Solving Problems While Sleeping
One purpose for dreaming itself may be to help us find solutions to puzzles that plague us during waking hours. (Rachael Rettner, LiveScience)

“Hobbits” Weren’t Humans With the Disease Cretinism
“I have put that claim to rest,” says Colin Groves of the Australian National University in Canberra. (New Scientist)

New Philosophy App
Alexander George, a professor of philosophy at Amherst College, describes the AskPhil app in an Amherst press release: “When philosophical questions occur to people away from their desks or computer screens they’ll now have the opportunity through their mobile devices to see quickly whether other people have already asked that question and whether it’s received interesting responses.” (Natasha Lennard, Opinionator Blog, The New York Times)

Scientists and the Public
What science says is important, but in controversial areas, it’s only the beginning. It’s critical that experts and policy makers better understand what motivates public concern in the first place; and in this, they mustn’t be deceived by the fact that people often appear, on the surface, to be arguing about scientific facts. Frequently, their underlying rationale is very different. (Chris Mooney, The Washington Post)

More on What Scientists Think About Religion
If people of faith believe they have to become antireligious or completely secular to be a successful scientist—when this is not a full reflection of the scientific community—it would be a disaster. (Elaine Howard Ecklund, The Huffington Post)

Malaysia’s Religion-Based Reality Show
The producers of Imam Muda say they want to find a leader for these times, a pious but progressive Muslim who can prove that religion remains relevant to Malaysian youths despite the influence of Western pop culture. (Sean Yoong, Associated Press)

Chris Mooney has an interview with Elaine Howard Ecklund, the researcher who’s been documenting the religious beliefs of academics for several years.
One of the things Mooney picks up on is her conclusion that although scientists are much less religious than the general population, it doesn’t seem to be that studying science is the cause. That’s because prospective scientists are mostly nonreligious in the first place.
I guess that’s not too surprising. There’s a considerable anti-science movement within conservative Christianity, so highly religious people are less likely to go into science in the first place. And there’s no reason to suppose that learning about science should necessarily conflict with liberal religion. After all, mainstream religions have successfully accommodated science within their worldviews, often reconstructing God as a remote figure who lets evolution and the laws of physics do most of the work (see this earlier blog post for more on that).
And yet, there is something odd going on here. Because in the United States, college is, in fact, a major nonreligious epiphany for many students. Take, for example, data from the ongoing Spirituality in Higher Education study. This study is following nearly 15,000 students through their college years. The researchers found that religious attendance plummets during college years. According to the study organizers, this drop in attendance is closely related to an increase in “alcohol consumption and partying.” A shocking indictment of college life, I’m sure you’ll agree!
But it’s not just the hedonism and freedom of college life that entices students away from religion. You can see this in some remarkable data from the Monitoring the Future study (the paper is here, but behind a paywall). University of Michigan researchers estimated how much religiosity changes for kids who do not go to college. Then they compared that with changes in religiosity over six years for kids who study a range of disciplines. The data are shown in the graph below (click on image for larger view).

Basically, for the biological and physical sciences, it’s a mixed picture, similar to what Ecklund found. Church attendance goes up, while beliefs go down. Perhaps that’s because, as they join the workforce, the kids feel under increased pressure to conform socially.
For vocational subjects, the effect is all positive. These folks come out of college more religious than you might expect—which may reflect the different natures of the colleges that teach these subjects.
But both those in the humanities and the social sciences see dramatic declines in religious attendance and even more in religious beliefs. Now, this might simply be because they were more religious to start with—but then, so were those who went into education. So I suspect that broadening worldviews is the major reason these students lose their faith, a conclusion also suggested by the fact that in the Spirituality in Higher Education Study, participation in a “study abroad program” also created increased skepticism about religion.
In other words, humanities and social sciences, much more than biological and mathematical sciences, challenge you to imagine the world though the eyes of others. And this exercise in imagination undercuts religious dogma far more effectively than any science lesson can.
As the University of Michigan researchers conclude: “Our results suggest that it is postmodernism, not science, that is the bête noir of religiosity.”

Responding to Stephen Hawking’s View of Aliens
The Journal of Cosmology compiled responses from a dozen scientists and has published them online. Some criticized Stephen Hawking’s use of human behavior to predict what aliens would do, but others said that human behavior was a reasonable yardstick. Few, however, questioned the premise of Hawking’s statements—that alien life forms probably exist and we are likely someday to encounter them. (Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times)

Many Religions Link Modesty and Faith
Though the burqa and niqab have made news in recent months, Islam is only one of many religions that connect modesty to faith with specific garments. Many Mormons, Amish, Orthodox Jews, and Christians promote modest appearance, among men and women, to various degrees. (Neal Conan, Talk of the Nation, NPR)

New Study Finds Listening to Mozart Doesn’t Increase Intelligence
A team from Vienna University’s faculty of psychology has analyzed all studies since 1993 that have sought to reproduce the Mozart effect and found no proof of the phenomenon’s existence. (Kate Devlin, Telegraph)

Kids Overimitate Adults
Whether they’re preschoolers from Australian suburbs or Kalahari Bushmen, children copy adults to a fault, according to a new study. The findings suggest that overimitation—in which a child copies everything an adult does, even irrelevant or silly actions—is a universal human trait that may contribute to our complex culture. (Gisela Telis, ScienceNOW)

Does Studying Science Cause Atheism?
There’s a cliche out there, particularly among some conservative religious folks, that there is something nasty about science (and particularly evolutionary science), such that studying it will kill off your belief system. However, Elaine Howard Ecklund’s research seems to give the lie to this idea. (Chris Mooney, The Intersection, Discover)

I found through my survey of nearly 1,700 scientists at top research universities that few of them talk openly about their own religious lives, the possible intersection of religion and their discipline, or the connection between religion and science as it applies to the general public (including conversations about science ethics and what we teach about evolution in public schools). According to the scientists I interviewed, the academy seems to have a “strong culture” that suppresses discussion about religion in many areas. Yet so few scientists talk openly about issues related to religion that we do not know the true consequences of having such discussions. To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.

Some religious scientists did talk about other scientists saying negative things about religion and religious people (i.e., that religion is to blame for low science education among the general public). I found, however, that atheist scientists were generally much more moderate than I had thought they would be. Many do want to be in dialogue with religious scientists. But there are several extraordinarily outspoken atheist scientists who have changed the climate to make it seem as if all atheist scientists are rabid religion-haters.

Elaine Howard Ecklund is a sociologist at Rice University, where she directs the program on religion and public life at the Institute for Urban Research, and the author of Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think.

We already know that not all scientists are atheists, but I found that almost 50 percent identify with a religious label and about one in five is actively involved in a house of worship, attending services more than once a month. While many scientists are completely secular, my survey results show that top scientists are also sitting in the pews of our nation’s churches, temples, and mosques.

Indeed, only five (!) of the atheist or agnostic scientists I had in-depth conversations with were actively working against religion. I discovered many atheist or agnostic scientists who think that key mysteries about the world can be best understood spiritually. Others attend places of worship, completely comfortable with religion as moral training for their children and an alternative form of community.

Ecklund’s book has already gotten praise from Ron Numbers, the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, and Francisco Ayala.

Flirting Our Way to Favors
Men and women are equally inclined to try to use their looks and subtle flirtation to get a favor out of the opposite sex, but evolutionary imprints explain why women succeed more often, a new study reveals. (Shannon Proudfoot, Canwest News Service)

Meditate on This
A new study suggests that transcendental meditation may be an effective way to lessen depression symptoms. (Jeannine Stein, Booster Shots, Los Angeles Times)

Don’t Get Mad!
Pop psychology has long preached the virtue of relieving anger by “venting” it—punching a pillow, or, perhaps, beating a fairway with a five iron—rather than stewing in it. But decades of research suggest that venting mostly serves to make the venter more expert at getting angry. (Matthew Futterman, The Wall Street Journal)

Scientists Sitting in the Pews
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Most religious scientists do not feel comfortable talking about their scientific lives within their faith communities. They think discussing science within their house of worship might offend fellow parishioners who are not scientists. So they do not bring it up. Instead, they practice what I call “secret science.” And everyone in the community loses out. (On Faith, Newsweek/The Washington Post)

MOVIES
Letters to God
Although lip service is paid to cynicism and even skepticism in Letters to God, that’s not what this indie drama is about. It’s about how a child’s faith spreads to those around him and softens their hearts. (Roger Moore, Tribune Newspapers)

Yet, all of the physicians saw religion and spirituality as helpful for families when it does not conflict with medical recommendations and helps answer questions medicine inherently cannot. They saw religion and spirituality as a barrier to care when it impedes medical recommendations.

Wendy Cadge is a professor of sociology at Brandeis University.

From Wendy Cadge, a professor of sociology at Brandeis University:

Every day, doctors have to decide whether and when to ask patients and their families about religion and spirituality—but research studies on this topic often rely on hypothetical situations, rarely asking physicians what they actually do. With my colleagues, sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice University and Nicholas Short of the Baylor College of Medicine, I interviewed 30 pediatricians and pediatric oncologists who work and teach at top American medical centers. Instead of asking them what they think about religion and spirituality, I asked them how they act.
As a group, these physicians received almost no formal training about religion or spirituality during their medical education. About a third described learning about religion and spirituality through informal conversations with colleagues during medical school or their residency, or by getting to know hospital chaplains. Usually, these conversations would focus on specific topics, such as death and dying, decision making, or how to respond to particular religious groups. Rather than asking patients and their families direct questions about religion and spirituality, the majority of doctors told us that they prefer to ask broad, open-ended questions or —more commonly—wait for patients and families to bring up these issues themselves. Several describe religious topics as “personal,” saying they do not want to “pry.”
The majority of the doctors I spoke with see religion and spirituality as most relevant when families are making difficult medical decisions or when a patient is dying. Rather than talking about how religion and spirituality might shape decisions for Protestants, Muslims, or Catholics, doctors focused on Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Orthodox Jews, and other traditions that have historically existed in some tension with biomedicine. Many perceive religion as acting as a barrier to medical care for members of these groups.
Most commonly, physicians talk about death when they’re asked about religion and spirituality. As one pediatric oncologist explained, religion usually comes out “early in the course of diagnosis, families that feel devastated … or later in the course when a patient takes a turn for the worse or … the disease comes to a point that, as their providers, we can longer provide curative means.” At each of these points, physicians say, families draw from their religious or spiritual traditions as they try to answer the “why” questions—why their child is ill, why something so rare hit them, why there has been a reoccurrence of the disease, why they are faced with this crisis. It is in these situations–especially in end-of-life situations—that physicians see religion and spirituality acting as a bridge, helping patients and families make sense of illness, adjust to difficult news, and answer questions that medicine can’t.
Overall, the doctors interviewed see religion and spirituality as relevant to their work at its fringes. They decide how to act around religion and spirituality not based on formal training, but by watching the patients and families with whom they work. They see religion and spirituality as a barrier when it inhibits medical care for members of particular groups and as a bridge when it helps patients and families make sense of things, especially when physicians have no more medical options—or explanations—to offer.

From Elaine Howard Ecklund, a professor of sociology and associate director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University:

A few years ago, I watched a pre-screening of a documentary by biologist Randy Olson. The movie investigates how scientists confront religious people who are on the opposite side of the debate about teaching “intelligent design” in secondary-school classrooms. The premise of the film is that while ID has been completely refuted by the scientific community, it’s the scientists rather than ID supporters who are at risk of becoming a “flock of dodos.”
The problem: Scientists lack a spirit of dialogue—and, like the dodo bird that evolutionary theorists think became extinct because it was unable to fly, they’ll run into bigger problems if they do not learn how to adapt to the times. This means acting more respectfully toward those who disagree with them and working hard to present science in a more favorable, catchy, understandable light. It also means becoming less arrogant.
As the film ended, discussion began. I watched incredulously as some of the scientists in the room basically confirmed Olson’s accusations. They erupted with totalizing criticisms of religion and religious people, calling them “stupid fundamentalists,” oblivious to the fact that there were religious people—even religious scientists—seated in the room.
I am now beginning my third national study of top university scientists, and from 2005 to 2008, I conducted the most comprehensive study to date of what natural and social scientists think about religion. I surveyed nearly 1,700 scientists and conducted in-depth interviews with 275 of them (the results of which I discuss in great detail in Science vs. Religion: What Do Scientists Really Think?, my forthcoming book with Oxford University Press).
Two of my studies involved asking scientists what kinds of efforts they were making to translate their work for the broader public. I know from my research that scientists are deeply concerned about the public’s acceptance (or lack thereof) of science. And one of the issues that scientists who care about reaching the general American public are most concerned about is how to tackle religious challenges to science.
We know religious people often misunderstand scientists, but on the other side of the coin, scientists sometimes misunderstand religious people. Here, boiled down, is what they need to know:

1. Most religious people believe in religion and science.
Scientists are right in thinking that some religious people are fighting against science. About 40 percent of Americans believe that creationist (religiously informed) accounts of Earth’s origins should be taught in public schools instead of evolution, which is a linchpin of modern science. And more than 50 percent of Americans agree that “we depend too much on science and not enough on faith.” And yet, about 90 percent of Americans express interest in new scientific discoveries and new inventions and technologies. Often, simply saying “scientific studies show” is enough to gain a public hearing for a new product or idea.
According to a recent national survey, however, nearly 25 percent of Americans think scientists are hostile to religion, even though my survey also revealed that nearly half of scientists self-identify as religious. Religion—and more importantly, the intersection of religion and science—cannot be ignored by those who care about promoting greater scientific knowledge and literacy.

2. Basic stereotypes about religious people should be dispelled.
Generally speaking, religious people have as much education as nonreligious people. And they’re not all Christians. While the majority of recent immigrants to the United States are part of Christian religions—meaning they’re changing, in some cases, the racial and political character of American Christianity—a large number of immigrants are members of non-Christian religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Scientists need to take the time to recognize how different religious traditions vary in their approaches to science, just as scientists differ widely in their approaches to religion.

3. Not all evangelical Christians are against science.
Scholars are finding that evangelicalism is not as much of an impediment to gaining scientific knowledge as they once thought. Evangelical Christians—those who believe in the authority of the Bible and salvation in Jesus alone—are quickly catching up to and surpassing other religious groups in terms of education level: Evangelicals now graduate from college at the same rate as most other groups of Americans (and researchers believe education levels are correlated with broad knowledge of science). While the majority of scientists are not evangelicals, there are several well-known scientists—like Francis Collins, Ken Miller, and John Polkinghorne—who are engaged in massive public efforts to help Christians understand that they don’t have to choose between their faith commitments and science. Scientists without faith might not agree with the religious premises of such arguments, but they can share with their religious peers the larger goal of transmitting the excitement, wonder, and facts of science to as broad an audience as possible.