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The conflict thesis is a historiographical approach in the history of science that originated in the 19th century with John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. It maintains that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science, and that it inevitably leads to hostility. The consensus among historians of science is that the thesis has long been discredited, which explains the rejection of the thesis by contemporary scholars. Into the 21st century, historians of science widely accept a complexity thesis.

Studies on scientists and the general public show that the conflict perspective is not prevalent.

Historical conflict thesis

Before the 19th century, no one had pitted "science" against "religion" or vice versa in writing. The relationship between religion and science became an actual formal topic of discourse in the 19th century. More specifically, it was around the mid-19th century that discussion of "science and religion" first emerged because before this time, the term science still included moral and metaphysical dimensions, was not inherently linked to the scientific method, and the term scientist did not emerge until 1834. The scientist John William Draper (1811–1882) and the writer Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) were the most influential exponents of the conflict thesis between religion and science. Draper had been the speaker in the British Association meeting of 1860 which led to the famous confrontation between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Henry Huxley over Darwinism, and in America "the religious controversy over biological evolution reached its most critical stages in the late 1870s". In the early 1870s, the American science-popularizer Edward Livingston Youmans invited Draper to write a History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874), a book replying to contemporary issues in Roman Catholicism, such as the doctrine of papal infallibility, and mostly criticizing what he claimed to be anti-intellectualism in the Catholic tradition, but also making criticisms of Islam and of Protestantism. Draper's preface summarises the conflict thesis:

The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.

— John William Draper, History of the Conflict Religion, 1881

In 1874 White published his thesis in Popular Science Monthly and in book form as The Warfare of Science:

In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to religion and to science—and invariably. And, on the other hand, all untrammeled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to religion some of its stages may have seemed, for the time, to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good of religion and of science.

— Andrew Dickson White, The Warfare of Science, 1876

Such thesis was not to be intended, as many successively did, as a statement of complete and necessary enmity between science and christianity at all times. On the contrary White asserted that numerous examples of support from christianity to science can be observed:

You will not understand me at all to say that religion has done nothing for science. It has done much for it. The work of Christianity has been mighty indeed. Through these two thousand years, despite the waste of its energies on all the things its Blessed Founder most earnestly condemned on fetich and subtlety and war and pomp it has undermined servitude, mitigated tyranny, given hope to the hopeless, comfort to the afflicted, light to the blind, bread to the starving, joy to the dying, and this work continues. And its work for science, too, has been great. It has fostered science often. Nay, it has nourished that feeling of self-sacrifice for human good, which has nerved some of the bravest men for these battles. Unfortunately, a devoted army of good men started centuries ago with the idea that independent scientific investigation is unsafe that theology must intervene to superintend its methods, and the Biblical record, as an historical compendium and scientific treatise, be taken as a standard to determine its results. So began this great modern war.

— Andrew Dickson White, The Warfare of Science, 1876

In 1896, White published A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, the culmination of over thirty years of research and publication on the subject, criticizing what he saw as restrictive, dogmatic forms of Christianity. In the introduction, White emphasized that he arrived at his position after the difficulties of assisting Ezra Cornell in establishing a university without any official religious affiliation.

The criticism of White is not entirely recent: historian of medicine James Joseph Walsh criticized White's perspective as anti-historical in The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time (1908), which he dedicated to Pope Pius X:

he story of the supposed opposition of the Church and the Popes and the ecclesiastical authorities to science in any of its branches, is founded entirely on mistaken notions. Most of it is quite imaginary. Much of it is due to the exaggeration of the significance of the Galileo incident. Only those who know nothing about the history of medicine and of science continue to harbor it. That Dr. White's book, contradicted as it is so directly by all serious histories of medicine and of science, should have been read by so many thousands in this country, and should have been taken seriously by educated men, physicians, teachers, and even professors of science who want to know the history of their own sciences, only shows how easily even supposedly educated men may be led to follow their prejudices rather than their mental faculties, and emphasizes the fact that the tradition that there is no good that can possibly come out of the Nazareth of the times before the reformation, still dominates the intellects of many educated people who think that they are far from prejudice and have minds perfectly open to conviction.

— James Joseph Walsh, The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time, 1908

In God and Nature (1986), David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers report that "White's Warfare apparently did not sell as briskly as Draper's Conflict, but in the end it proved more influential, partly, it seems, because Draper's work was soon dated, and because White's impressive documentation gave the appearance of sound scholarship". During the 20th century, historians' acceptance of the conflict thesis declined until fully rejected in the 1970s. David B. Wilson notes:

Despite the growing number of scholarly modifications and rejections of the conflict model from the 1950s  in the 1970s leading historians of the nineteenth century still felt required to attack it.  Whatever the reason for the continued survival of the conflict thesis, two other books on the nineteenth century that were published in the 1970s hastened its final demise among historians of science  1974  Frank Turner  Between Science and Religion  Even more decisive was the penetrating critique "Historians and Historiography"  James Moore  at the beginning of his Post-Darwinian Controversies (1979).

— David B. Wilson, The Historiography of Science and Religion, in Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction, 2002

In his course on science and religion, historian Lawrence Principe summarizes Draper's and White's works by saying:

While we can look today with astonishment upon the shoddy character of Draper and White's writings, their books have had enormous impact, and we can't deny that. Much of this is due to their great success in their creating a myth for science as a religion. Their myth of science as a religion is replete with battles, and martyrdoms, and saints, and creeds. And as we know, or should know, myths are often much more powerful than historical realities.

— Lawrence M. Principe, Science and Religion (2006), Lecture 2

In the coursebook, Principe writes:

No serious historians of science or of the science–religion issue today maintain the warfare thesis  The origins of the warfare thesis lie in the late 19th century, specifically in the work of two men – John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. These men had specific political purposes in mind when arguing their case, and the historical foundations of their work are unreliable.

— Lawrence M. Principe, Science and Religion (2006)

Regarding the scholarship of Draper's work, Principe says:

How does he support his contention of conflict? Well, unfortunately, with some of the worst historical writing you are ever likely to come across. Historical facts are confected, causes and chronologies twisted to the author's purpose. We find interpretations made merely by declaration. We find quotations violently taken out of context. And instances, quite a few of them where Draper claims a historical writer said something in fact 180 degrees away from what he actually claimed...Much of Draper's book is so ridiculous, so malodramatic, so rabid, it's hard for a knowledgeable person actually to read it without a wry smirk...Let's start with a simple and a notorious example: the idea that before Columbus people thought that the world was flat. Well, in fact, it is Draper and White, specifically, both of them, who bear most of the blame for popularizing this baseless view to the extent that nowadays, 80 percent of school teachers still foist this upon poor innocent school children. The fact is that of course the sphericity of the Earth was well established by the fifth century BC by the Greeks, and a good measure of its circumference made by the third century BC. And these facts were never forgotten in learned Western Culture.

— Lawrence M. Principe, Science and Religion (2006), Lecture 2

Principe's summary comment on Draper's work at the end of his coursebook reads: "The book that started the conflict myth. Take a sense of humor and/or a stiff drink with this dated bit of melodrama."

However, according to historian of science and religion James C. Ungureanu, Draper and White actually hoped their narratives would preserve religious belief, not remove it. For them, science was ultimately a scapegoat for a much older argument that dated back to the Protestant Reformation, where progressive and liberal theologies had their conflict with traditional and orthodox theologies. This would place the notion of "conflict" within the history of theological ideas.

Modern views

Academic

Historians of science today have moved away from a conflict model, which is based mainly on two historical episodes (those involving Galileo and Darwin) in favor of a "complexity" model, because religious figures took positions on both sides of each dispute and there was no overall aim by any party involved in discrediting religion. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould said: "White's and Draper's accounts of the actual interaction between science and religion in Western history do not differ greatly. Both tell a tale of bright progress continually sparked by science. And both develop and use the same myths to support their narrative, the flat-earth legend prominently among them". In a summary of the historiography of the conflict thesis, Colin A. Russell, the former President of Christians in Science, said that "Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship".

In Science & Religion, Gary Ferngren proposes a complex relationship between religion and science:

While some historians had always regarded the Draper-White thesis as oversimplifying and distorting a complex relationship, in the late twentieth century it underwent a more systematic reevaluation. The result is the growing recognition among historians of science that the relationship of religion and science has been much more positive than is sometimes thought. Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule.

— Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction, 2002

A few modern historians of science (such as Peter Barker, Bernard R. Goldstein, and Crosbie Smith) proposed that scientific discoveries – such as Kepler's laws of planetary motion in the 17th century, and the reformulation of physics in terms of energy, in the 19th century – were driven by religion. Religious organizations and clerics figure prominently in the broad histories of science, until the professionalization of the scientific enterprise, in the 19th century, led to tensions between scholars taking religious and secular approaches to nature. Even the prominent examples of religion's apparent conflict with science, the Galileo affair (1614) and the Scopes trial (1925), were not pure instances of conflict between science and religion, but included personal and political facts in the development of each conflict.

Galileo affair

The Galileo affair was a sequence of events that begin around 1610, culminating with the trial and house arrest of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633 for his support of heliocentrism. In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), describing the surprising observations that he had made with the new telescope, namely the phases of Venus and the Galilean moons of Jupiter. With these observations he promoted the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus (published in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543). Galileo's initial discoveries were met with opposition within the Catholic Church, and in 1616, the Inquisition declared heliocentrism to be formally heretical. Heliocentric books were banned and Galileo was ordered to refrain from holding, teaching or defending heliocentric ideas. Part of the verdict on Galileo read " is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture". Nonetheless, historians note that Galileo never did observe the earth's motion and lacked empirical proof at the time; and that he was placed under house arrest, not imprisoned by the Inquisition.

The affair is an example commonly used by advocates of the conflict thesis. Maurice Finocchiaro writes that the affair epitomizes the common view of "the conflict between enlightened science and obscurantist religion," and that this view promotes "the myth that alleges the incompatibility between science and religion." Finocchiaro writes, "I believe that such a thesis is erroneous, misleading, and simplistic," and refers to John Draper, Andrew White, Voltaire, Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Karl Popper as writers or icons who have promoted it. Finocchiaro notes that the situation was complex and objections to the Copernican system included arguments that were philosophical and scientific, as well as theological.

Pope Urban VIII had been an admirer and supporter of Galileo, and there is evidence he did not believe the Inquisition's declaration rendered heliocentrism a heresy. Urban may have rather viewed heliocentrism as a potentially dangerous or rash doctrine that nevertheless had utility in astronomical calculations. In 1632, Galileo published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which implicitly defended heliocentrism, and was popular. Pope Urban VIII had asked that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book, and were voiced by a character named "Simplicio", who was a simpleton. This angered the Pope and weakened Galileo's position politically. Responding to mounting controversy over theology, astronomy and philosophy, the Roman Inquisition tried Galileo in 1633 and found him "vehemently suspect of heresy", sentencing him to house arrest. Galileo's Dialogue was banned and he was ordered to "abjure, curse and detest" heliocentric ideas. Galileo was kept under house arrest until his death in 1642.

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

In 1559, Pope Paul IV promulgated the Pauline Index which is also known as Index Librorum Prohibitorum. While it has been described by some as "the turning-point for the freedom of enquiry in the Catholic world", the effects of the Index were actually minimal and it was largely ignored. After less than a year, it was replaced by the Tridentine Index which relaxed aspects of the Pauline Index that had been criticized and had prevented its acceptance. It is inaccurate to describe the Index as being an enduring and definitive statement of Catholic censorship. It contained a list of "heretical" or "amoral" publications that were forbidden for Catholics to read or print and included not just heretics but anti-clerical authors and Protestant Christians.

Scientists and public perceptions

The conflict thesis is still held to be true in whole or in part by some scientists, including the theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who said "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works." Others, such as Steven Weinberg, grant that it is possible for science and religion to be compatible since some prominent scientists are also religious, but he sees some significant tensions that potentially weaken religious beliefs overall.

However, global studies on actual beliefs held by scientists show that most scientists do not subscribe to conflict perspective (only about 1⁄3 or less hold this view) and instead most believe that the relation is independence or collaboration between science and religion. As such, "the conflict perspective on science and religion is an invention of the West".

A study done on scientists from 21 American universities showed that most did not perceive conflict between science and religion either. In the study, the strength of religiosity in the home in which a scientist was raised, current religious attendance, peers' attitudes toward religion, all had an impact on whether or not scientists saw religion and science as in conflict. Scientists who had grown up with a religion and retained that identity or had identified as spiritual or had religious attendance tended to perceive less or no conflict. However, those not attending religious services were more likely to adopt a conflict paradigm. Additionally, scientists were more likely to reject conflict thesis if their peers held positive views of religion.

Science historian Ronald Numbers suggests though the conflict theory lingers in the popular mind due to few sets of controversies such as creation–evolution, stem cells, and birth control, he notes that the history of science reflects no intrinsic and inevitable conflict between religion and science. Many religious groups have made statements regarding the compatibility of religion and science, urging, for example, "school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth." The Magis Center for Reason and Faith was founded specifically to apply science in support of belief in a deity and the Christian religion. Some scholars such as Brian Stanley and Denis Alexander propose that mass media are partly responsible for popularizing conflict theory, most notably the myth that prior to Columbus, people believed the Earth was flat. David C. Lindberg and Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge Earth's sphericity and even know its approximate circumference". Numbers gives the following as mistakes arising from conflict theory that have gained widespread currency: "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages", "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", and "the medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences". Some Christian writers, notably Reijer Hooykaas and Stanley Jaki, have argued that Christianity was important, if not essential, for the rise of modern science. Lindberg and Numbers, however, believe this overstates the case for such a connection.

Research on perceptions of science among the American public concludes that most religious groups see no general epistemological conflict with science, and that they have no differences with nonreligious groups in propensity to seek out scientific knowledge, although there are often epistemic or moral conflicts when scientists make counterclaims to religious tenets. The Pew Center made similar findings and also noted that the majority of Americans (80–90 percent) strongly support scientific research, agree that science makes society and individual's lives better, and 8 in 10 Americans would be happy if their children were to become scientists. Even strict creationists tend to express very favorable views towards science. A study of US college students concluded that the majority of undergraduates in both the natural and social sciences do not see conflict between science and religion. Another finding in the study was that it is more likely for students to move from a conflict perspective to an independence or collaboration perspective than vice versa.

Some scientific topics like evolution are often seen as a "point of friction" even though there is widespread acceptance of evolution across all 20 countries with diverse religious backgrounds in one study. Age, rather than religion, correlates better on attitudes on relating to biotechnology.

See also

• Antireligion
• Antitheism
• Boundary-work
• Continuity thesis
• Faith and rationality
• Fideism
• Flat Earth
• Non-overlapping magisteria
• Religious intolerance
• Relationship between religion and science

References

1. ^ John William Draper, History of the Conflict Religion, D. Appleton and Co. (1881)
2. ^ White, Andrew Dickson (1876). The Warfare of Science. New York D. Appleton. p. . Retrieved 2023-10-11.
3. Hutchings, David and James C. Ungureanu (2021). "Fooling the World". Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World. Oxford University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9780190053093. The series of myths that Draper and White spread about science and religion are known today in the literature as the conflict thesis. Thanks to the dedicated and committed research of a band of specialists operating since the 1980s at least, the conflict thesis has now been thoroughly debunked. One by one, the tales spun out in Conflict and Warfare have been shown to be either entirely false, horribly misunderstood, or deliberately misrepresented... There is a clear, evidence-based consensus among this group: the conflict thesis is utter bunk.
4. Shapin, S. (1996). The Scientific Revolution. University of Chicago Press. p. 195. ISBN 9780226750200. In the late Victorian period it was common to write about the 'warfare between science and religion' and to presume that the two bodies of culture must always have been in conflict. However, it is a very long time since these attitudes have been held by historians of science.
5. Russel, C.A. (2002). Ferngren, G.B. (ed.). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 7. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0. The conflict thesis, at least in its simple form, is now widely perceived as a wholly inadequate intellectual framework within which to construct a sensible and realistic historiography of Western science
6. Brooke, J. H. (1991). Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. p. 42. In its traditional forms, the conflict thesis has been largely discredited.
7. Harrison, Peter (2015), "That religion has typically impeded the progress of science", in Numbers, Ronald L.; Kampourakis, Kostas (eds.), Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science, Harvard University Press., ISBN 9780674915473 "While historians of science have long ago abandoned this simplistic narrative, the “conflict myth” has proven to be remarkably resistant to their demythologizing efforts and remains a central feature of common understandings of the identity of modern science." (pp. 195–6)
8. Ferngren, G.B. (2002). Ferngren, G.B. (ed.). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. x. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0. ... while Brooke's view has gained widespread acceptance among professional historians of science, the traditional view remains strong elsewhere, not least in the popular mind
9. ^ Ecklund, Elaine Howard (2019). Secularity and Science : What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion. New York, NY. pp. 9–10. ISBN 9780190926755.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
10. ^ Ecklund, Elaine Howard; Park, Jerry Z. (2009). "Conflict Between Religion and Science Among Academic Scientists?". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 48 (2): 276–292. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01447.x.
11. Ecklund, Elaine Howard (2018). Religion vs. Science : What Religious People Really Think. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 18. ISBN 9780190650629.
12. ^ Evans, John (2011). "Epistemological and Moral Conflict Between Religion and Science". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 50 (4): 707–727. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2011.01603.x.
13. ^ Christopher P. Scheitle (2011). "U.S. College Students' Perception of Religion and Science: Conflict, Collaboration, or Independence? A Research Note". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 50 (1). Blackwell: 175–186. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01558.x. ISSN 1468-5906. S2CID 145194313.
14. ^ Ronald Numbers, ed. (2009). Galileo Goes To Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion. Harvard University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780674057418.
15. Harrison, Peter (2015). The Territories of Science and Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 171. ISBN 9780226184517. When did people first begin to speak about science and religion, using that precise terminology? As should now be apparent, this could not have been before the nineteenth century. When we consult written works for actual occurrences of the conjunction "science and religion" or "religion and science" in English publications, that is exactly what we discover (see figure 14).
16. Roberts, Jon (2011). "10. Science and Religion". In Shank, Michael; Numbers, Ronald; Harrison, Peter (eds.). Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 254, 258, 259, 260. ISBN 978-0226317830. Indeed, prior to about the middle of the nineteenth century, the trope "science and religion" was virtually nonexistent.  In fact, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the creation of what one commentator called "whole libraries" devoted to reconciling religion and science. That estimate is confirmed by the data contained in figures 10.1 and 10.2, which reveal that what started as a trickle of books and articles addressing "science and religion" before 1850 became a torrent in the 1870s." (see Fig. 10.1 and 10.2)
17. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the origin of the word "scientist" to 1834.
18. Harrison, Peter (2015). The Territories of Science and Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 164–165. ISBN 9780226184517. The changing character of those engaged in scientific endeavors was matched by a new nomenclature for their endeavors. The most conspicuous marker of this change was the replacement of "natural philosophy" by "natural science". In 1800, few had spoken of the "natural sciences" but by 1880, this expression had overtaken the traditional label "natural philosophy". The persistence of "natural philosophy" in the twentieth century is owing largely to historical references to a past practice (see figure 11). As should now be apparent, this was not simply the substitution of one term by another, but involved the jettisoning of a range of personal qualities relating to the conduct of philosophy and the living of the philosophical life.
19. Moore, James R. (1981-10-30). The Post-Darwinian Controversies. Cambridge University Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780521285179. quoting Schlesinger. But see also James C. Ungureanu, "A Yankee at Oxford: John William Draper at the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford, 30 June 1860", Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science (Dec 2015).
20. Alexander, D (2001), Rebuilding the Matrix, Lion Publishing, ISBN 0-7459-5116-3 (pg. 217)
21. "Averroes, in his old age – he died A. D. 1193 – was expelled from Spain; the religious party had triumphed over the philosophical. He was denounced as a traitor to religion. An opposition to philosophy had been organized all over the Mussulman world. There was hardly a philosopher who was not punished." (p142) "The two rival divisions of the Christian Church – Protestant and Catholic – were thus in accord on one point: to tolerate no science except such as they considered to be agreeable to the Scriptures." (p218)
22. James Joseph Walsh, The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time, Fordham University Press, 1908, Kessinger Publishing, reprinted 2003. ISBN 0-7661-3646-9 Reviews: Walsh, James J. (1909). "The Popes and Science". Ann Surg. 49 (3): 445–447. doi:10.1097/00000658-190903000-00030. PMC 1407075.
23. Walsh, James Joseph, The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time, Fordham University Press, New York 1908, p. 19.
24. David C. Lindberg, Ronald L. Numbers, God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science, University of California Press (1986)
25. Wilson, David B. The Historiography of Science and Religion in Ferngren, Gary B. (2002). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 21, 23. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0.
26. ^ Principe, Lawrence M. (2006). Science and Religion. The Teaching Company. p. Lecture 2.
27. Principe, Lawrence M. (2006). Science and Religion. The Teaching Company. p. 7.
28. Principe, Lawrence M. (2006). Science and Religion. The Teaching Company. p. 79.
29. Ungureanu, C. James (2019). Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
30. Jones, Richard H. (2011). For the Glory of God : The Role of Christianity in the Rise and Development of Modern Science. University Press of America. p. 139. ISBN 9780761855668.
31. Gould, S. J. (1996). "The late birth of a flat earth". Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History. New York: Crown: 38–52.
32. Russell, Colin A., "The Conflict of Science and Religion", Encyclopedia of the History of Science and Religion, p. 15, New York 2000
33. Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0. (Introduction, p. ix)
34. Barker, Peter, and Goldstein, Bernard R. "Theological Foundations of Kepler's Astronomy". Osiris, Volume 16: Science in Theistic Contexts, University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 88–113; Smith, Crosbie. The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. London: The Athlone Press, 1998.
35. See, for example, the chapters on "Geology and Paleontology" (by Nicolaas A. Rupke), "Natural History" (by Peter M. Hess), and "Charles Darwin" (by James Moore) in Gary Ferngren (ed.), Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction.
36. Blackwell, Richard J., "Galileo Galilei", Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction; Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Battle over Science and Religion. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997.
37. Blackwell (1991, p.2). Blackwell (1991, p.50) dates the start of the Galileo affair to 1610. Finocchiaro (1989, p.1) puts it a few years later, in 1613.
38. Finocchiaro (1989, p.1): "By the 'Galileo affair' is meant the sequence of developments which began in 1613 and culminated with the trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633."
39. Heilbron (2010), p.218
40. From the verdict of the Roman Inquisition Finocchiaro. M. A. Defending Copernicus and Galileo: Critical Reasoning in the two Affairs. 2010, Springer. ISBN 978-90-481-3200-3
41. Fantoli, Annibale (1996). "Galileo, for Copernicanism and for the Church, a Historical Report around the Publication of 1616 Decree". inters.org.
42. Finocchiaro, Maurice A. (2014). "Introduction". The Trial of Galileo: Essential Documents. Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated. pp. 1–4. ISBN 978-1624661327. ...one of the most common myths widely held about the trial of Galileo, including several elements: that he "saw" the earth's motion (an observation still impossible to make even in the twenty-first century); that he was "imprisoned" by the Inquisition (whereas he was actually held under house arrest); and that his crime was to have discovered the truth. And since to condemn someone for this reason can result only from ignorance, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness, this is also the myth that alleges the incompatibility between science and religion.
43. ^ Finocchiaro, Maurice A. (2014). "Introduction". The Trial of Galileo : Essential Documents. Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1624661327.
44. Finocchiaro (1997), p. 82; Moss & Wallace (2003), p. 11
45. See Langford (1966, pp. 133–134), and Seeger (1966, p. 30), for example. Drake (1978, p. 355) asserts that Simplicio's character is modelled on the Aristotelian philosophers, Lodovico delle Colombe and Cesare Cremonini, rather than on Pope Urban. He also considers that the demand for Galileo to include the Pope's argument in the Dialogue left him with no option but to put it in the mouth of Simplicio (Drake, 1953, p. 491). Even Arthur Koestler, who is generally quite harsh on Galileo in The Sleepwalkers (1959), after noting that Urban suspected Galileo of having intended Simplicio to be a caricature of him, says "this of course is untrue" (1959, p. 483).
46. Lindberg, David. "Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science".
47. Fantoli (2005, p. 139), Finocchiaro (1989, pp. 288–293).
48. Drake (1978, p.367), Sharratt (1994, p.184), Favaro (1905, 16:209, Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine 230) Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine(in Italian). When Fulgenzio Micanzio, one of Galileo's friends in Venice, sought to have Galileo's Discourse on Floating Bodies reprinted in 1635, he was informed by the Venetian Inquisitor that the Inquisition had forbidden further publication of any of Galileo's works (Favaro, 1905, 16:209) (in Italian), and was later shown a copy of the order (Favaro, 1905, 16:230) .(in Italian) When the Dutch publishers Elzevir published Galileo's Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences in 1638, some five years after his trial, they did so under the pretense that a manuscript he had presented to the French Ambassador to Rome for preservation and circulation to interested intellectuals had been used without his knowledge (Sharratt, 1994, p.184; Galilei, 1954 p.xvii; Favaro, 1898, 8:43 Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine (in Italian)). Return to other article: Galileo Galilei; Dialogue; Two New Sciences
49. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, 1991, 145
50. ^ Grendler, Paul F. "Printing and censorship" in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, Charles B. Schmitt, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1988, ISBN 978-0-52139748-3) pp. 45–46
51. HEUSSNER, KI MAE (June 7, 2010). "Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win'". ABC News.
52. Weinberg, Steven (2011). Lake Views: This World and the Universe. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 231–237. ISBN 978-0674062306.
53. Ronald Numbers, ed. (2009). Galileo Goes To Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674057418.
54. ^ Ronald Numbers (Lecturer) (May 11, 2006). Myths and Truths in Science and Religion: A historical perspective (Video Lecture). University of Cambridge (Howard Building, Downing College): The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved March 13, 2009.
55. "Statements from Religious Organizations". NCSE. 2008-09-08. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
56. "188 Wisconsin Clergy". NCSE. 2008-09-08. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
57. "Science, Reason & Faith". Magis Center. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
58. "Templeton Foundation Post-dinner Discussion", after the Myths and Truths in Science and Religion: A historical perspective lecture Ronald Numbers, 11 May 2006, at St Edmunds College, Cambridge; the transcript is available at http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/CIS/Numbers/ Archived 2012-02-19 at the Wayback Machine
59. ^ Jeffrey Russell. Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. Praeger Paperback; New Ed edition (30 January 1997). ISBN 0-275-95904-X; ISBN 978-0-275-95904-3.
60. Lindberg, David C.; Numbers, Ronald L. (1986). "Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science". Church History. 55 (3). Cambridge University Press: 338–354. doi:10.2307/3166822. JSTOR 3166822. S2CID 163075869.
61. Lindberg, David C.; Numbers, Ronald L. (1986), "Introduction", God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 5, 12, ISBN 0520055381
62. Baker, Joseph O. (2012). "Public Perceptions of Incompatibility Between "Science and Religion"". Public Understanding of Science. 21 (3): 340–353. doi:10.1177/0963662511434908. PMID 23045885. S2CID 35333653.
63. Scott Keeter; Gregory Smith; David Masci. "Religious Belief and Public Attitudes About Science in the US" (PDF). Pew Research Center. pp. 1–2, 13. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-06-19. Retrieved 2012-10-28.
64. Keeter, Scott; Smith, Gregory; Masci, David (2011). "Religious Belief and Attitudes about Science in the United States". The Culture of science: How the Public Relates to Science Across the Globe. New York: Routledge. p. 336,345–346. ISBN 978-0415873697. The United States is perhaps the most religious out of the advanced industrial democracies."; "In fact, large majorities of the traditionally religious American nevertheless hold very positive views of science and scientists. Even people who accept a strict creationist view, regarding the origins of life are mostly favorable towards science."; "According to the National Science Foundation, public attitudes about science are more favorable in the United States than in Europe, Russia, and Japan, despite great differences across these cultures in level of religiosity (National Science Foundation, 2008).
65. ^ Johnson, Courtney; Kennedy, Brian; Tyson, Alec; Funk, Cary (December 10, 2020). "Biotechnology Research Viewed With Caution Globally, but Most Support Gene Editing for Babies To Treat Disease". Pew Research Center.

Further reading

• Barbour, Ian G. When Science Meets Religion. HarperSanFrancisco, 2000.
• Brooke, John H., Margaret Osler, and Jitse M. van der Meer, (editors). "Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions," Osiris, 2nd ser., vol. 16 (2001), ISBN 0-226-07565-6
• Mahner, M., Bunge, M. Is religious education compatible with science education?. Sci Educ 5, 101–123 (1996)
• Ferngren, Gary (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0
• Jones, Richard H., For the Glory of God: The Role of Christianity in the Rise and Development of Modern Science. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7618-5566-8
• Lindberg, David C. and Ronald L. Numbers, eds., God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science. University of California Press, 1986.
• Lindberg and Numbers, "Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science," Church History 55 (1986): 338–354; reprinted with minor editorial correction and revision in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 39 (1987):140-49. (Can be found online here)
• Merton, Robert K. Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England. Osiris 4 (1938): 360–632. Reprinted New York: Harper & Row, 1970. (Advances the thesis that Puritanism contributed to the rise of science.)
• Ungureanu, James C. Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. ISBN 0822945819
• Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. New Haven: Yale Univ. Pr. 1958. Reprinted Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Pr., 1973. ISBN 0822945819

External links

• A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science
• The Mythical Conflict between Science and Religion by James Hannam

• Criticism of religion
• Historiography of science
• Religion and science