Religion and science education

A national newspaper recently reported an academic study into religion and science.  The study was a collaborative effort by psychologists at two universities, one in Britain and one in the USA, and it concluded that countries which tend to be strongly religious tend not to perform well in the teaching of mathematics and science at school.

I am aware that newspaper reports are often misleading, and so I recently took the time to speak with one of the academics involved in the study to find out more.

First, it appears that the authors of the report relied in part on a survey of attitudes to religion which they themselves did not compile.  This survey ranks eighty-two countries as to how strongly religious people in those countries tend to be.  Of the twelve deemed most religious, only two are predominantly Christian countries, with the other ten being Muslim countries.  Of the twelve deemed the least religious, almost all are predominantly Christian countries.

The authors discuss a displacement hypothesis, whereby school pupils spend time learning about religion instead of learning about science and mathematics.  Obviously this hypothesis applies equally to other subjects.  Time spent studying a foreign language is time not spent studying science or mathematics.

Also, time alone is no guarantee of quality.  Half an hour spent in a classroom with a good teacher is surely more valuable than an hour spent in a classroom with an inadequate teacher.

In other words, this academic study appears to be so vague in its findings as to be of very little value.  If the authors would like to carry out further research, then maybe they could give us some more significant insights, but I see little reason to respond enthusiastically to a study which apparently treats all religions the same.  They are not all the same.