Dr Miguel Farias: Faith in Science? The Psychological Functions of Believing in Science

Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit Invited Speaker Series, 2011/12

Abstract
While running studies with religious/spiritual participants, Dr Farias often used atheists as a control group. In time, the thought of assessing what these people believed in emerged. Using a large set of questions on naturalistic ideas, he developed a scale of belief in science which has been used in lab and field experiments. In his talk he will describe these studies and discuss their astonishing results, which suggest that religious faith’s ability of alleviating stress and existential anxiety is closely mirrored by belief in science.

Biography
Miguel Farias is a departmental lecturer at the University of Oxford. He specialises in the psychology of beliefs, including spiritual and secular.

APRU Invited Speaker Programme

Dates & times

Date	Time	Add to calendar
6 Mar 2012	6:00pm - 7:30pm	apple google outlook

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