Rev Relig Res (2015) 57:575–586 DOI 10.1007/s13644-015-0208-3
Investigating the Connection Between Science and ThisWorldly Oriented Superstition: A Research Note on the Case of School Adolescents in Urban China Anning Hu
Received: 16 June 2014 / Accepted: 20 January 2015 / Published online: 7 February 2015 Ó Religious Research Association, Inc. 2015
Abstract Most studies on the religion–science connection have been conducted in a Judeo-Christian context where other-worldly rewards are often emphasized. This research note examines how scientific orientation and scientific knowledge interact with people’s this-worldly oriented superstition by presenting a case study of school adolescents in urban China, an institutional environment where religions are on average more superstitious relative to Christianity. Empirical results suggest that both scientific orientation and scientific knowledge have a significantly negative effect on superstition, and their effects are independent from each other. The implications with regard to the state regulation of religions in China and to the potential epistemological conflict for spirituality seekers in other nations are discussed. Keywords
Superstition Science Adolescents Urban China
Introduction One research theme in the Sociology of Religion is the connection between science and religion (e.g., Baker 2012; Dawkins 2006; Ecklund and Park 2009; Evans 2013; Evans and Evans 2008; Harris 2004; Scheitle 2011; Mooney 2005; Russell 1997). However, most of the theories regarding this theme are built on studies conducted in a Judeo-Christian context (e.g., in US society), which, in general, is oriented toward
A. Hu (&) Department of Sociology, Fudan University, 831, Liberal Arts Building, Handan Road, Shanghai 200433, China e-mail:
[email protected]
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other-worldly rewards (e.g., eternal life).1 Relatively, we know surprisingly little about how science may influence people’s attitude toward less institutionalized and this-worldly oriented religious activities or beliefs, such as superstition.2 The connection between science and superstition is of great relevance to the research on the science–religion nexus because elements of both this-worldly and other-worldly rewards can be found in many if not all religions. In some religious traditions, thisworldly rewards even dominate the religious teachings and ceremonies (e.g., folk religions in China). In this research note, we present an interesting case study about Chinese society, an institutional context where many native religions as well as institutional religions are soaked with this-worldly elements.3 Because the supernaturally promised this-worldly rewards, i.e., a good fortune, are susceptible to scientific validation and testing, one might expect a strong conflict between religion and science in China. According to the extant literature, superstition, or magic, is featured by its instrumentality, referring to the pursuit of immediate secular rewards, such as ‘‘health, long lives, defeat of enemies, good relations with one’s own people and the like’’ (Weber 1946: 277). This characteristic of superstition was highlighted by Durkheim ([1912] 1995),4 and in a sense, that is the reason why Stark defined superstition as a type of ‘‘specific compensator’’ for ‘‘a specific, limited reward’’ (Stark and Bainbridge 1985: 7). One implication of the strong this-worldly orientation of superstition is its potential conflict with science in terms of the truth claims about the world, since the logic of physical laws flies in the face of a belief in an almighty deity (Evans and Evans 2008). For instance, the belief that rainfall is determined by a rain deity would collide with the scientific explanation for the physical mechanism of rainfall. 1
Here, we are not arguing that Christianity is entirely other-worldly oriented. On the contrary, we are aware of and acknowledge that certain aspects of Christian religiosity, such as the lived religion tradition, can be primarily this-worldly focused (Hall 1997; McGuire 2008). However, relative to the Eastern religious traditions, we argue, Christianity, on average, reveals a stronger extent of other-worldly orientation. This point of view received support from empirical studies in China (e.g., Hu and Yang 2014). The detailed theoretical distinction between this-worldly and other-worldly orientations in religions, however, goes beyond the scope of this research note.
2
In Chinese society, a large number of people follow folk religion (Yang and Hu 2012), and superstition has always been a core component in this type of religious activities, such as fortune telling or fengshui practices (Feuchtwang 1989; Nedostup 2010). Besides, superstitious elements have been found in many institutionalized religions in Chinese society (Leamaster and Hu 2014). Although superstitious practices were harshly suppressed during the socialist regime, they witness a revival in the Reform Era (Yang 2012). For the sake of notion consistency, we use the term ‘‘superstition’’ throughout this research note, to denote the religious or spiritual practices and beliefs mainly aimed toward this-worldly rewards, such as a good fortune. We use this term in a value-neutral fashion without assuming its ideological implications in Chinese society (Overmyer 2001).
3
Again, this statement does not mean that other-worldly religions are absent in Chinese society. However, most native Chinese religions are this-worldly oriented and several major institutional religions in China (e.g., Buddhism and Catholicism) have introduced considerable magical elements into their theologies. These facts determine that the average level of this-worldly orientation in China should be higher than that in a Judeo-Christian society.
4
The word ‘‘magic’’ has been widely used by sociologists of religion to refer to this-worldly orientation. In this research, we do not make a nuanced distinction between magic and superstition.
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Following this line of thought, we expect that a person who has a strong scientific orientation or has more scientific knowledge should be prone to disavow superstitious discourse. That is to say, the scientific explanation for the universe would drive down people’s superstitious orientation because the latter attempts to ‘‘explain’’ or even ‘‘alter’’ the physical world in a magical fashion. In this light, we hypothesize a negative connection between superstition and science. We test our hypotheses by taking advantage of a survey that collected information about the scientific and superstitious propensities of school adolescents in urban China. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only available survey data that can help us explore the relationship between superstition and science in mainland China. We acknowledge that the target population of this survey, that is, school adolescents in urban China, is limited for making inference about the whole Chinese population, but we believe that the empirical patterns revealed by this study add new information to the extant literature by presenting, though preliminarily, how science might relate to this-worldly oriented religiosity in a non-JudeoChristian context. Furthermore, the attitude toward the religion–science connection established at the formative adolescent stage can be very likely to last a whole lifetime (Bahr 1970; Edgell 2005). In this case, what we document here may partly help us anticipate the future when the adolescents move into their adulthood.
Methods Data The data used in this study come from the 2009 Adolescents’ Scientific Study Survey (ASSS), which was conducted by the Department of Sociology at Sun YatSen University in China. The target population of the ASSS was adolescents who were in school in 2009. Specifically, the ASSS collected data from four major cities (Shenzhen, Zhongshan, Beijing, and Chengdu) that are located in different regions of China. Researchers constructed the sampling frame based on a list of all schools provided by the local bureaus of education. Following a multi-level random sampling procedure, the ASSS sampled 14 schools in total, with 2–3 public schools and 2–3 private schools in each city. There are three grades in each school, and one classroom was randomly sampled from each of the three grades.5 Every student in the sampled classrooms was required to complete the survey questionnaire. The response rate was 91 percent, with a final sample size of 1,277. As mentioned earlier, the ASSS is the only survey that is available in China with information about adolescents’ scientific orientation, scientific knowledge, and superstitious propensity. It provides us with a valuable research opportunity, especially in light of the well-known restrictions in conducting large-scale surveys on people’s religious life in mainland China (Grim and Finke 2011). However, as an exploratory survey, the ASSS has room for further improvement. For instance, the 5
Each grade refers to a cohort of students who are enrolled in the same year. Students should complete the three grades consecutively.
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ASSS collected data from only 14 schools in four major cities, which means that a generalization of the conclusions should be performed with caution. Also, the sampling frame is based on school adolescents. Although the school enrollment rate of adolescents in urban China has reached a high level, a sampling strategy designed based on the whole adolescent population or the adult population in general is undoubtedly more desirable.6 These limitations should be kept in mind when interpreting the empirical results. Measures and Methodology In this study, we use an array of variables to measure adolescents’ attitude toward superstition. Due to the diverse superstitious practices in China, it is impossible to exhaustively measure all kinds of them, so we follow a conventional approach by focusing on the most typical ones (Qu 2002; Yang and Hu 2012). Specifically, we consider the variables of Auspicious Number, Face Reading, Taboo Breaking,7 Ritual Efficaciousness, (Mis)Fortune Birds, Eye Twitching, and Fortune Telling (details are presented in Table 1). According to the extant literature on Chinese religions, these variables all serve to capture the magical power of certain supernatural beings in their influencing people’s secular lives (e.g., soliciting blessings or avoiding bad fortune). Thus, these measures are qualified to reveal the meaning of superstition. The factor analysis is used to generate a new variable of superstition. It is worth mentioning that all of these superstitious activities are fairly common in China. Usually, Chinese people start to engage in them as early as in their childhood (Bruun 2003). What is more, unlike institutional religious teachings, these practices do not entail a complicated theology that relies heavily on followers’ cognitive competence. In this light, it is reasonable to assume that the adolescents in the ASSS are capable of comprehending these questions. Scientific orientation, by definition, refers to a person’s preference and inclination toward science. In this study, we utilize several questions to gauge this variable, including the respondents’ attitude toward the lifestyle of a scientist in a laboratory; perceived benefits of science for nature understanding, economic development, and improvement of human life; personal rewards from scientific knowledge; subjective wellbeing (happiness) brought about by scientific activities; and attitude toward science courses at school (the detailed descriptions of these questions can be found in Table 1). These measures, from different perspectives, gauge a person’s perception of and extent of ‘‘affinity’’ with science. The factor analysis is used to generate a new variable of scientific orientation. We in this study make a nuanced distinction between scientific orientation and scientific knowledge. This distinction is necessary because a scientifically knowledgeable person could still be this-worldly oriented and do not agree with a 6
According to the statistics released by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, the gross enrollment rate of junior high school is 99 percent in 2009 (http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2010-08/03/ content_1670245.html).
7
The wording of the questionnaire made it clear that the taboo here refers to the prohibition of an action for the sake of avoiding supernatural punishment. Thus, this taboo is different from the morality-based taboo often used by social scientists.
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Table 1 Descriptions of variables Variable
Description and coding
Superstition Auspicious number
Some numbers are more auspicious than others (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Face reading
One’s face can reveal his or her spiritual world (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Taboo breaking
Breaking a taboo brings about unwanted supernatural punishment (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Ritual efficaciousness
Some ancient rituals (e.g., the ritual of rainfall) are efficacious (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
(Mis)Fortune birds
A magpie indicates auspice, but a crow indicates an ill omen (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Eye twitching
Eye twitching implies spiritual omen (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree).
Fortune telling
Fortune-telling activities are able to predict one’s bad fortune (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Scientific orientation Lifestyle of a scientist
A lifestyle of working in a laboratory is great (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Nature understanding
Science helps us greatly in understanding the nature (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Economic development
Science is important for economic development (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Better human life
Science gives us a better human life (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Rewarding scientific knowledge
I will benefit from my scientific knowledge after graduation (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Happiness from science
Learning science brings about a lot of happiness (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Science courses useful
What I learnt in science courses are very useful and beneficial for my future (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Science courses important
I study science because it is important (1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = strongly agree)
Scientific knowledge 16 yes-or-no questions
1. The temperature of the earth core is very high 2. The earth moves around the sun 3. The oxygen is generated by plants 4. Mother’s gene determines her child’s sex 5. Laser is generated by assembling sound waves 6. An electron is smaller than an atom 7. Antibiotics can kill virus 8. The universe was created by a gigantic explosion 9. For millions of years, the continents where we have been living have been drifting 10. Human beings evolve from animals 11. Smoking causes lung cancer
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Table 1 continued Variable
Description and coding 12. The earliest human beings lived with dinosaurs 13. Milk with radioactive particles is safe after being boiled 14. The speed of light is faster than that of sound 15. All radioactive phenomena are man-made 16. It takes the earth one month to move around the sun
Data source: the ASSS
scientific explanation for the universe. In the ASSS, scientific knowledge is measured by a total of 16 yes/no questions (details about these questions are available in Table 1). These questions were specially designed to be suitable for the cognitive competence and the curriculum of school adolescents in urban China. The total score of these questions is used to measure scientific knowledge. In addition to these key variables, we take into account a series of control variables, including Age, Gender (1 = female; 0 = male), Household Registration Status (1 = rural; 0 = urban), Grade (1 = grade one; 2 = grade two; 3 = grade three), Stay Time (the years of living in the survey residence), Birthplace (province of birth), and Parental Education (1 = preliminary education and below; 2 = junior high school; 3 = senior high school; and 4 = higher education). In the following sections, we present our analytical results.8 Missing data were handled with the procedure of multiple imputation (Rubin 1987).
Results Descriptive Findings Descriptive statistics of the variables are presented in Table 2. It seems that superstition is not very popular among school adolescents in urban China, where all variables, except for Face Reading, have an average value of \2. This might be attributed to the endeavors of the state in suppressing ‘‘feudalistic superstition’’ (Goossaert and Palmer 2011; Nedostup 2010). As for the variables related to science, most adolescents in the ASSS appreciate the benefits of science in nature understanding and economic development (the mean values are both more than 3.5), which are followed by the recognition that science brings about a better human life and that scientific knowledge is rewarding. On average, Chinese urban adolescents have a positive attitude toward science courses at school. Finally, the mean value of scientific knowledge score questions is around 10 (out of 16 questions with one point for each question). 8
The OLS model is applied to this research because the generalized linear model such as the logistic model has problem in comparing coefficients across nested models. One solution proposed in methodological studies is the OLS model (Breen and Karlson 2013), which is also called the linear probability model in the econometric literature.
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Table 2 Descriptive statistics Variable
Mean/(%)
Min
Max
Auspicious number
1.97
1
4
Face reading
2.03
1
4
Taboo breaking
1.83
1
4
Ritual efficaciousness
1.43
1
4
(Mis)Fortune birds
1.77
1
4
Eye twitching
1.94
1
4
Fortune telling
1.44
1
4
Lifestyle of a scientist
3.00
1
4
Nature understanding
3.53
1
4
Economic development
3.50
1
4
Better human life
3.30
1
4
Rewarding scientific knowledge
3.21
1
4
Happiness from science
3.17
1
4
Science courses useful
3.33
1
4
Science courses important
3.15
1
4
Scientific knowledge
10.16
0
16
Age
14.64
9
18
Stay time
9.93
0
18
Father education (%) Preliminary education and below
10.05
Junior high school
38.73
Senior high school
32.59
Higher education
18.63
Mother education (%) Preliminary education and below
19.05
Junior high school
38.57
Senior high school
28.35
Higher education
14.02
Grade (%) Grade 1
36.26
Grade 2
31.69
Grade 3
32.05
Household registration status (urban) (%)
50.48
Sex (female) (%)
49.39
N
1,277
Data source: the ASSS
Science and Superstition The exploratory factor analysis was adopted to generate the latent variables of superstition and scientific orientation. The results are presented in Table 3. Not
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Superstitiona Auspicious number
0.64
Face reading
0.50
Taboo breaking
0.69
Ritual efficaciousness
0.63
(Mis)Fortune birds
0.69
Eye twitching
0.75
Fortune telling
0.66
Scientific orientationb
Data source: the ASSS Rotation method: varimax a
Cronbach’s alpha = 0.77; Variance explained = 43.05 percent b
Cronbach’s alpha = 0.82; Variance explained = 45.57 percent
Lifestyle of a scientist
0.54
Nature understanding
0.72
Economic development
0.71
Better human life
0.69
Rewarding scientific knowledge
0.68
Happiness from science
0.68
Science courses useful
0.74
Science courses important
0.62
surprisingly, all measures of superstition point to the same latent variable, which is also the case for the observed measures of scientific orientation. The statistics assessing these two factor analysis models are presented in the footnote of Table 3. With a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient larger than 0.75 and the percentage of explained variance over 40 percent, both models were fitted well.9 Based on the newly generated variables from the exploratory factor analysis, we examine the relationship between science and superstition in the OLS models. The empirical findings are presented in Table 4. Model 1 is the baseline model, and we add the variable of scientific orientation to this model in model 2. As revealed, the regression coefficient of scientific orientation is negative at the 0.001 significance level (b = -0.10). This finding suggests that the more scientifically oriented the school adolescents in urban China are, the less superstitious they are, a pattern which supports our hypothesis. As for scientific knowledge, we also note a negative effect. As shown in model 3, the OLS coefficient of scientific knowledge is -0.07, which is statistically significant at the 0.001 level. This finding confirms a negative relationship between scientific knowledge and the odds of embracing superstition. In model 4, scientific orientation and scientific knowledge are considered together. Relative to the results shown in the previous models, no material change is detected. This indicates that, although scientific orientation and scientific knowledge both reduce school adolescents’ likelihood of being superstitious, they reflect two distinct aspects of a person’s extent of being scientific. That is to say, their consequences on a school adolescent’s attitude toward superstition are independent from one another. 9
We did not report the descriptive results for the latent variables because the default result of the exploratory factor analysis is that these two latent variables follow a standard normal distribution (with zero mean and unity variance).
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Table 4 Relationship between science and superstition Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
20.07(0.01)***
20.06(0.01)***
-0.18(0.11)
-0.20(0.12)?
20.10(0.03)***
Scientific orientation Scientific knowledge
20.10(0.03)**
Father education (reference = preliminary education and below) Junior high school
-0.15 (0.11) ?
-0.15 (0.11) ?
?
Senior high school
-0.19 (0.12)
-0.19 (0.12)
-0.22(0.12)
-0.29(0.13)*
Higher education
-0.35 (0.15)*
-0.35 (0.15)*
-0.33(0.15)*
-0.38(0.15)**
Mother education (reference = preliminary education and below) Junior high school
-0.11 (0.10)
-0.11 (0.10)
-0.10 (0.10)
-0.08 (0.10)
Senior high school
-0.08 (0.11)
-0.08 (0.11)
-0.05 (0.11)
-0.05 (0.11)
-0.21 (0.14)
-0.22 (0.15)
-0.17 (0.15)
-0.07 (0.15)
Sex (female)
Higher education
-0.27 (0.06)***
-0.27 (0.06)***
-0.22 (0.06)***
-0.19 (0.06)*
Age
0.05 (0.04)
0.06 (0.04)
0.04 (0.04)
0.02 (0.04)
Household registration status (rural)
-0.10 (0.07)
-0.10 (0.07)
-0.15 (0.07)*
-0.15 (0.07)?
0.15 (0.08)
Grade (reference = 1) Grade 2
-0.08 (0.08)
-0.06 (0.08)
0.02 (0.08)
Grade 3
-0.21 (0.10)*
-0.19 (0.10)?
-0.02 (0.11)
0.07 (0.10)
Stay time
0.01 (0.01)
0.01 (0.01)
0.01 (0.01)
0.01 (0.01)
Birthplacea
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Intercept
-0.58 (0.64)
-0.66 (0.63)
0.15 (0.63)
0.21 (0.70)
R2
0.06
0.06
0.10
0.11
N
1,277
1,277
1,277
1,277
Note: results of key variables are marked out in bold Data source: the ASSS Dependent variable: superstition ?
p \ 0.1; * p \ 0.05; ** p \ 0.01; *** p \ 0.001
a
Birthplace is measured by a series of dummy variables that denote different provinces of birth. In the interest of brevity, their coefficients are not reported and a ‘‘Yes’’ suggests that this variable has been controlled in the corresponding model
There are some other interesting findings in Table 4. For instance, the point estimates for parental education are always negatively associated with a school adolescent’s likelihood of embracing superstition. This means that family background matters for adolescents’ spiritual life in China. However, only father’s education is statistically significant. Another finding that deserves attention is that female school adolescents are on average less superstitious than males. This is interesting because women have always been noted to be more religious than men (Miller and Stark 2002). This finding underscores the potential difference between other-worldly religion and this-worldly magic in terms of their followers’ sociodemographic features, which calls for further exploration.
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Concluding Remarks In this research note, we capitalized a survey data and analyzed the intricacies between science and this-worldly oriented superstition among school adolescents in urban China. The findings underscore an antagonistic relationship between a person’s extent of accepting superstition and his or her scientific orientation and scientific knowledge. This study supplements the extant literature by adding an interesting East Asian case with special attention paid to the this-worldly aspect of religiosity. The science–superstition conflict has significant implications for the theoretical discussions on the connection between science and religion. Indeed, regarding the science–religion nexus, extant studies provide non-consensus conclusions, where negative, neutral, and positive results have all been documented (e.g., Gould 1998; Scheitle 2011). Such idiosyncratic findings, we suspect, might be partly attributed to the fact that religiosity per se is multifaceted and involves promises of both thisworldly and other-worldly rewards. In this light, the current research note, by identifying and investigating this-worldly oriented superstition, helps to clarify the meaning of religiosity as well as its connection to science. The significantly negative connection between science and superstition, in a sense, betters our understanding of the state’s strategies in curbing religious activities in China. In addition to the well-documented direct anti-religious policies, one subtle strategy of the state, which has not yet received much attention, is to encourage the development of science. The strategy can be traced back to the modernization endeavors in the middle 1900s (Goossaert and Palmer 2011), and the core rationale behind it is the antagonistic relationship between religion and science. This study examines this assumption for the first time, and our findings do lend support to this negative connection. Since most religions, including many of the institutional ones, are soaked with superstitious elements in China, the inhibiting effect of science apply not only to superstitious activities, but also to a large number of institutional religious practices and beliefs (e.g., Buddhism). Hence, development of modern education and the cultivation of a scientific worldview may serve as an agent for societal ‘‘disenchantment’’ in mainland China. The negative connection between this-worldly oriented religiosity and science is also relevant to other nations. For example, there is a recent tendency of decline in the number of institutional religion followers in the USA (Hout et al. 2013). At the same time, a considerable proportion of US residents choose a ‘‘spiritual but not religious’’ lifestyle and get involved in a variety of spiritual practices, for example, the New Age Movement (Barker 1984; Dawson 1998; Melton 2004). Since spiritual practices have much in common with superstition, our study indicates that spirituality seekers in societies such as the USA might confront an intense epistemological struggle because their highly this-worldly oriented spiritual practices are very likely to be in conflict with the scientific explanation for the dynamics of the universe. Whether or not this conjecture is tenable is a question for further study. There are several future research directions suggested by this research note. One direction is to interrogate the multiple meanings of religiosity (e.g., the distinction
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between this-worldly and other-worldly rewards) and elaborate their unique interactions with science. This research direction further calls for a crossinstitutional comparison in light of the variability in religious life across societies. Another promising research direction is to investigate the intermediating mechanism that shapes the feature of science–religion connection. For instance, the epistemological conflict between religion and science is more theoretically assumed than empirically substantiated in this article as well as in many other studies. In this light, future studies may seek solid evidence to illustrate such a psychological conflict. Several limitations of this study are recognized. First of all, the cross-sectional design restricts our capabilities in establishing a temporal order. Therefore, any causal interpretation of the empirical results should be made with caution. Second, the sample examined in this study, as well as the ensuing limitation in drawing a generalized conclusion, can be a real concern. A more desirable study would be based on a representative nationwide sample that covers individuals of different ages. Finally, although researchers of the ASSS have taken into account the cognitive competence of adolescents in the sample, the potential cognitive bias may not be ruled out. In light of these limitations, we view this research note as an exploratory study that reports some new information collected from a unique institutional environment. We believe that the empirical patterns documented here are enlightening and help us better understand the connection between religion and science in general. Acknowledgments We are grateful to acknowledge the research fund of the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
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