UC San Diego

Due to conservative Protestant elites challenging scientists in the public sphere, and prominent scientists attacking religion, scholars have claimed that there is an increasing conflict between conservative Protestants and science. However, these claims have never been empirically investigated and these general claims do not specify what conflict is actually about. In this article I use the General Social Survey from 1984 to 2010 to examine whether conservative Protestants are increasingly opposed to the social and moral influence of scientists. I find evidence for increasing opposition by biblical literalist conservative Protestants to the involvement of scientists in social debates about moral issues. © 2013 The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.