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Publications (66)
This book deals with professional creationist and anti-creationist organizations in America, and describes how the “conflict between science and religion” is the result of the interaction between these two groups. It retraces their history from the 1960s onwards, and identifies crucial turning points that led to new forms of creationism and anti-cr...
Islam’s positioning in relation to Western ideals of individuality, freedom, women’s rights and democracy has been an abiding theme of sociological analysis and cultural criticism, especially since September 11 2001. Less attention has been paid, however, to another concept that has been central to the image of Western modernity: science. This arti...
The relationship between science and belief has been a prominent subject of public debate for many years, covering everything from science communication, health and education to immigration and national values. Yet, sociological analysis of these subjects remains surprisingly scarce.
This wide-ranging book critically reviews the ways in which reli...
Previous sociological research on science and religion, and secularity and nonreligion, has highlighted a consistent connection between science and nonreligious identities. Yet, the dynamics of this association have not been explored in depth. Building upon a growing body of work, this article adopts a relational approach to science and nonreligion...
This article analyzes the cult of the souls in Purgatory in Puerto Berrío, Colombia, and its relationship with the Catholic Church. Through empirical evidence, it identifies three characteristics of this cult, namely, its relative independence from the Catholic Church, its heterogeneity and its utilitarian character, and compares them with other ca...
Die zu großer Prominenz gelangten digitalen Kommunikationsplattformen der sozialen Medien sind, so die Ausgangsthese dieses Beitrags, ein Machtraum par excellence.
This article analyzes the cult of the souls in Purgatory in Puerto Berrío, Colombia, and its relationship with the Catholic Church. Through empirical evidence, it identifies three characteristics of this cult, namely, its relative independence from the Catholic Church, its heterogeneity and its utilitarian character, and compares them with other ca...
Due to the relative influence of creationist movements in the United States, most sociological research into science and religion in that context has taken religious populations, especially conservative Protestants, as its point of focus. The relationship between knowledge and identity among non-religious people has not been covered in detail. Rese...
Within science and technology studies, there is an established tradition of examining publics’ knowledge of, trust in, access to and engagement with science, but less attention has been paid to whether and why publics identify with science. While this is understandable given the field’s interest in bridging gaps between publics and producers of sci...
Hinter dem Titel Zur Logik und Methodik der Sozialwissenschaften (1900–1907) verbirgt sich der siebte Band der ersten Abteilung der Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe. In diesem finden sich elf Texte, in denen sich Weber im Nachklang seines Zusammenbruchs im Angesicht der gesellschaftlichen und wissenschaftlichen Umbrüche seiner Zeit mit den logischen und met...
Der Begriff der Geltung wurde im 19. Jahrhundert unterschiedlich und häufig unsystematisch benutzt (Hülsmann 1974). Eine spezifische Bedeutung fand der Begriff seit Rudolf Hermann Lotze, der in seiner Logik das Gelten als Wirklichkeitsgrad der Ideen, Begriffe und Sätze fasst (Lotze 1989, 505–523). Weitere Verbreitung fand der Begriff dann insbesond...
Max Webers programmatische Abhandlung Die »Objektivität « sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis, die in der Literatur häufig auch in der Kurzform als Objektivitätsaufsatz bezeichnet wird, ist der wahrscheinlich wichtigste Text unter Webers frühen methodologischen Schriften. Im Gegensatz zu den anderen methodologischen Texten arb...
Kaden, Jones, Catto und Elsdon-Baker gehen in ihrem Beitrag der Frage nach, auf welche Art und Weise sich das Wissen von Laien über die Relation von Wissenschaft und Religion von dem Professioneller unterscheidet. Dabei gehen sie nicht, wie bisherige Forschung, von dem professionellen Wissen aus, sondern setzen ihren Fokus auf Laienwissen. Basieren...
Classical sociology addressed the relationship between science and religion, but interest in the topic waned during the 20th century. A second wave of research has emerged in the 21st century, focusing on scientists' (ir)religiosity, evolution, and the relationship between knowledge and acceptance of scientific concepts. Most of this research has b...
Public discourse about science and belief is permeated by all manner of labels: terms like 'creationism,' 'Intelligent Design,' 'Darwinism' and 'New Atheism.' Some of these labels describe a belief about evolution. Others signify a conviction about how science and religion relate. Still others describe an organization, social movement, cultural tre...
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In public discussion and polling on the subject of science and belief people’s views are often subsumed under identity labels such as ‘Creationism’, ‘Darwinism’, ‘New Atheism’, ‘Intelligent Design’ and ‘Theistic Evolutionism’. Often, these labels are held to accurately represent people’s views both by public figures and by social scientific researc...
Science, belief and sociology
Summarizing the sociological study of science and religion a little over 10 years ago, John H. Evans and Michael S. Evans (2008: 88) wrote:
Although we know of no study of the comparative coherence of sociological research areas, we suspect that the field of religion and science is one of the muddiest in all of sociolo...
One thing that this volume has made clear is that religious and other forms of ultimate belief interact with science in myriad ways, many of which are hardly recognized amid a public debate fixated on the simplistic categories of ‘acceptance’ and ‘rejection’ or ‘conflict’ and ‘compatibility’. For different religious and non-religious communities of...
Labels and their functions
Public discourse about science and belief is permeated by all manner of labels: terms like ‘creationism’, ‘intelligent design’, ‘Darwinism’ and ‘New Atheism’. Some of these labels describe a belief about evolution. Others signify a conviction about how science and religion relate. Still others describe an organization, so...
The relationship between science and belief has been a prominent subject of public debate for many years, one that has relevance to everything from science communication, health and education to immigration and national values. Yet, sociological analysis of these subjects remains surprisingly scarce. This wide-ranging book critically reviews the wa...
As an American philosophical tradition, Humanism is a phenomenon of the 20th century. While it was introduced in the American context as a pragmatist philosophical program by the European philosopher F.C.S. Schiller at the onset of the 20th century, it became a popular stance only with the publication of the Humanist Manifesto in 1933. In this docu...
Vor dem Hintergrund des mechanistisch-deterministischen Weltbilds des 19. Jahrhunderts wollte Max Weber den Methodenstreit in der Nationalökonomie überwinden und eine »Theorie« genannte Form der Forschung begründen, die den Reichtum des historischen Lebens berücksichtigt. Dabei bediente er sich der Philosophie des Südwestdeutschen Neukantianismus,...
Issues pertaining to the relationship between science and religion, like creationism, Intelligent Design, and New Atheism, are increasingly the focus of social scientific research. This research often does not differentiate clearly between different kinds of social actors. At the most basic level, professional developers and distributors of systems...
In this dialogue, Simmel and Weber meet in Berlin in 1907 and talk about rules and regularities in social life. Their conversation revolves around two editions of a book by Rudolf Stammler, which Simmel had reviewed about 10 years before and which Weber planned to review in the near future. After a discussion about the German card game Skat, they e...
In order to map out the extent to which the interplay between professional creationist and anti-creationist organizations in the United States determines the state of the creation/evolution debates, I shall proceed in three steps. First, I will present an example that characterizes the way in which professional creationism works in the United State...
We examine how the authors who represent ‘New Atheism’ refer to science, and we compare these references to how science was viewed in earlier Continental forms of atheism, namely in Ernst Haeckel’s writings and his Monist movement. We analyse and compare these references in five key areas: the general reference to science, the use of science as an...
This paper provides an analysis of the sources of authority that the Islamic State employs locally and globally in order to further the establishment of a worldwide caliphate. To allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the propositions the Islamic State makes towards its audiences, we argue it can be regarded as a sociopolitical movement an...
Die religiös begründete Ablehnung der Evolutionstheorie und Versuche, sie durch akzeptable Alternativen zu ersetzen, sind in den Vereinigten Staaten weit verbreitet. Während jedoch eine Mehrzahl der US-Amerikaner die Behandlung solcher kreationistischer Theorien im Schulunterricht befürwortet, werden diese nur von einer kleinen Zahl von Akteuren en...
With reference to recent research, the article outlines central elements of a sociological analysis of the non-religious. Starting with a definition of the non-religious via its relation towards the religious, we distinguish different forms of this relation and three levels of its analysis. Then we analyze two different societal constellations: a s...
Rezension zu Uta Karstein: Konflikt um die symbolische Ordnung. Genese, Struktur und Eigensinn des religiös-weltanschaulichen Feldes in der DDR, Würzburg 2013
Mit dem Bösen können alle Negativa bezeichnet werden, gleich welchen Ursprungs. Als Gegenbegriff zum Guten gehört das Böse zu den Kernfragen der Philosophie und tritt in wechselnder Bedeutung auf. In der Antike steht das Böse entweder im kosmologischen Zusammenhang für das uneigentliche Sein oder in der Tragödie für das Unvermeidliche. Im Christent...
Max Webers Geschichte der Handelsgesellschaften im Mittelalter ist ein juristisches und rechtsgeschichtliches Werk. Basierend auf seiner Inauguraldissertation und Grundlage für seine Habilitation, leitet es knapp her, wie die Institutionen der Kommandit-(KG) und der offenen Handelsgesellschaften (OHG) in Abgrenzung sowohl vom römischen als auch vom...
With reference to recent research, the article outlines central elements of a sociological analysis of the non-religious. Starting with a definition of the non-religious via its relation towards the religious, we distinguish different forms of this relation and three levels of its analysis. Then we analyze two different societal constellations: a s...
Die Varianten des amerikanischen Kreationismus können danach unterschieden werden, wie Vieles an Befunden der säkularen Naturwissenschaft sie annehmen können. Als ein Vertreter des Young Earth Creationism, der sich von allen Kreationismen am weitesten vom wissenschaftlichen Konsens entfernt befindet, versucht Kent Hovind die Befunde der Astronomie,...
The forms of American creationism can be distinguished by asking what amount of secular scientific knowledge they can include or tolerate within their respective systems. Kent Hovind, a representative of Young Earth Creationism, attempts in his Hovind Theory to account for astronomical, geological, and biological findings on the basis of a biblical...
»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495
In seinem Vortrag über Franz Rosenzweig von 1951 bezeichnet Albert Salomon diesen als Baal Teshuvah (wörtlich etwa: ‚Meister der Rückkehr’) und meint damit „a repenting sinner, in sociological terms: a homecomer who had migrated
from home into the world of Gentile thinking and finally had found peace and serenity when he returned to the God of his...
In diesem Artikel wird der Versuch unternommen, eine soziologische Perspektive auf den Neuen Atheismus zu gewinnen. Er kann als Partei in einem öffentlich ausgetragenen Konflikt verstanden werden, weswegen ein Erklärungsversuch an die gegenwärtige Säkularisierungsdebatte anknüpfen muss. José Casanovas Unterscheidung zwischen öffentlicher und privat...
