TY - JOUR
T1 - Explaining the Existential
T2 - Scientific and Religious Explanations Play Different Functional Roles
AU - Davoodi, Telli
AU - Lombrozo, Tania
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. We are grateful to Casey Lewry for help with coding and other members of the Concepts and Cognition lab at Princeton University for insightful discussion. A subset of this work was presented at the 2020 meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, as well as the 2021 meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. Data and analysis codes for all studies reported in this article are available at https://osf.io/8ht46/.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021. American Psychological Association
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - How did the universe come to exist? What happens after we die? Answers to existential questions tend to elicit both scientific and religious explanations, offering a unique opportunity to evaluate how these domains differ in their psychological roles. Across 3 studies (N = 1,647), we investigate whether (and by whom) scientific and religious explanations are perceived to have epistemic merits—such as evidential and logical support—versus nonepistemic merits—such as social, emotional, or moral benefits. We find that scientific explanations are attributed more epistemic merits than are religious explanations (Study 1), that an explanation’s perceived epistemic merits are more strongly predicted by endorsement of that explanation for science than for religion (Study 2), and that scientific explanations are more likely to be generated when participants are prompted for an explanation high in epistemic merits (Study 3). By contrast, we find that religious explanations are attributed more nonepistemic merits than are scientific explanations (Study 1), that an explanation’s perceived nonepistemic merits are more strongly predicted by endorsement of that explanation for religion than for science (Study 2), and that religious explanations are more likely to be generated when participants are prompted for an explanation high in nonepistemic merits (Study 3). These findings inform theories of the relationship between religion and science, and they provide insight into accounts of the coexistence of scientific and religious cognition.
AB - How did the universe come to exist? What happens after we die? Answers to existential questions tend to elicit both scientific and religious explanations, offering a unique opportunity to evaluate how these domains differ in their psychological roles. Across 3 studies (N = 1,647), we investigate whether (and by whom) scientific and religious explanations are perceived to have epistemic merits—such as evidential and logical support—versus nonepistemic merits—such as social, emotional, or moral benefits. We find that scientific explanations are attributed more epistemic merits than are religious explanations (Study 1), that an explanation’s perceived epistemic merits are more strongly predicted by endorsement of that explanation for science than for religion (Study 2), and that scientific explanations are more likely to be generated when participants are prompted for an explanation high in epistemic merits (Study 3). By contrast, we find that religious explanations are attributed more nonepistemic merits than are scientific explanations (Study 1), that an explanation’s perceived nonepistemic merits are more strongly predicted by endorsement of that explanation for religion than for science (Study 2), and that religious explanations are more likely to be generated when participants are prompted for an explanation high in nonepistemic merits (Study 3). These findings inform theories of the relationship between religion and science, and they provide insight into accounts of the coexistence of scientific and religious cognition.
KW - Existential questions
KW - Explanations
KW - Explanatory coexistence
KW - Science and religion
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U2 - 10.1037/xge0001129
DO - 10.1037/xge0001129
M3 - Article
C2 - 34928686
AN - SCOPUS:85118968335
SN - 0096-3445
VL - 151
SP - 1199
EP - 1218
JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
IS - 5
ER -