Survey results that people who believe in Christianity do not trust 'atheist scientists'
In recent years, it has been pointed out that the general public no longer trusts scientists in the United States,
Secularism in science: The role of religious affiliation in assessments of scientists' trustworthiness-Alexandra L. Beauchamp, Kimberly Rios, 2020
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963662519888599
New research highlights the role religion plays in evaluations of scientists
https://www.psypost.org/2020/06/new-research-highlights-the-role-religion-plays-in-evaluations-of-scientists-56948
``The stereotypes of scientists and atheists are widespread, they are considered intellectual but lacking in social skills and morality,'' said Alexandra Beauchamp of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the author of the paper. In contrast, religious people are considered social and of high morality.' So the research team of Beauchamp et al. investigated how the religious affiliation of a scientist influences his or her trust in that person.
The research team conducted an experiment with a total of 890 Christians and atheists, and how reliable they were about 'Christian scientists,' 'Jewish scientists,' 'Muslim scientists,' and 'Atheist scientists.' I investigated what I think.
As a result, atheist subjects most trust atheist scientists, while Christian subjects believe atheist scientists in religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Turned out to be considered less trustworthy than scientists. In addition, Christian subjects said that atheist scientists were less warm than scientists who believed in religion.
Researchers point out that 'awareness of research motivation' is involved in why Christian subjects associate credibility with the religious affiliation of scientists. Christian subjects tend to consider religion-based scientists to 'study with social motives,' while atheist scientists did not.
This result seems to be true even if scientists did not insist that their purpose is to bring benefit to society regarding their research, and whether or not there was faith was a clue to guess the motive of the research. thing. 'We support scientists who are believed to be helping society,' said Beauchamp.
Beauchamp points out that the fact that Christian subjects use the religious affiliation of scientists as clues to assess credibility highlights an important point about scientists' assessment in the United States. In the United States, where many Christians are involved, religion and science often conflict, so restoring public trust in science is a very important issue.
'More work needs to be done on practical approaches to building trust in scientists already considered'untrustworthy', says Beauchamp. Our paper addresses the prosocial nature of scientists. Emphasis has been shown to increase trust, but how can we achieve this? Can we talk directly about the social benefits of the work of a scientist? Do we need to show greater collaboration between scientists and the general public to change the image of? 'We also need to investigate whether the results are consistent on other scientific topics, including those that are controversial to the public.'
Since all the subjects in this experiment were from the United States, it is unknown whether similar results will be obtained in other countries with different cultures and history, Beauchamp said.
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