Pew Religious Landscape Survey data (2007), as visualized by Josh Rosenau

Faith and Science – Who Believes?

For a long time, we’ve been having a pretty confused discussion about the relationship between religious beliefs and the rejection of science — and especially its two most prominent U.S. incarnations, evolution denial and climate change denial.

Josh Rosenau, an evolutionary biologist who works for the National Center for Science Education  has published a chart that, no matter what you think of the relationship between science and religion, will give you plenty to think about.

Crunching data from the massive Pew survey of American religious beliefs (2007), Rosenau plotted different U.S. faiths and denominations based on their members’ views about both the reality of specifically human evolution, and also how much they favor “stricter environmental laws and regulations.”

While Rosenau’s chart alone is fascinating, Chris Mooney’s discussion of it in the Washington Post suggests that we may be starting to understand what’s going on here.

On the eve of the Catholic Pope’s much anticipated worldwide call on humanity to make changes in our lifestyles and energy consumption, perhaps now may be a good time to reflect.

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Pew Religious Landscape Survey data (2007), as visualized by Josh Rosenau

2 thoughts on “Faith and Science – Who Believes?”

  1. Hi
    I am a researcher working on a book on energy policy. I liked the graphic drawn by Josh Rosenau in the Washington Post article written by Chris Mooney dated May 20, 2015. I would like to get the data on which the graphic was based. I want analyze the data to produce a least squares trend line and determine what is called the ‘goodness of fit’.

    My book “Building Integrated Solar Energy Systems,” CRC Press, came out January, 2017.

    Thank you for your attention

    Dr. Robert Parkin

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