Professor Elaine Howard Ecklund/Courtesy photo
COMMUNITY NEWS
The Los Alamos Faith and Science Forum is honored to host an on-line visit and lecture by author, researcher, and professor Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice University, on Tuesday, Sept. 8. Professor Ecklund will speak on the topic “What Scientists think about Religion and the Common Values that Bring Science and Faith Communities Together”.
The lecture will take place via Zoom at 6 p.m. Mountain Daylight Saving Time (7 p.m. Central Daylight-Saving Time) on Tuesday, Sept. 8. More information about the content of the lecture and the background of the speaker is given below. Please register to attend the Zoom lecture at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYrfuGtpzwjGNQKWcCwjUSTyxVQ-Hvol8nD
or the Los Alamos Faith and Science Forum’s web site www.lafsf.org. Professor Ecklund will answer questions from the audience after the lecture. We hope you will be able to join us on-line for her stimulating and thought-provoking talk!
What Scientists think about Religion and the Common Values that Bring Science and Faith Communities Together
Abstract. Based on 15 years of data collection, Ecklund, who is a sociologist and director of Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program, will discuss what scientists in eight national contexts think about religion and the relationship between religion and science. She will also examine some of the unexpected shared values that science and faith communities have in common, values that show why science and faith need each other. And Ecklund will talk about how– in these fractured times –the Religion and Public Life Program is using research on religion to build common ground for the common good.
Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Rice University, as well as founding director of the Religion and Public Life Program. Ecklund is a sociologist of religion, immigration, and science who examines how individuals bring changes to religious and scientific institutions. She is the author of four books with Oxford University Press, one book with New York University Press, one book with BrazosPress, and numerous research articles and op-eds. Her most recent book is Why Science and Faith Need Each Other: Eight Shared Values That Move Us beyond Fear (BrazosPress, 2020). She has received grants from the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Her research has been cited thousands of times by local, national, and international media. In 2013, she received Rice University’s Charles O. Duncan Award for Most Outstanding Academic Achievement and Teaching, and in 2018 she gave the Gifford Lecture at the University of Edinburgh.