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Public acceptance of evolution remains low in the United States relative to other Western countries. Although advocates for the scientific community often highlight the need for improved education to change public opinion, analyses of data from a national sample of American adults indicate that the effects of educational attainment on attitudes toward evolution and creationism are uneven and contingent upon religious identity. Consequently, higher education will only shift public attitudes toward evolution and away from support for teaching creationism in public schools for those who take non-“literalist” interpretive stances on the Bible, or to the extent that it leads to fewer people with literalist religious identities.

Using data from a national survey of American adults, we examine the relationships between economic, political, sociodemographic, and religious characteristics with perception of the potential for eco-catastrophe. We employ the treadmill of production theory to frame our understanding of views about ecological concerns, arguing that the treadmill discourse associated with economic development is hegemonic and fundamentally shapes public views of eco-catastrophe. In line with this approach, economic ideology is the strongest predictor of attitudes about eco-catastrophe, and its influence is conditioned by political identity. There is also significant patterning in these perceptions based on gender, race, education, and religion, but the influence of social characteristics is primarily indirect—mediated by economic ideology and political identity. These results provide useful information for addressing environmental problems in public discourse and bridging policy divides.

Dr. Joseph Baker, Assistant Professor of Sociology at East Tennessee State University, was a guest speaker for the ETSU Natural History Museum's Darwin Day celebration on February 9, 2013.

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Low public acceptance of evolution among Americans in general, and conservative Protestants specifically, has recently received increased attention among scholars of both religion and the public understanding of science. At the same time, members of another major religious tradition, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), reject evolution at rates similar to evangelical Christians, yet there remains a dearth of studies examining the lack of acceptance of evolution among Mormons. Using a nationally representative survey of Americans that contains an adequate number of LDS respondents for advanced statistical analyses, this study examines patterns of evolution acceptance or rejection among Mormons. Findings reveal a moderating relationship between political identity and education, such that educational attainment has a positive relationship with evolution acceptance among political moderates and liberals, but a negative association among political conservatives. These findings highlight the central role played by the politicization of evolution in low rates of evolution acceptance among American Mormons and emphasize the need to—where possible—examine relations between ‘science and religion’ within and across specific religious traditions.

Scholars have long theorized that religious contexts provide health-promoting social integration and regulation. A growing body of literature has documented associations between individual religiosity and health as well as macro–micro linkages between religious contexts, religious participation, and individual health. Using unique data on individuals and county contexts in the United States, this study offers new insight by using multilevel analysis to examine meso–micro relationships between religion and health. We assess whether and how the relationship between individual religiosity and health depends on communal religious contexts. In highly religious contexts, religious individuals are less likely to have poor health, while nonreligious individuals are markedly more likely to have poor health. In less religious contexts, religious and nonreligious individuals report similar levels of health. Consequently, the health gap between religious and nonreligious individuals is largest in religiously devout contexts, primarily due to the negative effects on nonreligious individuals’ health in religious contexts.

Book Summary: This work is the fourth Small Wars Journal anthology focusing on radical Sunni Islamic terrorists and insurgent groups. It covers this professional journals writings for 2016 and is a compliment to the earlier Global Radical Islamist Insurgency anthologies that were produced as Vol. I: 2007-2011 (published in 2015) and Vol. II: 2012-2014 (published in 2016) and Jihadi Terrorism, Insurgency, and the Islamic State spanning 2015 (published in 2017). This anthology, which offers well over 900 pages of focused analysis, follows the same general conceptual breakdown as the earlier works and is divided into two major thematic sectionsone focusing on Al Qaeda and Islamic state activities in 2016 and the other focusing on US-Allied policies and counterinsurgent strategies.