“It is not the case that all scientists dislike religion or are not religious. And not all religious individuals dislike science,” said Scheitle, assistant professor of sociology at WVU. “Some argue that religion and science are independent of each other, that religion has more to do with morality while science has to do with how things work. That’s nice to say, but simplistic. Science involves morality, especially how we use science. It’s naive to think they can be separate.”

Scheitle recently collaborated with colleagues to explore some of the dynamics between religion and science when it comes to issues like parents’ influence on children’s career choices and lawmakers’ motivations for supporting anti-evolution legislation.

Scheitle and Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist at Rice University, sought to assess potential consequences of perceived conflict between religion and science. By surveying adults about their career recommendations and preferences for their children, they found a unique method to assess the potential for conflict.

“The assumption is that if religious individuals don’t like science or view it as a threat, they aren’t going to recommend their children pursue it because that threatens their religious beliefs or identity,” Scheitle said. “This provides a subtle way of getting at how religion shapes people’s orientation toward science.”

The survey asked 15,868 adults if they would recommend their child pursue careers in 13 occupations, ranging from electrician and high school chemistry teacher to physicist and biologist.

In analyzing responses to the survey, they found that religious individuals are less likely to recommend their child to pursue careers in pure science, technology, engineering and math fields, such as becoming a physicist or biologist. However, these findings did not carry over to applied fields, such as high school chemistry teacher or doctor.

“It’s not that religious individuals hate biologists or physicists; it’s more an issue of values. A lot of religious individuals, such as conservative Protestants, put a lot of emphasis on ending suffering or the importance of life. A child becoming a doctor ties in more directly with those beliefs,” Scheitle said. “It is more difficult to connect other occupations (e.g. biologist) with religion. Some of the applied occupations are more clearly associated with serving or helping others.”