William Sims Bainbridge (born October 12, 1940) is an American sociologist who currently resides in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. He is co-director of Human-Centered Computing at the National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 (NSF) and also teaches sociology as a part-time professor at George Mason University

George Mason University

George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

. He is the first Senior Fellow to be appointed by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies was founded in 2004 by philosopher Nick Bostrom and bioethicist James Hughes. Incorporated in the United States as a non-profit 501 organization, the IEET is a self-described "technoprogressive think tank" that seeks to contribute to understanding...

. Bainbridge is most well known for his work on the sociology of religion

Sociology of religion

The sociology of religion concerns the role of religion in society: practices, historical backgrounds, developments and universal themes. There is particular emphasis on the recurring role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history...

. Recently he has published work studying the sociology of video gaming.

Career

Bainbridge began his academic career at the Choate Rosemary Hall

Choate Rosemary Hall

Choate Rosemary Hall is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut...

 preparatory school in his birthstate of Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

. He went on to matriculate at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

, and finally settled on Boston University

Boston University

Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

. He studied music and became a skilled piano tuner. In his free time, he constructed harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

s and clavichord

Clavichord

The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces...

s with the "Bainbridge" name, which can still be found in a few households .

Bainbridge eventually received his Ph. D. in sociology at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 and went on to study the sociology of religious cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

s. In 1976, he published his first book, The Spaceflight Revolution, which examined the push for space exploration

Space exploration

Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....

 in the 1960s. In 1978, he published his second and most popular book, entitled Satan's Power, which described several years in which Bainbridge infiltrated and observed the Process Church, a religious cult related to Scientology

Scientology

Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...

.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Bainbridge worked with Rodney Stark

Rodney Stark

Rodney Stark is an American sociologist of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota in a Lutheran family. He spent time in the U.S. Army and worked as a journalist before pursuing graduate studies at The University of California, Berkeley...

 on the Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion, and co-wrote the books The Future of Religion (1985) and A Theory of Religion (1987) with Stark. Nowadays their theory, which aims to explain religious involvement in terms of rewards and compensators, is seen as precursor of more explicitly recourse to economic principles in the study of religion, as later developed by Laurence Iannaccone

Laurence Iannaccone

Laurence R. Iannaccone is a Professor of Economics at Chapman University, Orange County, California. Before moving to Chapman in 2009 he was a Koch Professor of Economics at George Mason University...

 and others.

From this period until the 2000s, Bainbridge published more books dealing with space, religion, and psychology. These included a text entitled Experiments in Psychology (1986) which included psychology experimentation software coded by Bainbridge. He also studied the religious cult The Children of God, also known as the Family International, in his 2002 book The Endtime Family: Children of God.

Awards and organizations

The Future of Religion won the "Outstanding Book of the Year" award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion

Society for the Scientific Study of Religion

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion was formed to advance research in the social scientific perspective on religious institutions and experiences.-Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion:...

 in 1986 and A Theory of Religion won the "Outstanding Scholarship" from the Pacific Sociological Association in 1993.

Bainbridge is a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers and is distantly related to Commodore William Bainbridge

William Bainbridge

William Bainbridge was a Commodore in the United States Navy, notable for his victory over HMS Java during the War of 1812.-Early life:...

.

External links

• Uploading Life: Send Your Personality to Space (Includes Bainbridge's work on spaceflight)
• William Sims Bainbridge's Personal Website
• The Shape of Science Fiction as Perceived by the Fans (Study done in 1978 by William Bainbridge and Murray Dalziel)