Religious People Endorse Different Standards of Evidence When Evaluating Religious Versus Scientific Claims

Abstract

Recent research has begun to investigate the relationship between religion and science. However, it remains unclear whether religious and nonreligious people differ on the standards of evidence used when evaluating claims in religious versus scientific contexts. Across three studies (N = 702), we presented participants with effects that were attributed to scientific methodology or to God and asked them to rate how many more times an effect needs to be repeated in order to have certainty in the outcome. Results showed that religious people requested fewer repetitions compared to nonreligious people when an effect was attributed to prayer, and fewer repetitions when an effect was attributed to prayer compared to scientific methodology. Nonreligious people were relatively consistent across conditions. These results suggest that religious people have less stringent standards of evidence when evaluating nonscientific claims. Directions for future research are also discussed.