Challenging Student Ideas About Religion in a General Education Course

Abstract

COR-400, Science and Human Nature, is a general education science course required of all students at Oglethorpe University. In this course, students learn about scientific ways of knowing and the scientific process through the lens of scientific revolutions. Specifically, the course content focuses on the Copernican Revolution and the Quantum Revolution of the early 20th century. Students often enter this course with preconceived notions of the relationship between religion and the scientific community – in particular, they often perceive religious authority to have produced barriers to scientific progress and discovery throughout history. During this course, we investigate and challenge these notions. In this presentation I will discuss how this material is presented to students and highlight student comments that demonstrate their evolution in thinking about the relationship between science and religion.