This year the theme is “Cosmos and Creator.” On that, some new sociological data is worth chewing on.

In a study just published by the American Sociological Review, researchers Timothy L. O’Brien (University of Evansville) and Shiri Noy (University of Wyoming) report on a survey they conducted examining perspectives on science and religion in the U.S. In most media discussions, the received wisdom is that faith and science are at odds, and that those who are more religious tend to be less scientifically literate. Thus science wins by default since it deals with facts whereas religion deals with values. Some have referred to this as the fact-value split.

It’s an old story, and largely fictional. O’Brien and Noy have confirmed that the reality is more complicated and more interesting.

Rather than just two groups — the religious and the scientific — they identified a significant third. This third demographic they found was both scientifically literate and religiously committed. Well, what do you know?

An article at the Huffington Post quotes O’Brien: “We were surprised to find this pretty big group (21 percent) who are pretty knowledgeable and appreciative about science and technology but who are also very religious and who reject certain scientific theories.”

They labeled the group “post-secular.” According to the Abstract:

The traditional perspective (43 percent) is marked by a preference for religion compared to science; the modern perspective (36 percent) holds the opposite view. A third perspective, which we call post-secular (21 percent), views both science and religion favorably. However, when faced with competing accounts of events such as creation and evolution, post-seculars root their views in religion rather than in mainstream science.

As the Huffington Post article puts it, “there’s a sizable chunk of Americans out there who are both religious and scientifically minded but who break with both packs when faith and science collide.”

More:

[O’Brien and Noy] examined responses from 2,901 people to 18 questions on knowledge of and attitudes toward science, and four religion-related questions in the General Social Surveys conducted in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

Many findings fit the usual way the science-religion divide is viewed:

• Moderns, who stand on reason, scored high on scientific knowledge and scored lowest on religion questions regarding biblical authority and the strength of their religious ties.

• Traditionals, who lean toward religion, scored lower on science facts and were least likely to agree that “the benefits of scientific research outweigh the harmful results.”

However, the data turned up a third perspective — people who defied the familiar breakdown. The authors dubbed them “Post-Secular” to jump past a popular theory that Americans are moving way from religion to become more secular, O’Brien said.

Post-Seculars about half of whom identify as conservative Protestants — know facts such as how lasers work, what antibiotics do, and the way genetics affect inherited illnesses.

But when it comes to three main areas where science and Christian-centric religious views conflict — on human evolution, the Big Bang origin of the universe, and the age of the Earth — Post-Seculars break away from the pack with very significantly different views from Traditionals and Moderns.

The researchers looked at what proportion of each of the three groups agreed with certain scientific propositions. The majority of the Moderns agreed with the propositions, while only a minority of the Traditionals did. The surprise was how few of the Post-Seculars did. For example:

The universe began with a huge explosion:

Traditional: 21 percent
Modern: 68 percent
Post-Secular: 6 percent

Human beings developed from earlier species of animals:

Traditional: 33 percent
Modern: 88 percent
Post-Secular: 3 percent

The continents have been moving for millions of years and will move in the future:

Traditional: 66 percent
Modern: 98 percent
Post-Secular: 80 percent

I’m not suggesting we should look to the Post-Seculars as oracles or guides to the best science. Their views on the Big Bang, for instance, are puzzling. At the same time, the results are notable. No one can accuse the Post-Seculars of being scientifically illiterate, as it is clear they get the science. Yet on certain issues, including evolution, the overwhelming majority are willing to stake out their own views. That, certainly, is encouraging. As the researchers state:

Post-seculars’ generally favorable views of science and their rejection of evolution and the big bang may indicate that science and religion coexist for these individuals, but that evolution and the big bang are not viewed as legitimate science.

That’s another way of saying that there are some who reject certain orthodox scientific views, not because they do not understand the science, and not just because they are religious, but rather because they do not believe that the science behind those views is convincing.

This, as I said, complicates the familiar narrative about faith being at war with science. More on that, next month in Philadelphia. See you there!