Browsing by Subject "science"

Objective. The way science and religion relate is a topic of lasting debate and discussion but little research. Thus, people's perceptions of the science-religion relationship remain poorly understood. Yet, the way people relate science and religion to each other seem to be connected to their opinions, attitudes, and choices. The aim of this study was to examine how epistemic cognition, ontological confusions of core knowledge, and the perceived social importance of science and religion predict agreement with four science-religion perspectives: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. Method. Participants (N=2256) were adult Finns who had, in an online survey, given their view on whether science and religion are in conflict. The sample was largely nonreligious with 67.2% not belonging to any religious denomination. Three logistic regressions were used to predict the likelihood to hold the conflict, dialogue and integration views, and an ordinal logistic regression was used to examine agreement with the independence view. Age, gender and education were controlled in all analyses. Results. Intuitive thinking style, core ontological confusions, and the perceived social importance of religion decreased the likelihood to hold the conflict view whereas a simple view of knowledge and importance of science increased it. Regarding the three non-conflict views, core ontological confusions increased the likelihood to hold the dialogue and integration views, but decreased the likelihood to hold the independence view. In addition, intuitive thinking style increased the odds to agree with the dialogue and integration views. Moreover, importance of religion increased the likelihood to hold the dialogue and integration views while importance of science increased the likelihood to agree with the independence view. Discussion. Differences in epistemic cognition, core ontological confusions, and the perceived social importance of science and religion affected agreement with the four science-religion perspectives. Therefore, it is likely that the ways people perceive the relation between science and religion could be better understood through further examination of thinking styles, views of knowledge and knowing, category errors, and attitudes.

During the Covid-19 pandemic in Finland, there was a debate about the usefulness of face masks in suppressing the epidemic. Lack of scientific knowledge was emphasised in the debate, and the participants sought to define the role of science in decision-making. In this thesis, the ways in which ignorance and uncertainty were discussed and used to define the boundaries of science in the Finnish face mask debate are studied. In the theoretical part of the thesis, the meanings of ignorance and uncertainty are clarified and the boundary-work of science as well as uncertainty as a boundary-ordering device are discussed. The politicisation of non-knowledge and the characteristics of policy-relevant science are also examined. In the empirical part, the knowledge/non-knowledge claims of the Finnish experts and decision-makers who participated in the face mask debate are analysed. The data consists of 99 quotations collected from news articles published from March 1 to October 31, 2020. Qualitative frame analysis is employed to examine the forms of knowledge and ignorance along with the boundary-ordering devices used in the debate. The results show that experts working at the science-policy boundary highlighted uncertainty and ignorance most often. They also used uncertainty as a boundary-ordering device the most, although overall, this came up very rarely in the debate. The main discrepancy was between the assessments of different expert bodies, as research scientists did not usually mention the underlying uncertainties of scientific findings. Different actors had different approaches towards knowledge and ignorance, reflecting differences in epistemic cultures. Regulatory science and academic science have different criteria for assessing the credibility of knowledge. Moreover, not all ignorance and uncertainty in decision-making can be reduced with scientific methods. Therefore, more resilient decision-making processes should be developed, in which ignorance and limitations of scientific knowledge are identified and embedded in the decisions.