Science, Belief and Society: International Perspectives on Religion, Non-Religion and the Public Understanding of Science, 2019
Public discourse about science and belief is permeated by all manner of labels: terms like 'creat... more Public discourse about science and belief is permeated by all manner of labels: terms like 'creationism,' 'Intelligent Design,' 'Darwinism' and 'New Atheism.' Some of these labels describe a belief about evolution. Others signify a conviction about how science and religion relate. Still others describe an organization, social movement, cultural trend or group of people. In a few cases, the same label (e.g. 'creationist' or 'New Atheist') serves all of these functions, with the term being used to describe both a set of beliefs and the population that supposedly holds these beliefs. Labels also, as we will see, feature in social-scientific research, where they often form the basis of survey questions designed to measure people's understanding and acceptance of aspects of science. What is not typically questioned, however, is what people actually think about such labels. Are people aware of these terms? Do they identify with them, referring to themselves as 'creationists' or 'New Atheists'? Do these labels accurately represent people's perspectives?
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Papers by Tom Kaden
argue that it can be regarded as a sociopolitical movement and a de facto state with different sources of authority and means of power pertaining to each. Both realms of authority guarantee and reinforce each other, thus providing the Islamic State with a stability that is often overlooked in
public debates about its prospects.
giving meaning to life. While there are many similarities that clearly position New Atheism within the history of scientism, we find that the form of scientism the New Atheists employ owes at least as much to the current state of the religious field
as to their scientistic predecessors.
mit gesellschaftsanalytischen Ausführungen verwoben, was zu zahlreichen Rezeptionsproblemen geführt hat. Wir rekonstruieren zunächst knapp die beiden Dimensionen des Werks, um anschließend dessen Aufnahme in der
Religionssoziologie genauer zu untersuchen.
Befürworter wie Gegner der Theoriereduktion kommen offenbar nicht umhin, sich mit diesem Nagel-Modell auseinanderzusetzen. In jüngster Zeit erfreut sich Kenneth F. Schaffners Weiterentwicklung dieses Modells besonderer Aufmerksamkeit (Winther 2009). So diente sein „General Reduction Paradigm“ (Schaffner 1967: 144) sowie sein „General Reduction-Replacement (GRR) Model“ (Schaffner 1993: 331) als Vorbild für ein „Generalized Nagel-Schaffner Model of Reduction (GNS)“, mit dem gezeigt werden soll, „that a Nagelian account of reduction is essentially on the right track“ (Dizadji-Bahmani et al. 2010: 393-394).
Im Folgenden soll es nicht um das Für und Wider dieser Modelle gehen, sondern nur um einen ihrer Aspekte, nämlich um die Bestimmung der Beziehung einer Vorgängertheorie T2 zu ihrer Nachfolgerin T2* im Sinne einer starken oder positiven Analogie.