Science under Siege
Contesting the Secular Religion of Scientism
Editors: Houtman, Dick, Aupers, Stef, Laermans, Rudi (Eds.)
- 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
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- About this book
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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.
- About the authors
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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
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Science under Siege
- Book Subtitle
- Contesting the Secular Religion of Scientism
- Editors
-
- Dick Houtman
- Stef Aupers
- Rudi Laermans
- Series Title
- Cultural Sociology
- Copyright
- 2021
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-030-69649-8
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-030-69649-8
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-69648-1
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XV, 318
- Number of Illustrations
- 3 b/w illustrations
- Topics
