Scientific and technological change is happening faster than ever. Innovations like artificial intelligence, human reproductive genetic technologies and environmental technologies are advancing quickly, and public conversations and media coverage about them are often moving faster than careful thinking about their deeper moral implications.
Today, the big questions surrounding religion and science are about responsibly building and managing new scientific technologies, how they can shape what the world should be and what it could become — questions Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance will try to answer in partnership with the University of California, San Diego thanks to a new $2.9 million grant from the Templeton Religion Trust.
“This new research effort aims to close that gap,” said Elaine Howard Ecklund, director of the Boniuk Institute and the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences. “By bringing together experts from the social sciences, humanities and sciences, it seeks to better understand how religion and science interact in shaping different visions of the future — sometimes in productive conflict and sometimes in collaborative alignment.”
One important insight from previous studies is that people often have moral concerns about new technologies that are religiously-informed even when they understand the science behind them, Ecklund explained. The issue isn’t always a lack of knowledge. Instead, people are worried about what these technologies might mean for humanity and the world we live in. These concerns are especially strong among some groups of religious individuals, but such concerns are not limited to religious groups, Ecklund said.
Technologies such as AI, human biotechnology and environmental technology all have an impact on the natural world and possibly even what it means to be human. These scientific developments influence how people live today and imagine our future life on the planet. These conversations go beyond science itself and move into deeper questions about values, responsibility and long-term consequences, said Kerby Goff, associate director of research at the institute.
“In simpler terms, it’s not that people don’t ‘get’ the technology — it’s that they’re worried about what it means,” said John Evans, the Tata Chancellor’s Chair in Social Sciences and associate dean of social sciences at UC San Diego and co-director of the research initiative. “Many are asking questions like: ‘What kind of future are we creating? What do these technologies do to human identity, relationships or the environment?’ These concerns are widespread, but they tend to be especially strong among religious individuals. Overall, people aren’t just reacting to new technologies intellectually — they’re responding to them morally, thinking carefully about how these innovations could shape the world we all share.”
This research represents a new phase in the study of the relationships between religion and science. Religious ideas and institutions still play a major role in shaping how people think about right and wrong, even in largely secular societies, Ecklund said. As a result, religion continues to influence how people respond to scientific and technological change.
The initiative includes 14 separate research projects to investigate the relationship among religion, AI, biotechnologies and environmental technologies from a global team of academics. This includes multiple projects from Rice (including one from Judith Brunton in the Department of Religion) as well as research from the University of Oxford, UC San Diego, Harvard University, the National University of Singapore and Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary.
The researchers say the projected outcomes of this body of research will reorient how academic scholarship views the relationship between religion, science and technology as it expands the multidisciplinary work of religion-science studies, provides methods of transforming public opinion, shifts media coverage and cultural conversations and increases collaboration among religious communities and science and technology leaders.
Learn more about the Boniuk Institute’s mission and scholarship to discover the conditions that lead to religious conflict, tolerance and pluralism.
This research initiative is funded by the Templeton Religion Trust, ($2,962,326, #TRT-2024-33523) Elaine Howard Ecklund, PI, John H. Evans, co-PI, “Responsible Futures: Religion, Morality, and New Scientific Technologies.”