From: "Psychology of the Paranormal Email Network" ...@gold.ac.uk>
Subject: Dr Miguel Farias on Faith in Science @ Goldsmiths, 6 March 2012
Date: February 29th 2012

Hi All,

The next speaker in the APRU Invited Speaker Series is Dr Miguel Farias (University of Oxford) and the title of his talk is "Faith in Science? The Psychological Functions of Believing in Science". The talk will take place at 6:10 pm on Tuesday, 6 March 2012 (details below). As always, the talk is free, open to the public and there is no need to book. For further information, contact Robert Brotherton (email: ...@gold.ac.uk">r.br...@gold.ac.uk) or visit http://www.gold.ac.uk/apru/speakers/

As always, feel free to forward this message to individuals or groups that may be interested in attending (if you received this email that way, you are strongly advised to subscribe to the (free) Psychology of the Paranormal email list at http://www.gold.ac.uk/apru/email-network/ in order to ensure that you are kept informed about any changes in schedule, future events, etc.). To be sure that you are informed immediately of any very last-minute changes, you might like to follow me on Twitter (Twitter name: chriscfrench - note the middle "c").

Best wishes,
Chris

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Who: Dr Miguel Farias (University of Oxford)

When: 6:10 pm, 6 March 2012

Where: Room LG01, New Academic Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW (for directions, maps, etc.: www.goldsmiths.ac.uk)

Title: Faith in Science? The Psychological Functions of Believing in Science

Abstract
While running studies with religious/spiritual participants, Dr Farias often used atheists as a control group. In time, the thought of assessing what these people believed in emerged. Using a large set of questions on naturalistic ideas, he developed a scale of belief in science which has been used in lab and field experiments. In his talk he will describe these studies and discuss their astonishing results, which suggest that religious faith’s ability of alleviating stress and existential anxiety is closely mirrored by belief in science.

Biography

Miguel Farias is a departmental lecturer at the University of Oxford. He specialises in the psychology of beliefs, including spiritual and secular.