Timothy L O’brien
Biographic Data
| ID | 1699080 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Timothy L O’brien |
| GIVEN NAMES | Timothy L |
| FAMILY NAME | O’brien |
| SIGNATURE | O’BRIEN T L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7382-8245 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 135 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Public perceptions of scientists’ motives and support for therapeutic gene editing
Political and religious beliefs are closely associated with trust in science, yet little is known about how these beliefs shape perceptions of scientists’ motivations. Using original national survey data from U.S. adults (n = 1510), this article examines how political and religious identities influence perceptions of scientists’ motives and how those perceptions relate to support for therapeutic gene editing (TGE). We develop new measures of moti…
The cultural meanings of science and religion: Moral and epistemic authority in the United States
Scholars often associate science and religion with different spheres of authority, linking science to factual knowledge and religion to moral guidance. Yet individuals often blur these boundaries, with some using science as a basis for moral judgment and others turning to religion to understand empirical facts. Using new survey measures and nationally representative data (n = 1516), our latent class analysis identifies five distinctive perspectiv…
Explaining Partisan Differences in Postsecondary Policy Support: The Role of Information Consumption Among State Legislators
Postsecondary policymaking has entered an era of entrenched partisanship. Yet scholars have rarely sought to explain partisan differences in postsecondary policy support. This paper proposes that differences in information consumption among lawmakers are associated with and help explain political differences in support for higher education policies. Extending research on policy knowledge use, we challenge C.P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” framework by s…
Partisan identity, scientific and religious authority, and lawmaker support for science policy
This article examines mechanisms related to lawmaker support for public policies based on scientific evidence and supportive of organized science. We propose that Republican lawmakers are more likely than Democrats to oppose these policies because Republicans are less likely than Democrats to base policy decisions on scientific authority and more likely than Democrats to base decisions on religious authority. We tested this hypothesis using data …
Religion, Perceptions of Scientists' Moral Culture, and Support for Science in the United States
How do perceptions of scientists' moral values relate to support for science in society? Recent advances in the sociology of science and religion suggest that people associate scientists with moral values in addition to factual knowledge, and that concerns about scientists' morality are why members of some religious groups are more critical of science than non-religious people. We test this theory using data from a probability sample of U.S. adul…
Ethnicity, Imprisonment, and Confidence in Police and Courts: Evidence from an International Survey
This article investigates the sources of ethnic disparities in confidence in police and courts. After reviewing studies of ethnicity and trust in legal authorities and comparative research on prisons, I argue that ethnic divides in confidence in police and courts are based on power imbalances between majority and minority groups and exacerbated by punitive legal systems. I test these claims using data from waves 6 and 7 of the World Values Survey…
Science and the Pulpit: Clerical Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Although public perceptions of science and religion are the focus of a large body of scholarship, we know much less about religious leaders' views of science and its relationship to religion. Using data from a national survey of religious leaders in the United States, our latent class analysis finds three underlying groups of clergy based on their engagement with science and their beliefs about its interface with religion. Those with a modern cle…
Learning Right from Wrong: A Cross-national Analysis of Education, National Scientific Investment, and the Morality of Science
Opposition to and skepticism of science have important social consequences, as highlighted by contemporary debates about vaccines and climate change. Recent studies suggest that opposition to science is rooted in moral concerns and reflects a belief that science breaks down traditional conceptions of right and wrong. This article turns attention to the education system and to national contexts to examine how people see science as a moral threat. …
Scientific Disciplines and the Admissibility of Expert Evidence in Courts
The authors examine how people interpret expert claims when they do not share experts' technical understanding. The authors review sociological research on the cultural boundaries of science and expertise, which suggests that scientific disciplines are heuristics nonspecialists use to evaluate experts' credibility. To test this idea, the authors examine judicial decisions about contested expert evidence in U.S. district courts ( n = 575). Multino…
Threatening Morality: Religious and Political Opposition to Science in the United States
Recent research suggests that religious opposition to science in the United States is rooted in a belief that science threatens morality. We test this claim using a survey of United States adults (n = 3,763). Regression results indicate that the religious are more likely than the nonreligious to believe that science breaks down people's understanding of right and wrong, which we call moral opposition to science. However, the strength of this rela…
Arresting Confidence: Mass Incarceration and Black–White Differences in Perceptions of Legal Authorities
Objective This article investigates changes in confidence in legal authorities associated with mass incarceration. Methods Binary logistic regression models are used to analyze five waves of data from a national survey of U.S. adults collected between 1981 and 2011 ( n = 8,548). Predicted probabilities and discrete change coefficients are calculated to examine changes in blacks’ and whites’ attitudes about police and courts associated with change…
Political Identity and Confidence in Science and Religion in the United States
This article investigates changes in public perceptions of science and religion in the United States between 1973 and 2018. We argue that the deepening ties between science and religion and opposing moral claims reconfigured the relationship between political identities and confidence in science and religion during this period. Our analysis of 30 waves of General Social Survey data finds that while Republicans once were more likely than Democrats…
Racing justice: Mass incarceration and perceptions of courts
Science for good? The effects of education and national context on perceptions of science
Pressing environmental, social, and economic problems require interventions informed by scientific expertise yet skepticism of organized science runs high among some groups. Numerous studies show how individual-level experiences and identities translate into attitudes about science, but less is known about the contextual factors that shape these beliefs. We employ regression models using data from the International Social Survey Program and the W…
Gender and support for expert advisers and elected officials in the US public sphere
This article uses data from the US General Social Survey to examine the relationship between gender and support for different forms of cultural authority. An analysis of public attitudes about expert advisers and elected officials involved in policy decisions related to science reveals that women assign more influence than men to experts in decisions about global warming and stem cell research but not genetically modified food. In contrast, men a…
Paranoid Science: The Christian Right’s War on Reality, by Antony Alumkal
One of the oldest problem areas in sociology, the relationship between religion and science has taken on renewed importance in light of recent controversies about biomedical research, sexuality, and the environment. Antony Alumkal’s Paranoid Science, therefore, arrives at a crucial moment in our understanding of how religion and science are mobilized in the public sphere. Through an in-depth analysis of texts, films, and other materials that serv…
Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think
In Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think, Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle provide a fresh look at an old problem, namely, how do people understand the relationship between science and religion? Once thought to represent opposing frameworks for organizing social life, sociologists now mostly agree that conflict between science and religion is limited to a few areas (like evolution), and that it is largely about…
Cultural Authority in Comparative Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Trust in Science and Religion
Science and religion are among the most influential forces for organizing social life around the world, yet we know little about how national context shapes perceptions of them. Using data from the 2008 International Social Survey Program, we begin to fill this gap by investigating cross-national differences in public attitudes about science, religion, and society. We find that exposure to science is associated with more trust in science relative…
An Intersectional Analysis of Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Using General Social Survey data (n = 3,504), we examine racial, ethnic, and gender divisions in perspectives on science and religion. We find that while blacks and Latinos are each more likely than whites to be oriented toward religion and away from science, gender differentiates this perspective among Latinos and whites but not among blacks. Furthermore, although whites are more likely than blacks and Latinos to be oriented toward both science …
Gender, expert advice, and judicial gatekeeping in the United States
Working Knowledge: Organizational Location and the Construction of Expert Authority in Court
Objective This article investigates the role of organizations in the construction of expert authority by examining legal disputes about the credibility of expert witnesses who work for consulting firms, in academia, and in private practice offices and clinics. Methods I analyzed 472 deliberations of expert witness credibility summarized in judicial opinions from civil rights, patent infringement, and medical malpractice cases in U.S. district cou…
Judging Expertise: Gender and the Negotiation of Expert Authority in Courts
This article develops a framework for understanding the role of gender in negotiations of expert authority and tests the new approach with an analysis of legal disputes about expert witness credibility ( N = 435). Content-coded data from patent infringement, civil rights, and medical malpractice lawsuits in U.S. district courts indicate that lawyers’ challenges to expert witnesses’ credibility reflect widely held cultural beliefs about gender and…
A Nation Divided: Science, Religion, and Public Opinion in the United States
Elites often mobilize science and religion to support opposing positions on issues ranging from abortion to families to criminal justice. However, there is little research on the extent to which public preferences for scientific and religious understandings relate to public opinion about these and other controversies. The authors analyze how perspectives on science and religion map onto public attitudes about a wide range of social, political, an…
Going Public, Gaining Credibility: Student Perceptions of Publicly Engaged Scholars
Calls for university and college professors to engage with public issues-for example, by collaborating with community organizations, participating in popular media outreach, and in other ways-are on the rise. However, engaged scholarship blurs conventional boundaries between producers of academic knowledge and the public. To what extent does participation in engaged scholarship affect professors' credibility as sources of knowledge? We investigat…
Traditional, Modern, and Post-Secular Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Using General Social Survey data, we examine perspectives on science and religion in the United States. Latent class analysis reveals three groups based on knowledge and attitudes about science, religiosity, and preferences for certain religious interpretations of the world. 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 pers…
Traditional, Modern, and Post-Secular Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Using General Social Survey data, we examine perspectives on science and religion in the United States. Latent class analysis reveals three groups based on knowledge and attitudes about science, religiosity, and preferences for certain religious interpretations of the world. 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 pers…
A Nation Divided: Science, Religion, and Public Opinion in the United States
Elites often mobilize science and religion to support opposing positions on issues ranging from abortion to families to criminal justice. However, there is little research on the extent to which public preferences for scientific and religious understandings relate to public opinion about these and other controversies. The authors analyze how perspectives on science and religion map onto public attitudes about a wide range of social, political, an…
Political Identity and Confidence in Science and Religion in the United States
This article investigates changes in public perceptions of science and religion in the United States between 1973 and 2018. We argue that the deepening ties between science and religion and opposing moral claims reconfigured the relationship between political identities and confidence in science and religion during this period. Our analysis of 30 waves of General Social Survey data finds that while Republicans once were more likely than Democrats…
An Intersectional Analysis of Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Using General Social Survey data (n = 3,504), we examine racial, ethnic, and gender divisions in perspectives on science and religion. We find that while blacks and Latinos are each more likely than whites to be oriented toward religion and away from science, gender differentiates this perspective among Latinos and whites but not among blacks. Furthermore, although whites are more likely than blacks and Latinos to be oriented toward both science …
Cultural Authority in Comparative Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Trust in Science and Religion
Science and religion are among the most influential forces for organizing social life around the world, yet we know little about how national context shapes perceptions of them. Using data from the 2008 International Social Survey Program, we begin to fill this gap by investigating cross-national differences in public attitudes about science, religion, and society. We find that exposure to science is associated with more trust in science relative…
Change in Academic Coauthorship, 1953-2003
Coauthored scholarship increased substantially across fields of science during the twentieth century, but it is unclear whether this growth reflects change in the behavior of individual scientists (i.e., career aging) or publishing differences between cohorts of researchers (i.e., cohort succession). I examine the publication records of an interdisciplinary sample of university scientists and find evidence of both career-aging and cohort-successi…
Learning Right from Wrong: A Cross-national Analysis of Education, National Scientific Investment, and the Morality of Science
Opposition to and skepticism of science have important social consequences, as highlighted by contemporary debates about vaccines and climate change. Recent studies suggest that opposition to science is rooted in moral concerns and reflects a belief that science breaks down traditional conceptions of right and wrong. This article turns attention to the education system and to national contexts to examine how people see science as a moral threat. …
Scientific Disciplines and the Admissibility of Expert Evidence in Courts
The authors examine how people interpret expert claims when they do not share experts' technical understanding. The authors review sociological research on the cultural boundaries of science and expertise, which suggests that scientific disciplines are heuristics nonspecialists use to evaluate experts' credibility. To test this idea, the authors examine judicial decisions about contested expert evidence in U.S. district courts ( n = 575). Multino…
Threatening Morality: Religious and Political Opposition to Science in the United States
Recent research suggests that religious opposition to science in the United States is rooted in a belief that science threatens morality. We test this claim using a survey of United States adults (n = 3,763). Regression results indicate that the religious are more likely than the nonreligious to believe that science breaks down people's understanding of right and wrong, which we call moral opposition to science. However, the strength of this rela…
Science and the Pulpit: Clerical Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Although public perceptions of science and religion are the focus of a large body of scholarship, we know much less about religious leaders' views of science and its relationship to religion. Using data from a national survey of religious leaders in the United States, our latent class analysis finds three underlying groups of clergy based on their engagement with science and their beliefs about its interface with religion. Those with a modern cle…
Gender, expert advice, and judicial gatekeeping in the United States
Going Public, Gaining Credibility: Student Perceptions of Publicly Engaged Scholars
Calls for university and college professors to engage with public issues-for example, by collaborating with community organizations, participating in popular media outreach, and in other ways-are on the rise. However, engaged scholarship blurs conventional boundaries between producers of academic knowledge and the public. To what extent does participation in engaged scholarship affect professors' credibility as sources of knowledge? We investigat…
"Thinking with Murray about the "War on Terror
Colleagues have asked me why anyone would want to think about the “War on Terror”1 with John Courtney Murray. Their opposition to this agenda is based on evidence like the fact that he was an inveterate Cold Warrior for most of his theological career,2 and that he defended justified violence—even nuclear violence.3 He frequently utilized stock condemnations of communism that were borrowed from biased sources in order to place his stamp of approva…
Scientific authority in policy contexts: Public attitudes about environmental scientists, medical researchers, and economists
This paper uses data from the US General Social Survey to examine public support for scientists in policy contexts and its link to scientific disciplines. An analysis of attitudes about the amount of influence that environmental scientists, two kinds of medical researchers, and economists should have over policy decisions reveals that in each discipline the extent to which scientists are thought to serve the nation's best interests is the stronge…
Change in Academic Coauthorship, 1953-2003
Coauthored scholarship increased substantially across fields of science during the twentieth century, but it is unclear whether this growth reflects change in the behavior of individual scientists (i.e., career aging) or publishing differences between cohorts of researchers (i.e., cohort succession). I examine the publication records of an interdisciplinary sample of university scientists and find evidence of both career-aging and cohort-successi…
Traditional, Modern, and Post-Secular Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Using General Social Survey data, we examine perspectives on science and religion in the United States. Latent class analysis reveals three groups based on knowledge and attitudes about science, religiosity, and preferences for certain religious interpretations of the world. 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 pers…
Judging Expertise: Gender and the Negotiation of Expert Authority in Courts
This article develops a framework for understanding the role of gender in negotiations of expert authority and tests the new approach with an analysis of legal disputes about expert witness credibility ( N = 435). Content-coded data from patent infringement, civil rights, and medical malpractice lawsuits in U.S. district courts indicate that lawyers’ challenges to expert witnesses’ credibility reflect widely held cultural beliefs about gender and…
A Nation Divided: Science, Religion, and Public Opinion in the United States
Elites often mobilize science and religion to support opposing positions on issues ranging from abortion to families to criminal justice. However, there is little research on the extent to which public preferences for scientific and religious understandings relate to public opinion about these and other controversies. The authors analyze how perspectives on science and religion map onto public attitudes about a wide range of social, political, an…
Going Public, Gaining Credibility: Student Perceptions of Publicly Engaged Scholars
Calls for university and college professors to engage with public issues-for example, by collaborating with community organizations, participating in popular media outreach, and in other ways-are on the rise. However, engaged scholarship blurs conventional boundaries between producers of academic knowledge and the public. To what extent does participation in engaged scholarship affect professors' credibility as sources of knowledge? We investigat…
Working Knowledge: Organizational Location and the Construction of Expert Authority in Court
Objective This article investigates the role of organizations in the construction of expert authority by examining legal disputes about the credibility of expert witnesses who work for consulting firms, in academia, and in private practice offices and clinics. Methods I analyzed 472 deliberations of expert witness credibility summarized in judicial opinions from civil rights, patent infringement, and medical malpractice cases in U.S. district cou…
Gender and support for expert advisers and elected officials in the US public sphere
This article uses data from the US General Social Survey to examine the relationship between gender and support for different forms of cultural authority. An analysis of public attitudes about expert advisers and elected officials involved in policy decisions related to science reveals that women assign more influence than men to experts in decisions about global warming and stem cell research but not genetically modified food. In contrast, men a…
Paranoid Science: The Christian Right’s War on Reality, by Antony Alumkal
One of the oldest problem areas in sociology, the relationship between religion and science has taken on renewed importance in light of recent controversies about biomedical research, sexuality, and the environment. Antony Alumkal’s Paranoid Science, therefore, arrives at a crucial moment in our understanding of how religion and science are mobilized in the public sphere. Through an in-depth analysis of texts, films, and other materials that serv…
Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think
In Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think, Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle provide a fresh look at an old problem, namely, how do people understand the relationship between science and religion? Once thought to represent opposing frameworks for organizing social life, sociologists now mostly agree that conflict between science and religion is limited to a few areas (like evolution), and that it is largely about…
Cultural Authority in Comparative Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Trust in Science and Religion
Science and religion are among the most influential forces for organizing social life around the world, yet we know little about how national context shapes perceptions of them. Using data from the 2008 International Social Survey Program, we begin to fill this gap by investigating cross-national differences in public attitudes about science, religion, and society. We find that exposure to science is associated with more trust in science relative…
An Intersectional Analysis of Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Using General Social Survey data (n = 3,504), we examine racial, ethnic, and gender divisions in perspectives on science and religion. We find that while blacks and Latinos are each more likely than whites to be oriented toward religion and away from science, gender differentiates this perspective among Latinos and whites but not among blacks. Furthermore, although whites are more likely than blacks and Latinos to be oriented toward both science …
Gender, expert advice, and judicial gatekeeping in the United States
Science for good? The effects of education and national context on perceptions of science
Pressing environmental, social, and economic problems require interventions informed by scientific expertise yet skepticism of organized science runs high among some groups. Numerous studies show how individual-level experiences and identities translate into attitudes about science, but less is known about the contextual factors that shape these beliefs. We employ regression models using data from the International Social Survey Program and the W…
Arresting Confidence: Mass Incarceration and Black–White Differences in Perceptions of Legal Authorities
Objective This article investigates changes in confidence in legal authorities associated with mass incarceration. Methods Binary logistic regression models are used to analyze five waves of data from a national survey of U.S. adults collected between 1981 and 2011 ( n = 8,548). Predicted probabilities and discrete change coefficients are calculated to examine changes in blacks’ and whites’ attitudes about police and courts associated with change…
Political Identity and Confidence in Science and Religion in the United States
This article investigates changes in public perceptions of science and religion in the United States between 1973 and 2018. We argue that the deepening ties between science and religion and opposing moral claims reconfigured the relationship between political identities and confidence in science and religion during this period. Our analysis of 30 waves of General Social Survey data finds that while Republicans once were more likely than Democrats…
Racing justice: Mass incarceration and perceptions of courts
Threatening Morality: Religious and Political Opposition to Science in the United States
Recent research suggests that religious opposition to science in the United States is rooted in a belief that science threatens morality. We test this claim using a survey of United States adults (n = 3,763). Regression results indicate that the religious are more likely than the nonreligious to believe that science breaks down people's understanding of right and wrong, which we call moral opposition to science. However, the strength of this rela…
Scientific Disciplines and the Admissibility of Expert Evidence in Courts
The authors examine how people interpret expert claims when they do not share experts' technical understanding. The authors review sociological research on the cultural boundaries of science and expertise, which suggests that scientific disciplines are heuristics nonspecialists use to evaluate experts' credibility. To test this idea, the authors examine judicial decisions about contested expert evidence in U.S. district courts ( n = 575). Multino…
Learning Right from Wrong: A Cross-national Analysis of Education, National Scientific Investment, and the Morality of Science
Opposition to and skepticism of science have important social consequences, as highlighted by contemporary debates about vaccines and climate change. Recent studies suggest that opposition to science is rooted in moral concerns and reflects a belief that science breaks down traditional conceptions of right and wrong. This article turns attention to the education system and to national contexts to examine how people see science as a moral threat. …
Science and the Pulpit: Clerical Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States
Although public perceptions of science and religion are the focus of a large body of scholarship, we know much less about religious leaders' views of science and its relationship to religion. Using data from a national survey of religious leaders in the United States, our latent class analysis finds three underlying groups of clergy based on their engagement with science and their beliefs about its interface with religion. Those with a modern cle…
Partisan identity, scientific and religious authority, and lawmaker support for science policy
This article examines mechanisms related to lawmaker support for public policies based on scientific evidence and supportive of organized science. We propose that Republican lawmakers are more likely than Democrats to oppose these policies because Republicans are less likely than Democrats to base policy decisions on scientific authority and more likely than Democrats to base decisions on religious authority. We tested this hypothesis using data …
Religion, Perceptions of Scientists' Moral Culture, and Support for Science in the United States
How do perceptions of scientists' moral values relate to support for science in society? Recent advances in the sociology of science and religion suggest that people associate scientists with moral values in addition to factual knowledge, and that concerns about scientists' morality are why members of some religious groups are more critical of science than non-religious people. We test this theory using data from a probability sample of U.S. adul…
Ethnicity, Imprisonment, and Confidence in Police and Courts: Evidence from an International Survey
This article investigates the sources of ethnic disparities in confidence in police and courts. After reviewing studies of ethnicity and trust in legal authorities and comparative research on prisons, I argue that ethnic divides in confidence in police and courts are based on power imbalances between majority and minority groups and exacerbated by punitive legal systems. I test these claims using data from waves 6 and 7 of the World Values Survey…
Political science (24 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Law (20 works) · Politics (15 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Perception (10 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (10 works) · Social science (9 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (8 works)