The Faithful Scientist: Experiences of Anti-Religious Bias in Scientific Training

THE FAITHFUL SCIENTIST: Experiences of Anti-Religious Bias in Scientific Training by Christopher P. Scheitle. New York University Press, 2023. 224 pages. Hardcover; $35.00. ISBN: 9781479823710. Paperback; $28.00. ISBN: 9781479823727. Ebook; $35.00. ISBN: 9781479823741. *In The Faithful Scientist, Christopher P. Scheitle explores the identities and experiences of scientists-in-training and the impact of religion in their lives. The book makes a compelling argument about the connections among religion, race, gender, and diversity in science. Diverging from previous studies of scientists and religion, Scheitle focuses exclusively on graduate students training for scientific (biology, chemistry, physics) and social scientific (psychology, sociology) careers. The book combines quantitative and qualitative findings, drawing on 1,300 surveys and 65 in-depth interviews with both religious and unaffiliated respondents in the United States. Over six chapters, Scheitle pairs a unique dataset of statistical insights with rich quotations highlighting the lived experiences of students in the sciences. These chapters provide readers with an understanding of the religiosity of scientists-in-training, their beliefs about the relationship between religion and science, the stigma that religious students may experience in academic settings, the relevance of religion to peer and advisor relationships, the motivation that religion can provide to pursue scientific work, and the influence family life can have on the experiences of graduate students as they navigate their identity as developing scientists and as religious individuals. *Scheitle argues against a number of common misconceptions about the relationship between religion and science, such as the idea that top scientists who work at or attend more-prestigious institutions are more likely to be areligious (he finds minimal difference in religiosity based on institutional prestige), or that most scientists see religion as conflicting with science (less than a third of scientists in training hold this view, with the remainder seeing them as either independent or collaborative realms). These insights are likely familiar to those who study the intersection between religion and science or have read previous work by Scheitle, but these findings are also paired with many original insights unique to his sample of graduate students. Among these is discussion of the importance of the advisor-advisee relationship in graduate school and the potential salutary influence of having an advisor of the same faith. Considering the strong positive association between religiosity and the desire to start a family (among Scheitle's sample 75% who report being very religious say having children is very important to them compared with 29% who identify as non-religious), he also shows the increased importance of a department culture that values family and work-life balance for religious graduate students. *A particular strength of Scheitle's work is the way he frames religion as an often-overlooked dimension of diversity in scientific careers. As he shows, not only is religion important to the identities, motivations, and ethics of a sizable minority of graduate students in science, but it also overlaps significantly with other identities that are already underrepresented in scientific careers, such as racial and ethnic minorities, as well as women in the case of some natural science fields. Stigma or instances of being treated with less respect as graduate students due to gender or race were reported by 83% of women, 89% of Black students, and 74% of Hispanic students. For religious graduate students, mistreatment due to race and gender may be compounded by the fact that very (64%) and moderately (46%) religious students reported being treated with less respect due to their religion. In addition to leading students to question their identity as future scientists, religious students who felt they have been treated with less respect were also faced with the dilemma of whether to conceal their religious identity. As with race and gender, discrimination due to religion may lead to fewer students pursuing their field at a higher level, reinforcing their marginal status in the discipline. *One area in which the reader may question the generalizability of Scheitle's findings is the selection of universities from which he drew his sample. Respondents exclusively attend universities in the top 60 (according to US News rankings) of their discipline. Given that in some disciplines such as chemistry there are around 200 schools offering a PhD in the field, it would be reasonable to ask whether these programs are truly representative of the range of student experiences. The top 60 universities in a given field may be a model that is emulated by that discipline as a whole and is therefore an adequate sample, but it would have been interesting to see Scheitle discuss this dynamic further. There are also a number of potential policy implications from these findings that could have been covered in more detail. *The Faithful Scientist provides a strong background on the relationship between religion and scientific training revealing the potential challenges that religious graduate students face. Scheitle's research will appeal to a number of different audiences including sociologists, historians of science, and theologians. It would be a benefit to seminary classes on science and religion. Further, the richness of the qualitative data makes the book very readable for a general audience interested in learning more about the relationship between religion and science. *Notes *1Elaine H. Ecklund et al., Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion (Oxford University Press, 2019); Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle, Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think (Oxford University Press, 2018). *2J. Shulman, "Survey of Ph.D. Programs in Chemistry," American Chemical Society, accessed April 10, 2024, https://www.acs.org/education/students/graduate/survey-of-phd-programs-in-chemistry.html. *Reviewed by Brenton Kalinowski, PhD candidate, Rice University, and Elaine Howard Ecklund, Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, professor of sociology and director of the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005.