program.