A new report focusing on the relationship between gender and beliefs in faith and science has concluded that men are more sceptical than women on the topic.
The report entitled Science and religion: does gender matter?, commissioned by Christian think tank Theos and The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, states that 26 per cent of men have the perspective that science and religion are incompatible, compared to 19 per cent of women.
The report draws data from a YouGov survey of 5,000 UK adults and more than 100 interviews with science and religion experts.
It further found that more men than women (31 per cent vs 23 per cent), believe that science cancels out any religious explanation for how the world works.
Researchers said the survey results prove notions that the New Atheist movement, which dictates that religion should be challenged and criticised, is a male dominated movement.
Dr Hannah Waite, researcher at Theos said in a statement: “The accusations of gender bias with the rhetoric of the New Atheist Movement were, it seems, warranted. There are many possible reasons for this, but the two we explored were than men are simply more antagonistic to religion, and that men are more likely to have the potential for conflict baked into their very definitions of the terms they use – both of which are both borne out by the data.”
On top of being more hostile to religion, the report contends that men have a more scientific outlook on life than women. It found that 61 per cent of men “agree that science is the only reliable way to get knowledge about the world, as opposed to 50 per cent of women”.
