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Dissonance and Polyphasia as Strategies for Resolving the Potential Conflict Between Science and Religion Among South Africans

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Abstract

A majority of South Africans agrees that when science and religion conflict, religion is always right. Is this an indication the public is anti-science or does the question wording hide a more complex relationship? We examined the relationship between science and religion in South Africa using quantitative data from the World Values Survey and qualitative data from face-to-face interviews. As research on the potential conflict between science and religion is predominantly focused on Western countries, the present study focuses on Africa and compares results with those of two Western countries. Findings show that almost 76% South Africans agree that religion is always right and religious belief, social trust and education were significant predictors of this perception. Comparing findings with data from Zimbabwe, the United States and Germany, we found that while the influence of religiosity is significant across countries, comparatively, trust seems to be more of an African issue. The qualitative interviews, however, provided an elaboration of the relationship between science and religion in South Africa, indicating that choosing either science or religion is not always an outright rejection of the other. The relationships were classified as those informed by cognitive dissonance, often expressed in hierarchical associations, and those influenced by cognitive polyphasia, a complementary and transformative coexistence.

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Acknowledgements

This work is based on research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa (Grant number 93097). Any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material is that of the authors and the NRF does not accept any liability in this regard. The authors wish to thank their two anonymous reviewers for their good recommendations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South African Research Chair in Science Communication, Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Bankole A. Falade & Lars Guenther

  2. Department of Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Bankole A. Falade

  3. Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, Institute for Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Hamburg, Grindelberg 7, 20144, Hamburg, Germany

    Lars Guenther

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  1. Bankole A. Falade
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Correspondence to Bankole A. Falade.

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Table 4 Logistic regression output with confidence intervals
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Falade, B.A., Guenther, L. Dissonance and Polyphasia as Strategies for Resolving the Potential Conflict Between Science and Religion Among South Africans. Minerva 58, 459–480 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-020-09403-8

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