The Economist has a special report on religion and public life.

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion again handed out awards at its annual meeting, held last weekend in Tampa, Florida. Nancy Davis, the Lester Martin Jones Professor of Sociology at DePauw University, and Robert Robinson, co-director of the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University, shared the Distinguished Research Award for their article, "The Egalitarian Face of Islamic Orthodoxy: Support for Islamic Law and Economic Justice in Seven Muslim-Majority Nations." Stephen Ellingson, an assistant professor of sociology at Hamilton College, won the Distinguished Book Award for The Megachurch and the Mainline.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is hosting two panels on science, religion, and the human mind. "Contemplation and Education—Landscape of Research" will be held November 12, with "Science, Religion & Contemplative Practice" taking place the following evening. The same panelists will appear at both events: the Rev. Thomas Keating, founder of the Centering Prayer Movement; John Dunne, associate professor and co-director of the Collaborative for Contemplative Studies at Emory University; and Richard Davidson, director of both the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience and Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconson-Madison.

Peter Bowler, a professor of the history of science at Queen's University in Belfast, Ireland, will discuss "Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Varieties of Christian Reactions to Darwinism" at Stetson University in Florida tonight at 7 p.m.

Dr. Francis Collins, a leading geneticist and director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, was honored today with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the nation's highest civilian honors. Collins' work with the Human Genome Project revolutionized genetic research and has made progress toward finding genetic contributors for many common diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and mental illness. His book The Language of God made an impact in the field of science and religion by affirming the concept of "theistic evolution." Collins and seven other recipients received their awards from President Bush at a White House ceremony. —Stephen Mapes

Mary Tucker and John Grim, coordinators of the international Forum on Religion and Ecology, have been granted five-year appointments at Yale University's School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The environmental ethicists will work closely with the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, the Divinity School, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and the department of religious studies to develop a program of study relating religion and ecology. —Stephen Mapes

After two years at Duke University, Dr. Peter Agre, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in chemistry, is returning to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to head the Malaria Research Institute at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Last year, Agre discussed science and religion on The Colbert Report.