Overview
- Creatively applies theories from the sociology of religion to the authority of science
- Presents a timely discussion of the erosion of confidence in the authority of science through a cultural-sociological frame
- Argues for the eradication of claims of the “neutrality” of science, opening the door to a science that is more critical of how its own biases impede the quest for truth
Part of the book series: Cultural Sociology (CULTSOC)
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About this book
Identifying scientism as religion’s secular counterpart, this collection studies contemporary contestations of the authority of science. These controversies suggest that what we are witnessing today is not an increase in the authority of science at the cost of religion, but a dual decline in the authorities of religion and science alike. This entails an erosion of the legitimacy of universally binding truth claims, be they religiously or scientifically informed. Approaching the issue from a cultural-sociological perspective and building on theories from the sociology of religion, the volume unearths the cultural mechanisms that account for the headwind faced by contemporary science. The empirical contributions highlight how the field of academic science has lost much of its former authority vis-à-vis competing social realms; how political and religious worldviews define particular research findings as favorites while dismissing others; and how much of today’s distrust of science is directed against scientific institutions and academic scientists rather than against science per se.
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Keywords
Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Scientific Authority in the Face of Pluralism
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Front Matter
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Cultural Worldviews and the Authority of Scientific Truth Claims
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Front Matter
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Contesting the Authority of Scientific Institutions
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Dick Houtman is Senior Professor of Sociology of Culture and Religion at the Center for Sociological Research at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University, USA.
Stef Aupers is Senior Professor of Media Culture at the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
Rudi Laermans is Senior Professor of Social Theory at the Center for Sociological Research at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Science under Siege
Book Subtitle: Contesting the Secular Religion of Scientism
Editors: Dick Houtman, Stef Aupers, Rudi Laermans
Series Title: Cultural Sociology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69649-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69648-1Published: 13 May 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69651-1Published: 14 May 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-69649-8Published: 12 May 2021
Series ISSN: 2946-3572
Series E-ISSN: 2946-3580
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 242
Number of Illustrations: 4 b/w illustrations
Topics: Sociology of Culture, Sociology of Religion, Sociological Theory, Social Theory, Political Sociology