Mystical Science and Practical Religion
Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh Discourse on Science and Technology
By (author) Richard Cimino
Not available to order
Publication date:
09 September 2014Length of book:
112 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739182284
Mystical Science and Practical Religion examines the religious discourse employed by Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh applied science professionals and students, mainly engineers and Information Technology (IT) workers. Although applied scientists, especially immigrants to the United States, have shown high rates of religiosity, there have been few studies of this subject. Based on interviews with forty-five professionals and students, Cimino finds that although they are from different faiths, these applied scientists share a common discourse that blends religion and science. They each view their religions as the “most scientific.” Their work and study reshapes how they practice and conceptualize their faiths, though not in the expected directions of secularization and fundamentalism. This book provides a unique look at how the much contested fields of science and religion interact in real life.
Sociologists, philosophers, and scientists themselves have struggled with the idea that science is ‘value free’ in its practice yet ‘value laden’ in its effects. Scientists who are also religious believers, it seems, have much less difficulty with this idea because they apply a conceptual framework that circumscribes the value of science for their own lives and for the meaning of life more generally. The striking feature of Richard Cimino’s book is its focus on non-Christian religious scientists, whose faith positions incline them toward mysticism but in ways that only serve to enrich their scientific practice. The book is a welcome corrective to the false science-religion divisions that permeate both popular and academic culture today.