by Salman Hameed

Our next paper will have a historical tilt to it: Can the Quran Support Darwin? An Evolutionist
Approach by Two Turkish Scholars after the Foundation of the Turkish Republic by Veysel Kaya published in The Muslim World (Volume 102, Issue 2, pages 357–370, April 2012).


As usual, if you don't have access to the paper and are interesting in reading it, you can drop me an e-mail and I can send you a pdf copy.

I will post my comments on the paper on Friday and will be looking forward to your input as well (for comments, please do read the paper or at least skim through it).

Check out past Irtiqa Journal Clubs here.

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by Salman Hameed

Here is a paper by Van Tubergen and Sindradóttir: The Religiosity of Immigrants in Europe: A Cross-National Study published in the Journal of Scientific Study of Religion in June 2011 (Volume 50, Issue 2, pages 272–288).

Summary: 

The paper used European Social Survey (2002-2008) for more than 10,000 first-generation immigrants living in 27 European countries to look at their religiosity as measured by religious attendance, prayer frequency and vis subjective religiosity (the last parameter is measured on a scale ranging from 0 (not at all religious) to 10 (very religious)). 

There are a number of ways they look at the data and test out various hypotheses. Since we have been interested in looking at Muslim immigrants to Europe, I will pick a few results that are directly or tangentially related to that. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, there is substantial variation in the religiosity of immigrants across Europe. Interestingly, this variation is more pronounced using the religious attendance parameter as compared to praying and subjective religiosity.

In case you are interested in looking at the results directly, here is a table that summarizes their it for each country in the study (click on it to see it more clearly): 

Unfortunately, at least in this study, the authors did not separate out religions. I was curious about that as different religions would map out differently for religiosity measures, such as religious attendance. However, in an analysis not included in this paper, they did find that there were no significant differences in religious subjectivity across Islam, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox - the three major religions in the sample with 1000 immigrants or more. In addition,  Muslim immigrants prayed more than the other two groups, but Muslims and Catholic do not differ significantly in weekly religious attendance.

But I am surprised at their finding that including religious affiliations do not impact the findings at the individual level nor at the country level for the unemployment rate, income inequality, and religious diversity. 

So what might be the reason for cross-national variation? 

[T]he cross-national variation in the religiosity of immigrants is the result of bothcomposition effects (i.e., differential sorting) and context effects. Thus, according to the results of our multilevel analysis, cross-national differences are partly due to country differences in the sorting of immigrant groups and country differences in the length of stay of immigrants, their educational level, and their employment position. Over and above these composition effects, however, characteristics of the receiving countries are also important.We elaborated on previous cross-national research on immigrant religiosity (Connor 2010; van Tubergen 2006). Connor’s (2010) study, based on a subsample of Muslim immigrants, found that a less welcoming receiving context was associated with higher religious outcomes. In our study, we find a very strong statistical and substantive effect of the religiosity of the native-born population on the religiosity of immigrants. Immigrants who moved to highly religious countries like Poland are more religious themselves.

This is where I would expect to see differences between different religions. For example, there has to be a difference between Catholic immigrants moving to Poland versus say Muslim immigrants moving to the same country. I have not worked with large datasets such as these, but I wonder if these variations are washed out in the larger trends. 

Overall, the authors find that religiosity is "higher among immigrants who are unemployed, less educated, and who have recently arrived in the host country". It will be interesting to see if there are exceptions to this trend and how they stack up with the various models of immigration integration in place in Europe. For example, just this past week, we looked at the religiosity of Turkish and Moroccan-Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands, and saw that mosque attendance was up for higher educated, second generation Muslims. Some of this was the result of ethnic residential segregation and some might be attributed to the tensions between minority Muslims and the secular Dutch majority. In fact, the dataset used by Tubergen and Sindradóttir can check this as it contains second generation data as well. It is quite possible that other papers are in the pipeline and we'll get a chance to see the analysis then.

In any case, an interesting paper.

You can find past Irtiqa Friday Journal Clubs here.


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Van Tubergen, F and Sindradóttir, J, I (2011) , The Religiosity of Immigrants in Europe: A Cross-National Study, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Volume 50, Issue 2, pages 272–288; DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2011.01567.x)

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by Salman Hameed

In the last journal club, we looked at the religiosity of Turkish and Moroccan-Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands. We will continue on a similar theme and look at the religiosity of immigrants across Europe in a paper by Tubergen and Sindradóttir: The Religiosity of Immigrants in Europe: A Cross-National Study. It was published in the Journal of Scientific Study of Religion in June 2011 (Volume 50, Issue 2, pages 272–288). As usual, if you don't have access to the paper and are interesting in reading it, you can drop me an e-mail and I can send you a pdf copy.

Here is the abstract:

The Religiosity of Immigrants in Europe: A Cross-National Study

by Tubergen and Sindradóttir

This study examines cross-national differences in the religiosity of immigrants in Europe utilizing three different measures of religiosity: religious attendance, praying, and subjective religiosity. Hypotheses are formulated by drawing upon a variety of theories—scientific worldview, insecurity, religious markets, and social integration. The hypotheses are tested using European Social Survey data (2002–2008) from more than 10,000 first-generation immigrants living in 27 receiving countries. Multilevel models show that, on the individual level, religiosity is higher among immigrants who are unemployed, less educated, and who have recently arrived in the host country. On the contextual level, the religiosity of natives positively affects immigrant religiosity. The models explain about 60 percent of the cross-national differences in religious attendance and praying of immigrants and about 20 percent of the cross-national differences in subjective religiosity. 

I will post my comments on the paper on Friday and will be looking forward to your input as well (for comments, please do read the paper or at least skim through it).

Check out past Irtiqa Journal Clubs here.

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by Salman Hameed

Here is an interesting paper by Maliepaard, Gijsberts, and Lubbers: Reaching the Limits of Secularization? Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands 1998-2006 published this year in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2012), 51(2):359-367.

Summary: 
The paper looks at the trends of religiosity amongst Muslim minorities in the Netherlands. In particular, it focuses on the trends of mosque attendance between 1998 and 2006 in amongst the Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch Muslims, which represent the two largest Muslim ethnic groups in the Netherlands.

The authors wanted to see if some of the prevailing ideas about secularization hold up. Two factors, in particular, may play an important role: a) generational replacement - the idea that individuals from minority groups growing up are imbued with the values of the majority culture (a secular Dutch society, in this case), and b) that obtaining higher education usually associated with lower levels of religious participation - both in majority and minority populations.

From this perspective:

It is therefore expected that the second generation and the higher educated Muslims attend the mosque less frequently than first-generation, lower educated Muslims. Because the second generation has grown relative to the first, and educational levels have risen in the decade of our research (Gijsberts and Dagevos 2010), this would have led to lower average levels of mosque attendance among the Muslim population.

However, there are also factors that may work in keeping religious participation at a higher level. For example, the presence of ethnic in-group members within close vicinity can create opportunities for religious practice to be enacted together. But there are also certain life stages that may lead to religious participation:

In addition to the local context, certain life stages have also been associated with reli- gious (re)vitalization. Whereas young people are often found to be less religious, when they start settling down (i.e., marrying and having children) religious practice often increases. This has been found both among Christians (Firebaugh and Harley 1991) and Muslims as well as other religious groups (Van Tubergen 2006). It is therefore expected that Muslims who live in neighborhoods with many ethnic in-group members and/or a mosque, and Muslims who are married and/or have children will attend the mosque more frequently than Muslims who live in neighborhoods with few ethnic in-group members and without a mosque, and who are single, without children. Again, because segregation in Dutch cities increased (Vervoort and Dagevos 2011), and because the second generation started forming families in the period that we study (De Valk 2006), we expect this has led to higher average levels of mosque attendance.

So what did they find? Here is the figure that summarizes their findings:

I should mention that these results are based on close to 7000 individuals who identified themselves as Muslims. And out of those, roughly 47% never attended mosque or do so only a few times a year. However, the figure above shows the change in the frequency of attendance over the years amongst the first and second generation Turkish and Moroccan-Dutch immigrants. The striking result is that the mosque attendance is has increased over the years amongst this group of second generation Muslim males (and these results are controlled for age, education and neighborhood composition):

Members of the second generation, who were originally much less inclined to attend a mosque, show a revival over time. Importantly, this cannot be explained by the fact that the second generation on average is getting older and is settling down. The secularizing effect of education also diminished over the years (also when controlling for generational replacement). So even if generational replacement and educational attainment were related to a decrease in religiosity in the early late 1990s and early 2000s, it seems that these forces previously seen as “driving secularization” (Phalet and Ter Wal 2004) lost power in predicting religious attendance. Mosques, rather than being places mainly first-generation (Turkish-Dutch) men visit, increasingly attract higher educated, second-generation (Moroccan- Dutch) men. Qualifying this as a general religious revival would be too strong: mosque attendance is not increasing among the Muslim population as a whole. However, the lack of generational and educational differences in later years indicates that a downward trend among the Muslim population in the future is doubtful.

Some of it is indeed the result of increases ethnic residential segregation of Muslim groups. But this doesn't explain the revival in groups such as Moroccan-Dutch second generation. For that the authors think that the "increasingly strained relation between the (secular) majority and Muslim minorities in the Netherlands" may be playing a role in this. And religion may form an alternative reactive identity:

That processes of labeling and othering, in combination with religious socialization, strengthen the religious identity of young Muslims has been shown previously (De Koning 2008; Ketner 2008). Our findings suggest that these processes may also extend to religious practices in the communal domain. Especially the higher educated second generation perceives most exclusion and discrimination in the Netherlands, and mostly so the Moroccan-Dutch (Tolsma, Lubbers, and Gijsberts 2012). It may therefore not be coincidental that it is especially these groups in which an increase in religious practice is found.

This is fascinating. I think this opens up room for a number of questions. For example, it will be interesting to see if these trends hold up for a comparable sample in other European countries and/or if these changes also have links to political and social changes in Turkey and Morocco. However, I'm also interested in exploring the contents of Islam that become part of this increasing religious identity as well as its source(s). The internet and satellite television channels are playing a crucial role in forming a globalized "acculturated" Islam (from Olivier Roy) and it will be interesting to see what aspects of this Islam are picked up (and emphasized) by the different Muslim ethnic groups in Europe. For example, a comparison of this data with Moroccan-French and Turkish-Germans will be fascinating, as that may tell us about the impact of various state policies towards ethnic minorities and, possibly, on the form of religious identities in different contexts. This last bit is of particular interest to me, as we are trying to understand the perceptions of modern science amongst Muslims in diverse political and cultural contexts.

In any case, a very interesting paper. Your comments are welcome.

You can find past Irtiqa Friday Journal Clubs here.

Also, see this earlier post on recent Pew poll regarding religiosity in various Muslim countries. Turkey and Morocco are both included in the survey.

_________________
Maliepaard, M, Gijsberts, M, and Lubbers, M (2012) Reaching the Limits of Secularization? Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands 1998–2006, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Volume 51, Issue 2, pages 359–367; DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2012.01647.x)

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by Salman Hameed

Our next journal club will look at a recent paper that looks at the religiosity of Muslims in the Netherlands: Reaching the Limits of Secularization? Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands 1998–2006 by Mieke Maliepaard, Mérove Gijsberts, and Marcel Lubbers. It was published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion this past June (Volume 51, Issue 2, pages 359–367, June 2012). As usual, if you don't have access to the paper and are interesting in reading it, you can drop me an e-mail and I can send you a pdf copy.

Here is the abstract:

Reaching the Limits of Secularization? Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch Muslims in the Netherlands 1998–2006

by Mieke Maliepaard, Mérove Gijsberts, and Marcel Lubbers

This research note focuses on Muslim minorities living in a secular context, the Netherlands. The question is whether mosque attendance among Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch changed between 1998 and 2006, testing mechanisms of religious decline and religious vitality. Elaborating on previous research of the same Muslim groups, this study examines a longer time span and adds contextual-level explanations. Whereas previous research reported a linear trend towards secularization over time and over generations, in recent years the trend has become more complex. The revival of religious attendance among the second generation is most striking. Forces of secularization such as educational attainment and generational replacement gradually lose their predictive power. Over time, processes of secularization are therefore not inevitable.

I will post my comments on the paper on Friday and will be looking forward to your input as well (for comments, please do read the paper or at least skim through it).

Check out past Irtiqa Journal Clubs here.

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by Salman Hameed

The start of the semester is close and meetings ate up Friday. So Friday Journal Club is on Saturday. I want to talk a bit about a recent paper by Benjamin Heddy and Louis Nadelson: A Global Perspective of the Variables Associated with Acceptance of Evolution published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach.

Summary:
The paper used published data from 35 countries to look at factors that influence the acceptance of evolution. In particular, they looked at four factors: a) religiosity, b) school life-expectancy, c) science literacy, and d) GDP per capita. They collected information about these variables from various sources, like Gallup polls for Religiosity, PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) for science literacy, etc.

The authors provide a reasonable justification for why each of these variable might be linked with the acceptance of evolution. For example, school-life expectance - defined as the average years of schooling per citizen within a country - may be increase personal knowledge of science, which in itself is correlated with the acceptance of evolution. In case you are wondering, "Pakistan has a school-life expectancy of seven years (CIA 2007), which signifies that on average, a given citizen in Pakistan has attended seven years of school in his/her lifetime. In contrast, the United States has a school-life expectancy of 16 years (CIA 2007), which indicates that the average United States citizen has attended 16 years of schooling."

What I liked about the paper is that the authors are keenly aware of the limitations of their study. For example, the fact that they are using evolution acceptance/rejection data from multiple sources, and the questions in each survey may not properly match-up. Nevertheless, they have tried to get the best possible data and have tried to open up the questions for further research.

So what do they find? Well, here is the main table from their paper that shows the relationship of acceptance of evolution with the above-mentioned four variables:

Don't worry about the specific numbers - but it shows that the acceptance of evolution goes down in countries where self-identified religiosity is higher. On the other hand, the acceptance of evolution goes up with the increase in the three remaining variables. Some of the variables over-lap and interact with each other, nevertheless, the religiosity factor stands out (with the data they have used):

It is apparent from our calculations that our four indicator variables overlap; however, it is also important to note that the largest coefficient of determination associated with these variables was between religiosity and school-life expectancy, r^2=.39. This suggests that about 39% of the variation in religiosity can be explained by school-life expectancy, which still leaves over 60% of unique variation between the variables. Further, the correlations reflect the irreducible nature of these data, as it is unlikely that any indicators of social and economic status are going to be independent. Therefore, we proceed with the recognition that there is some overlap of the data; however, there is also likely to be substantial unique contribution by each of the measures in association with evolution acceptance.

With this caveat in mind, we do see a negative correlation of evolution acceptance with religiosity at country-wide level in a sample of 35 countries. While the list of religions represented in these countries is not exhaustive, there are still a number of Christian and Muslim denominations in their data to make a a general claim about the impact of self-identified religiosity.

But why religion? Here is the speculation from the authors:

We speculate that the mechanism by which religion influences acceptance of evolution is followers’ trust in authority. Religious authorities, both people and doctrine, may convey messages that communicate ideas that contra- dict the theory of evolution, and because of the expectations of trust, the messages are likely to promote followers to embrace rejecting evolution. The conflation of the world- views of religion and science has resulted in tension and the development of positions that equate the two as similar in their epistemologies (Taylor and Ferrari 2011). However, we contend that it would be productive to help citizens realize that evolution and religion do not have to be at conflict and that authorities can come in many forms. Developing and studying such interventions is an excellent direction for future research.

Well...yes - and I more or less agree with their basic conclusion. But then, of course we also have to ask how individuals within different cultures interpret the conflict, and that may lead in some cases to competing epistemologies, and in other cases to a matter of group or social identity. Nevertheless, their findings provide a (very) broad picture of the evolution acceptance landscape, and it is a useful marker to have.

By the way, while reading some of this, I was reminded of my previous life working on star formation in spiral galaxies. My thesis work focused on individual galaxies (about 60 in total) and by the end I knew them quite well (oh - NGC 986 - you are still such a beauty). But then there were surveys of thousands (and now even hundreds of thousands) of galaxies that looked at the broader star formation trends in this group of galaxies. However, the fun part was to know the details of an individual galaxy and then see it falls followed the expected larger trend or not. And those that did not, made up a fascinating sub-sample (it turns out that some in the sub-group were interacting with small galaxies).

I know that people and galaxies are different, but it will be interesting to see if deeper studies of evolution acceptance within individual countries identify sub-groups that buck these global trends. And investigating the reasons for that will be fun.


That is it for this week's journal club. You can find past Irtiqa Friday Journal Clubs here.

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Heddy,B.C. and Nadelson,L.S. (2012), A Global Perspective of the Variables Associated with Acceptance of Evolution, Evo Edu Outreach (2012), DOI: 10.1007/s12052-012-0423-0

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by Salman Hameed

We will continue the theme of understanding the reception of biological evolution with a recent paper by Heddy and Nadelson: A Global Perspective of the Variables Associated with Acceptance of Evolution published in Evolution: Education and Outreach this past May (Doi: 10.1007/s12052-012-0423-0). If you don't have access to the paper and are interesting in reading it, you can drop me an e-mail and I can send you a pdf copy.

Here is the abstract:

 A Global Perspective of the Variables Associated with Acceptance of Evolution

by Heddy and Nadelson 

The controversy of biological evolution due to conflicts with personal beliefs and worldviews is a phenomenon that spans many cultures. Acceptance of evolution is essential for global advancement in science, technology, and agriculture. Previous research has tended to focus on the factors that can influence acceptance of evolution by culture or country. Our research explored the relationship on an international scale using secondary data analysis to research evolution acceptance for 35 countries. Our results indicate significant relationships between public acceptance of evolution and religiosity, school-life expectancy, science literacy, and gross domestic product per capita. Implications and future directions for research are addressed. 

I will post my comments on the paper on Friday and will be looking forward to your input as well (for comments, please do read the paper or at least skim through it).

Check out past Irtiqa Journal Clubs here.

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by Salman Hameed

For our Friday Journal Club, here is a recent paper by Ronan Southcott and J. Roger Downie:  Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology, published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach.

Summary: 
This paper used a questionnaire-based survey to look at the acceptance/rejection of biological evolution amongst first-year and fourth-year bioscience students at Glasgow University. I actually really like the paper as the authors take a nuanced approach to the reasons why people accept and reject evolution. Let me highlight here a few items that I found interesting (this is not an exhausted list - but biased towards my interests):

1) Here is a table that looks at the response to the following question: "Do you agree that the process of biological evolution lasting many millions of years has occurred in one form or another?"

Level 1 includes first year biology students and level 4 are final year biology students. The "High" level 4 means that these students took evolution courses beyond their first years (usually the zoology students), whereas "Low" level 4 students only covered evolution in their first year. 

Couple of things immediately jump out. The overall rejection of evolution is low (around 7%) even amongst the first-years who haven't had any exposure to a university level biology course. But it is really striking that all students who took evolution course(s) beyond their first year accept biological evolution. And this is from a decent sample of 255 students. So good news here: Education actually matters! 

2) But the reasons for rejection can be complex. The authors did ask an interesting set of questions to assess if the rejection is linked to a general skepticism about the claims of science. The table below list their four questions grouped by acceptors and rejectors of evolution. While there is no significant difference between the two groups on CO2-climate change and smoking-lung cancer connections, the responses do differ on Einstein's energy-mass equation as well as on plate tectonics (you will have to click on the table to see the larger font).

The interpretation here can be tricky. It seems that smoking and climate change similarities may simply be due to media exposure of those two topics. But the difference on the other two questions may be related to general lack of exposure to science, the authors conclude, and not due to a general skepticism of science by the rejectors. I think it will be interesting to see how these responses relate to social class and the education of parents, etc. Nevertheless, I think this an interesting avenue to explore effects of media and education.

3) I think one of the most interesting result lies in Table 10 of the paper (you will have to click on the table to see the larger font):

This exemplifies the messiness of how people think. Yes - overall there is an expected trend: those who agree with evolution have a higher acceptance rate for human evolution, macro-evolution, and micro-evolution, compared to those who reject evolution. No surprise there. However, what is interesting is that a substantial fraction of students who said they rejected evolution not only accept micro-evolution, but also agree with the statement that humans have descended from ancient species of apes! Conversely, a few acceptors also reject not only human evolution, but also micro-evolution. This is fascinating! We have been encountering similarly complex responses in our oral interviews with Muslim physicians and students and it will be fascinating to explore the reasons for these contradictory responses.

4) One last thing. The authors also looked at final year students who rejected evolution. Remember, these were the ones who did not did not take any evolution course after their first year. The numbers are low (7), but it is interesting that most of them agreed that there would never be enough evidence to overcome their religious beliefs. It is a small number, but it represents an important sub-group of students. Similarly, the authors looked at those students who used to reject evolution, but then changed their mind over the course of their time at the university. The number is again small (7), but this is what they found:

Again, this is an interesting case where evidence takes a back-seat to the reason why they accept or reject an idea. This is again a small sample - but it is fascinating that the change of mind is related to their accommodation with religion.

A very interesting paper and I will be interesting in their follow-up studies.

You can find past Irtiqa Friday Journal Clubs here.
_________________
Southcott, R and Downie, JR. (2012), Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology Evo Edu Outreach, Volume 5, Number 2 (2012), 301-311, DOI: 10.1007/s12052-012-0419-9

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by Salman Hameed

Our next Journal Club this Friday (August 24th) will address a paper by Southcott and Downie: Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology (Evolution: Education and Outreach, Volume 5, Number 2 (2012), 301-311). If you don't have access to the paper and are interested in reading it, drop me an e-mail and I will send you a pdf copy.

Here is the abstract for the paper:

Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology 

In a questionnaire-based survey, the proportion of Glasgow University first year biology students who rejected evolution in 2009–2011 was about 7%, similar to the previously reported average figure for 1987–1999. However, by final year, evolution rejection was absent in students who studied evolution beyond first year and 4% among those who did not. Evolution rejection was closely related to accepting a religion-based alternative, whereas acceptance was related to finding the evidence convincing. Although many religious students accepted evolution, 50% of Islamic students were rejecters, compared to 25% of Christians. A question testing acceptance of several scientific propositions showed no evidence that evolution rejecters were generally more skeptical of science than accepters. Rejecters were overall less secure than accepters in their identification of the correct definition for terms related to evolution and creationism, but, surprisingly, more than 10% of final year students chose a Lamarckian definition for Darwinian evolution. Accepters and rejecters responded equally poorly to a question on Darwin’s history, but level 4 was much better. A breakdown of evolution into three components (human origins, macroevolution, and microevolution) found that some evolution rejecters accepted some components, with microevolution having the highest acceptance and human origins the lowest. These findings are discussed in terms of strategies for evolution education and the phenomenon of evolution rejection worldwide.

I will post my comments on the paper on Friday and will be looking forward to your input as well (for comments, please do read the paper or at least skim through it).

Check out past Irtiqa Journal Clubs here.

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by Salman Hameed

For our Friday Journal Club, here is a recent paper by biologist Jerry Coyne: Science Religion, and Society: The Problem of Evolution in America, published in the journal Evolution.

Summary: 
The paper looks at the reasons why a majority of Americans reject biological evolution. Coyne attributes the central reason reason to the "extreme religiosity of the United States". I think the Abstract does a pretty good job of laying out the basic position of the paper:

American resistance to accepting evolution is uniquely high among First World countries. This is due largely to the extreme religiosity of the United States, which is much higher than that of comparably advanced nations, and to the resistance of many religious people to the facts and supposed implications of evolution. The prevalence of religious belief in the United States suggests that outreach by scientists alone will not have a huge effect in increasing the acceptance of evolution, nor will the strategy of trying to convince the faithful that evolution is compatible with their religion. Because creationism is a symptom of religion, another strategy to promote evolution involves loosening the grip of faith on America. This is easier said than done, for recent sociological surveys show that religion is highly correlated with the dysfunctionality of a society, and various measures of societal health show that the United States is one of the most socially dysfunctional First World countries. Widespread acceptance of evolution in America, then, may have to await profound social change.

I have to say that I expected more from this paper. I think the topic is really interesting and it is, of course, worth exploring the reasons why a majority of the population in the world's most advanced nation reject evolution. The paper, instead, turns into a polemic against religion and is often sloppy with definitions. Even if religiosity (or religion) is the main correlation with the rejection of evolution, one has to look into the reasons why evolution became a controversial topic for American religions. Just saying "religion is the cause" is too simplistic and too broad. For example (from the Pew Survey), within the US, 81% of Buddhists, 80% of Hindus and 77% of Jews agree with the statement that "evolution is the best explanation of human life on Earth" (in case, you are wondering 45% of US Muslims also agree with this statement). So one has to be careful in using the term "religion" or "religiosity" for the causation.

Now it is true that much of the US resistance to evolution comes from Evangelical Christians. But that opposition has a particular context rooted in the politics and culture of early 20th century US. For example, it became part of the Evangelical opposition as a reaction to the spread of public education, as well as a legitimate complaint of having Social Darwinism (which is not biological evolution, but its application to society) and Eugenics as part of biology textbooks (plus, Eugenics-based compulsory sterilization was part of 30 US states in the early 20th century). This is not to excuse the poor reception of evolution in the 21st century, but to provide some context of why most Evangelical groups ended up rejecting evolution. I find it a bit odd that a paper focusing on the reasons for the rejection of evolution in the US does not mention - even in a cursory manner - any historical or cultural context.

Much of the remaining paper focus on showing the incompatibility of science and religion, and then arguing that the only reasonable solution to increasing the acceptance of evolution is by reducing religion in the US:

After having taught evolution for years, we have finally recognized where our real opposition lies: creationism is simply one of many symptoms of religion. A continuous stream of anti-evolution propaganda pours from the religiously motivated, distorting the public understanding of evolution. It follows that naturalistic evolution will not attract a majority of Americans until our nation becomes less religious. That, of course, is contrary to accommodationism, which takes religion as a given.

Okay - now these are huge topics to cover - bit couple of quick points. Coyne argues that "religion breeds resistance not only to evolution, but also to science itself (emphasis in the original paper). Well - it depends on what science and what religion. I know that Coyne is critiquing Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) - and indeed there are some valid critiques out there - but a blanket statement regarding religion and science is equally problematic. Most religions (and most religious beliefs) do not have much to say about most sciences. It is only a small sub-set of sciences - usually dealing with the questions of origins - where there is explicit interaction with some (or most) religions. But then we have to address the myriads of ways individuals address these questions of origins and interpret those within their own religious traditions. Wait a minute - but then this becomes a complicated mess which cannot be reduced to a simple answer: "religion did it". In fact, the blame for all this messiness goes to the long process of evolution that led to these complex bipedal species that defy simple explanations.

Towards the end of the paper, Coyne looks at socio-economic factors that may explain the high religiosity of America, which for him, explains the high rates of rejection of evolution. Josh Rosenau on his Thoughts from Kansas blog has done a thorough job addressing this part of the paper, so I will let him deal with this:

Coyne’s causal model holds that income inequality (and economic insecurity in general) -> religiosity -> creationism. To back this causal model, he works from aggregate levels of support for evolution in 34 industrialized nations, correlating those with national measures of religiosity, then correlates national religiosity with national income inequality. As we know, correlation is not causation, and this pattern of correlations could imply many other causal pathways: e.g., religiosity -> creationism -> income inequality or income inequality -> creationism -> religiosity. 

Certainly, the inequality -> religion -> creationism causal chain has an intuitive logic, but there’s an intuitive logic to other causal chains of these three items. Correlation alone doesn’t let us decide what order makes the most sense for a causal chain. For instance, Coyne and other gnu atheists have long sought to attribute all manner of social ills to the persistence of religion, so might high levels of religiosity cause both social inequality and creationism? Or might income inequality create little incentive to learn science, and then low science literacy leaves the population without a viable alternative to religious explanations? There are, naturally, ways to statistically test these different causal chains, but this would require Coyne to have tested his model by seeking to falsify alternative explanations, or even in considering potential confounding factors, and he shows no interest in rigorously testing his model. 

As with all such correlational studies, it’s also possible that the three variables at issue are connected by some fourth factor not present in Coyne’s model. The most obvious factor which Coyne ignores is education. Studies consistently show that, even after controlling for religiosity, how educated someone is has a tremendous impact on his or her views on evolution. Countries with better educational systems also tend to be more accepting of evolution, and countries with high income inequality tend to have worse education systems. The correlations Coyne uses to justify his causal model may, then, be spurious. Oddly, his paper never even mentions differences between national educational systems in discussing different nation’s attitudes towards science. Nor does the paper discuss differences in economic and social development, as measured by GDP or GNI or broader measures like the Human Development Index (which includes economic factors, life expectancy, educational statistics, and other factors to generate a more comprehensive picture of a nation’s development). 

This omission is surprising because controlling for GNI per capita is common in such international comparisons. Lots of things correlate with economic development, and factoring that out of a comparison is usually an important first step. Indeed, among the 34 countries Coyne examines, income inequality has a strong negative correlation with GNI per capita, and the median years of schooling among adults has a strong positive correlation with GNI per capita. Many measures of religiosity also correlate with GNI per capita and income inequality. These correlations make causality especially tricky to ascertain, though he could have controlled for them if he wanted to. 

You should read his full post here.

One final thought on the paper. I think it is important to understand the impact of religion on evolution acceptance,  debates over stem cells, issues related to the beginning and the end of life, etc. However, we need to do it in a way that takes into account the complex ways people interact with their beliefs. Plus, we need to appreciate the interplay of religion with culture and politics - and devise ways to distinguish them for a study on evolution acceptance.

Also see last week's Friday Journal Club: "Science Teachers' Views of Science and Religion vs the Islamic Perspective".

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Coyne, J. A. (2012), SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY: THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION IN AMERICA. Evolution, 66: 2654–2663. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01664.x

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by Salman Hameed

Our next blog journal club paper for Friday, August 17th, will be Science, Religion and Society: The Problem of Evolution in America by Jerry A. Coyne (Evolution, Volume 66, Issue 8, pages 2654–2663, August 2012). The text is available online (click on the title of the paper to access it).

I will post my comments on the paper on Friday and will be looking forward to your input as well (for comments, please do read the paper or at least skim through it).

You can check out the last Irtiqa Journal Club post on the views of Egyptian science teachers on science and religion.

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by Salman Hameed

Our inaugural Friday Irtiqa Journal Club starts with a paper by Nasser Mansour: Science Teachers' Views of Science and Religion vs. the Islamic Perspective: Conflicting or Compatible?

I think this was a slightly longer paper than would be good for the venue. I will try to pick papers on the shorter side - but sometimes the choices are limited.

Summary:
The results in the paper are based on open-ended written surveys with 75 Egyptian science teachers, with follow-up interviews with 15 of the participants. I think it is important to note that the study is not based in Cairo or Alexandria - the large cosmopolitan cities of Egypt. The teachers in the study are from the Gharbia Governorate of Egypt, whose capital, Tanta, is located between Cairo and Alexandria. It is quite possible that we are seeing more conservative views on science and religion than we would find in the larger cities. 

The key finding of the paper reaffirms the idea that religion is central for these science teachers, and their views on science are shaped through that particular lens: 

[T]he findings suggest that participants’ views of the relationship between science and a specific religion (Islam) confirmed the centrality of teachers’ personal religious be- liefs to their own thoughts and views concerning issues of both science and Islam. This centralization, in some cases, appeared to lead teachers to hold a conflicting relationship, hence to a creation of a false contradiction between science and Islam. Therefore, it could be concluded that teachers’ personal Islamic-religious beliefs inform their beliefs about the nature of science and its purpose.

And this is how they viewed the relation between science and religion:

The numbers are relatively small, but yet it is striking that most of the teachers view integration as the mode of science and religion interaction. I was also struck by the fact that "Dialogue" for most teachers meant science in the service of religion. 

For some reason when talking about these results the author lumped the conflict and independence categories into one, which I think is not only problematic but also did not seem warranted based on the responses he got for the two categories. But this is what he says about it: 

The teachers in the second group, those who perceived a conflicting or an independent relationship between science and religion, however, see science as suspect, either because of the unreliability of scientific methods or the need to use different methods to consider something from an alternative viewpoint.

Interestingly, some of the conflict responses stemmed from the "eurocentric" impression of science and a distrust of western knowledge. But the numbers are too small (5)  to make too much of it.

But the author, in general, also found that some science teachers in the survey held a "naive" views of the nature of science and of religion itself: 

In this study, some teachers did not ascribe just to naive views of NOS but also to naive views of the Islamic perspective of science and scientific investigation. They argued that science is an ever-changing phenomenon and scientists’ assumptions and predictions may be wrong, whereas the teachings of Islam are eternal and not subject to human error. The purpose of doing research in science, they argued, is to validate the Qur’an or establish the truth of the Qur’an.

A few additional comments on the paper: 
1. I think the key results from the paper are not that surprising - but it is important to conduct these studies. It is clear that religion plays a dominant role in the worldview of these science teachers, and they evaluate everything from that perspective. Therefore, it is a reasonable suggestion to suggest that the training of teachers take this background into account. 

2. My main criticism of the paper lies in the fact that the Mansour uses a normative definition of the relationship between Islam and science (these are peppered throughout the paper), and described it as positive. He uses examples from history to make his point. Two problems with this approach: 

First, we have to be careful when using the term "science" historically, especially in ascribing it to medieval times. The nature of scientific inquiry has changed a lot over the past few centuries, and it is difficult to say much about the relationship between "science" and "religion" during that time. 

Second, and there is no single relation between Islam and science. It depends on what specifics are we talking about. Islam is interpreted by individuals. If one interprets that there the mountains and valleys were formed because of a worldwide flood, then for that interpretation, there is a clash between Islam and science. Ditto, if one interprets Islamic doctrines to say that humans are not a product of evolution from prior animals (a question about evolution was part of the survey in the paper). On the other hand, if one has an interpretation that allows plate tectonics for geology and evolution for the rise of humans, then there is no clash. Or some may find an interpretation that may lend itself for dialogue or integration. But all and all, there is no single relation between Islam and science - rather there is multitude of relations depending on interpretations and on what particular scientific idea we are talking about. In fact, there are often contradictory views within individuals (for example, Big Bang theory - dialogue; biological evolution - clash), and it will be fascinating to explore how some of these science teachers deal with contradictions.  

3. This is more for my own research interest, but I noticed that the question on evolution was included in the written-survey. However, Mansour only talked about it in the clash narrative. But the vast majority talked about dialogue and integration models, and I'm curious to see how they viewed evolution. I think this will highlight the complexity of the responses and they may not fall neatly into Barbour's four categories used in the paper.

4. I think the paper underscores the need to explain how science is done and why people do it. This is a science education problem worldwide, but perhaps the issue gets exacerbated in places where religion may be considered as an arbiter for how nature works. 

Thoughts from others? Also, this is the first attempt at the journal club format. Let me know if you have suggestions on that as well.

I will post the title of the paper for next Friday's journal club later today.

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Mansour, N. (2011), Science Teachers' Views of Science and Religion vs. the Islamic Perspective: Conflicting or Compatible?, Sci. Ed., 95: 281–309. doi: 10.1002/sce.20418

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by Salman Hameed

One of the best things in graduate school was journal club. This was the best way to keep up to date with the literature. The idea behind journal club was to pick a paper from research literature and then have a discussion of the findings amongst faculty and students. I have been meaning to start a similar thing on this blog for a while. I know that the audience on this blog, like elsewhere on the blogosphere, varies a lot in professional and academic backgrounds. The journal articles are usually aimed at other academics (including graduate students) working in the field. But of course, everyone is welcome to chime in on the paper - but preferably after reading the paper (or at least after skimming the paper).

What kind of papers will be picked? Well, of course, there will be a bias towards topics that are often presented at Irtiqa (well - this should definitely match your interests, since you are reading this blog). I will announce the title of the journal paper on Wednesday Friday (1 week before) and will provide a link to the journal. There is a good chance that you will need a electronic library access to read the paper. If you can't find the paper and are interested in reading it, send me an e-mail, and I will send you the pdf. If this becomes too odious, I may provide the pdf for couple of days directly on the blog - but I don't want to run afoul of (serious) copyright violations.

These things take some time to get into a rhythm. I will start it up this coming Friday (I know it is a bit soon) and will highlight some of the key results from a journal paper. I also want to plug for an excellent blog, Epiphenom, that regularly provides excellent summaries of journal papers related to science and religion.

What is on for this coming Friday? Well, I thought we will start with issues of science and religion in the Muslim world. So lets talk about a recent paper that addresses the views of Egyptian science teachers:
Science Teachers' Views of Science and Religion vs. the Islamic Perspective: Conflicting or Compatible? by Nasser Mansour (Science Education, Volume 95, Issue 2, pages 281–309, March 2011).

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