Science in the Formation of Worldviews

The objective in this work package is to study how science contributes to the formation of people’s worldviews both inside and outside the academy, and shape people’s religion or their conception of religion. 

The aim is to use surveys and interviews to study the role science plays in the formation of people’s worldviews both inside and outside the academy. Building on earlier work concerned with the worldviews of biologists, similar studies will be conducted among physicists, political scientists and philosophers. The significance of science in the formation of worldviews outside the academy, for example in politics and industry, will also be studied. This work package will relate to WP 6.1 in tracing the impact of relativism on the worldviews of different groups of people.

Since 2006 four empirical studies into the worldviews within Swedish population have been realized.  In the spring of 2012 another study was launched in the context of a larger project on environmental values among Swedish high school students.Work in WP 6.2 is still ongoing. 
Participating researcher: Carl Reinhold Bråkenhielm