Mythbusting
Are science and religion really at war?
Galileo Goes
to Jail
and other Myths about
science and religion
edited by Dr. Ronald Numbers, (Hilldale
Professor of the History of Science and
Medicine at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison)
Dr. Numbers’ Goal
•
To confront “The
greatest myth in the
history of science
and religion . . . that
they have been in a
state of constant
conflict.”
•
— Ronald Numbers
Genesis of a Myth
•
In 1874, American
polemicist John William
Draper wrote:
“The antagonism we thus
witness between Religion and
Science is the continuation of a
struggle that commenced when
Christianity began to attain
political power...”
•
(History of the Conflict Between
Science and Religion, 1874)
•
Why is this important to Bahá’ís?
•
The polarities this “battle” creates is of vital
importance to Bahá’ís because
Our own faith—born three decades before
Draper made the above claim—has as a
primary principle the harmony of science and
religion.
The scriptures of the Bahá’í Faith state clearly
that if science and religion seem to disagree,
then we have misunderstood what one or the
other (or perhaps both) are telling us.
On science and faith
“The third principle or teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the
oneness of religion and science. Any religious belief
which is not conformable with scientific proof and
investigation is superstition, for true science is reason
and reality, and religion is essentially reality and pure
reason; therefore, the two must correspond. Religious
teaching which is at variance with science and reason
is human invention and imagination unworthy of
acceptance, for the antithesis and opposite of
knowledge is superstition born of the ignorance of
man. If we say religion is opposed to science, we lack
knowledge of either true science or true religion, for
both are founded upon the premises and conclusions
of reason, and both must bear its test.”
•
•
— Abdu’l-Bahá
Is Draper’s contention true?
Has science been at war with faith since the dawn of
Christianity?
Dr. Numbers notes that the discussion of the
relationship between science and religion heated up
in the early 19th century when the word “science”
came into vogue to replace the terms “natural
philosophy” and “natural history”.
Up until this point, while there had been some
dialogue around the subject of the roles of faith and
reason, no one was pitting an entity called Religion
against a second entity called Science.
The Christian Philosopher
The first English-language book that linked science
and religion was the 1823 volume THE CHRISTIAN
PHILOSOPHER (aka The Connection of Science
and Philosophy with Religion) by Thomas Dick.
At the time Bahá’u’lláh was establishing His faith in
Persia with its emphasis on the harmony of science
and faith, there were chairs and programs in several
American colleges and seminaries “demonstrating
the harmony of science and revealed religion”
(Numbers).
It wasn’t uncommon at this point for men of science
to engage in discourse on scripture (the Bible, in the
West) and for seminarians to consider scientific
themes.
Science was, to the believer, a way of knowing God
and appreciating His activities in the universe.
William of
Occam
Catholic
monk,
philosoph
er
Ibn Firnas, astronomer,
meteorologist, aviator
Nicolai
Kopernik,
Catholic
clergyman,
astronomer
The involvement of religious
believers in the work of
science goes back millennia.
al-Khwārizmī,
Muslim. father
of algebra
Moses ben
Maimon,
Jewish
rabbinical
scholar,
physician
Sir Isaac Newton,
Anglican
theologian,
physicist
Food for Thought
There are religious people who fear
and distrust science, or who see it as
being dangerous and in conflict with
their beliefs.
There are non-religious people who
fear and distrust religion and who see it
as being dangerous and in conflict with
their beliefs.
Surprise fact: recent surveys and polls
about religion and science have shown
that, while there is an unhealthy
percentage of people worldwide who
do not accept any theory of evolution
as fact, not all of them are religious or
reject evolution for religious reasons.
Bahá’ís may find themselves
in the position of having to
grapple with both scientific
and religious illiteracy in the
people they interact with.
This means it’s critical that
Bahá’ís have a good grasp of
both science and religion!
Abdu’l-Bahá wrote:
Scientific knowledge is the highest attainment
upon the human plane, for science is the
discoverer of realities. It is of two kinds: material
and spiritual. Material science is the
investigation of natural phenomena; divine
science is the discovery and realization of
spiritual verities. The world of humanity must
acquire both. A bird has two wings; it cannot fly
with one. Material and spiritual science are the
two wings of human uplift and attainment. Both
are necessary...
— Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal
Peace, p. 138 (23 May 1912, Cambridge, MA)
The Scientific
Mystic:
“Science is an effulgence of the
Sun of Reality, the power of
investigating and discovering the
verities of the universe, the
means by which man finds a
pathway to God.” — Abdu'l-Bahá
The Mystical
Scientist:
“Do not be afraid of being free
thinkers. If you think strongly enough
you will be forced by science to the
belief in God, which is the foundation
of all Religion. You will find science
not antagonistic, but helpful to
Religion.” — Lord Kelvin
A Look at Some Myths
A Look at Some Myths
The rise of Christianity began the
demise of science.
The medieval church stifled scientific
thought.
Medieval Christians taught that the
world was flat.
Islam is, and has always been, antiscience.
The rise of Christianity began
the demise of science.
Hypatia and Orestes
Hypatia was a 5th Century pagan mathematician.
When in her sixties, she was torn from her chariot
and slaughtered in an Alexandrian church by a mob
of fanatical Christians.
The story was featured in a 1720 pamphlet written
by John Toland: The History of a Most Beautiful
Lady; Who Was Torn to Pieces by the Clergy of
Alexandria to Gratify the Pride, Emulation, and
Cruelty of the Archbishop, Commonly but
Undeservedly titled Saint Cyril.
Some authorities view Hypatia’s martyrdom as the
“the beginning of the Christian Dark Ages” (Martin)
and the death of science and math in Alexandria,
and hold the story up as an example of what
happens when ignorant religion conflicts with
enlightened science.
Hypatia and Orestes
According to a recent biography of
Hypatia by Maria Dzielska:
Hypatia’s work with mathematics
had nothing to do with her death.
She was friends with Orestes, the
regional Roman Prefect, who was
in a political struggle with Cyril the
Not-So-Saintly (Dzielska calls him
“an ambitious and ruthless
churchman eager to extend his
authority”.)
Cyril used Orestes’ friendship with
the pagan Hypatia to blacken his
reputation, even going so far as to
charge the poor old woman with
witchcraft.
Hypatia and Orestes
What evidence do we have that this is
so?
Some years after he’d disposed of
Orestes, Cyril went on a campaign
against pagans—NOT natural
philosophers like Hypatia. Those, he
left alone.
Science and mathematics flourished in
Alexandria for decades to come.
In other words, the historical record
does not bear out the claim that the
rise of Christianity as a faith tolled the
death knell of science.
The medieval church stifled
scientific thought.
“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”
—Tertullian
This question forms the basis of the
myth that the medieval church
actively suppressed the growth of
science.
“The Church . . . set herself forth as
the depository and arbiter of
knowledge . . . She thus took a
course that determined her whole
future career; she became a
stumbling block in the intellectual
advancement of Europe for more
than a thousand years.” — John
Draper, The History of Conflict
Between Religion and Science,
(1874)
100 years of lost opportunity?
Carl Sagan’s 1980 book
Cosmos contains a chart
of astronomical progress
that leaves a 1000 year
gap between
mathematician Hypatia
(and her contemporaries)
and Copernicus and
DaVinci.
The caption: “a poignant
lost opportunity for
mankind”.
How Dark Was It?
•
Accomplishments from this allegedly
dark era in Europe (scientifically
speaking) include:
William of Saint-Cloud’s work on solar
eclipses,
Dominican friar Dietrich von Freiberg’s
discoveries about rainbows,
Jean Buridan’s application of impetus
theory to explain projectile motion, free-fall
acceleration, and the rotation of the night
sky.
Bishop Nicole Oresme’s arguments for the
rotation of the earth,
Oxford’s natural philosophers application of
mathematics to the study of motion.
How Dark Was It?
We now know that science
was happening in the Middle
Ages.
Universities were founded at
Oxford, Bologna, and Paris
before 1200 CE.
By 1500, there were about 60
of these institutions seeded
around Europe, with about
30% of the curricula dedicated
to the study of the natural
world.
Mythbuster
The organization most
supportive of the financial and
educational development of
these institutions was . . .
. . . the Catholic Church.
Role of the Church
•
“The Roman Catholic Church
gave more financial and
social support to the study of
astronomy for over six
centuries, from the recovery
of ancient data in the late
Middle Ages to the
Enlightenment, than any
other, and probably all, other
institutions.” — Science
historian John Heilbron in The Sun
in the Church, Harvard University
Press, 1999
Curriculum
The curriculum of these
Universities included:
•
Theology (the “Queen of
Sciences”), which was taught only
by ordained professors to
students who had take vows.
Natural history
Mathematics
Astronomy
Medicine
•
All of this with the encouragement
and blessing of the Church.
Let me sum up:
If the Catholic Church
intended to quash the
sciences, its methods were
darned peculiar.
Medieval Christians taught that
the world was flat.
Why we should not celebrate Columbus Day.
In school, I learned that “everyone” believed the
Earth was flat until the brave Cristobal Colonne
(aka, Christopher Columbus) argued the point
with Isabella and Ferdinand and sailed off to
prove it was a globe, discovering the new world
in the process.
Myth!
How do we know this was a myth?
Because people in the middle ages wrote things
down: few people believed the world was flat.
So, why do so many of us today believe they
did?
Columbus & the Flat Earth
The idea that Columbus’ discovered the
Americas, proved the world was a
globe, and ushered in the age of
modernity was introduced in 1828 by
storyteller Washington Irving (of Rip van
Winkle fame) in The Life and Voyages
of Christopher Columbus.
Almost fifty years later, John Draper
expressed the myth this way: “. . . the
question of the shape of the earth was
finally settled by three sailors,
Columbus, da Gama and, above all,
Ferdinand Magellan.” — History of the
Conflict Between Religion and Science,
1874
Columbus & the Flat Earth
According to the reports of
Fernando Colonne, and Father
Bartolome de las Casas,
Columbus’ argument with the
crowned heads of Spain was not
about the shape of the planet, but
its size.
According to his own diaries and
logs, far from flouting authority,
Columbus was a devout Catholic
who thought he was doing God’s
work by providing the Church and
Crown with riches and slaves.
Remember the Universities?
University records show that the curriculum
included Aristotle’s mathematical proof of the
sphericity of the world.
Natural philosophers whose work supports a
spherical earth include:
Ambrose (d. 420),
Augustine (d. 430),
Aquinus (d. 1274),
Bacon (d. 1294),
Magnus (d. 1280).
Jean de Sacrobosco (d. 1410), archbishop
of Cambrai and author of De Sphera, which
demonstrated the sphericity of the Earth
and which was used as a textbook in
universities throughout the Middle Ages.
Were there
Dissenters?
Two early scholars whose words on
the subject are ambiguous are
Lactinius (4th century) and Isadore of
Seville (5th century encyclopedist).
Only one medieval scholar is known
“explicitly to deny the sphericity of the
earth” (Lesley B. Cormack, Dean of
Social Sciences at Simon Fraser
University):
Cosmas Indicopleustes—a
Byzantine monk who developed a
scripturally based cosmological
model that featured Earth as a
table-land.
Was Columbus’ crew afraid of going over the edge?
Nope. But they did grumble a
lot because:
The voyage was taking too
long.
The prevailing wind was
westerly and they feared
they wouldn’t be able to
sail east.
There wasn’t enough grog.
Islam is, and has always been,
anti-science.
Whence the Myth?
This myth has been stated and restated over
time:
•
“The pious Muslim . . . was expected to avoid .
. . [rational] sciences with great care because
they were considered dangerous to his faith. . .”
— Ignaz Goldziher (1916)
“. . . possession of all this ‘enlightenment’ [of
Greek thought] did not prompt much intellectual
progress within Islam, let alone eventuate in
Islamic science.” — Rodney Stark (2003)
“Alas, Islam turned against science in the
twelfth century.” — Steve Weinberg (2007)
The Historical Record
Abu Abdullah Mohammad Ibn
Musa al-Khawarizmi—
mathematician, astronomer and
geographer.
He was he was the founder of
several branches and basic
concepts of mathematics.
His surname gives us the term
“algorithm.”
The word “algebra” was derived
from his book Al-Jabr wa-alMuqabilah. (The Restoration)
The Historical Record
Abbas Ibn Firnas (810 - 887 A.D.)
Invented a water clock.
Manufactured colorless glass.
Developed an armillary to display the motions of the
planets and stars.
Created a “weather” room that mechanically
simulated stars, clouds, thunder, and lightning.
In 852, he jumped from the minaret of the Mezquita
mosque in Córdoba using a huge wing-like cloak to
break his fall, which he survived with minor injuries.
This was the first example of an early parachute. In
875, at age of 65, he made the earliest attempt at
flight using a rudimentary glider. He crashed and
injured his back.
The Historical Record
Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya alRazi (864-930 C.E.) aka Rhazes
His al-Judari wal Hasabah was the first
treatise on smallpox and chicken-pox.
Favored cure through correct and
regulated food combined with an
emphasis on the influence of
psychological factors on health.
Tried proposed remedies on animals first
to evaluate their effects and side effects.
Was also an expert surgeon and was the
first to use opium for anesthesia.
The Historical Record
Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (aka
Avicenna).
Wrote commentaries on Aristotle’, correcting
what he saw as errors in Aristotle’s logic.
Was one of the earliest pioneers of the
scientific process of peer review.
Wrote the 14-volume Canon of Medicine, a
standard medical text in Western Europe for 7
centuries. Arabic edition published at Rome in
1593, Hebrew edition at Naples in 1491.
Correctly asserted that tuberculosis was
contagious.
Described and catalogued the symptoms of
diabetes.
The Historical Record
Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn
Rushd (1126 – 1198) (aka Averroes)
Wrote commentaries on the works of
Aristotle, including a rebuttal of The
Incoherence of Philosophers, al-Ghazali’s
polemic against Aristotelean logic.
Wrote medical encyclopedias including
Kulliyat (“Generalities”), from which we get
the European pronunciation Colliget,
possibly the parent of the word “college”.
Wrote works about celestial mechanics.
(He rejected the Ptolemaic system.)
Wrote works of physics.
Let me sum up:
Far from being inimical to
science, documentation shows
that the civilization raised on the
foundation of Muhammad’s
teachings dominated the field of
science from roughly 800-1300
CE.
Why did religion come to be
seen as the enemy of science?
Medieval Context
“Science” as a discipline didn’t exist.
Its progenitor—natural philosophy—wasn’t distinct from
religion or philosophy.
Beliefs about nature, medicine, wellness, sickness,
natural phenomena and life in general were studied and
written about often with emphasis on their relationship to
God(s).
The idea that religious folk of this period were dullards
who didn’t think of anything beyond the pages of the Bible
(which they didn’t possess as such), is cartoonish.
The study of creation—was seen as the province of
Christian thinkers and non-Christian thinkers alike.
It would be centuries before these avenues of thought
were posted with street signs that read “Science” and
“Religion”.
Science
Religion
The Thinkers
Christian scholars such as Tertullian
and his contemporary, Tatian had some
disdain for “Athens”.
“Athens” was short-hand for “pagan”.
Tatian asked: “What noble thing have
you produced by your pursuit of
philosophy? What of your most eminent
men has been free from vain boasting?
. . . Wherefore be not led away by the
solemn assemblies of philosophers who
are no philosophers, who dogmatize the
crude fancies of the moment.” (quoted
in Galileo Goes to Jail p. 11)
Augustine on Nonsense
Far from denigrating knowledge, the early Christian
thinkers promoted the benefits of a knowledgable
congregation.
Deploring the ignorance of some Christians, Saint
Augustine wrote: “Even a non-Christian knows
something about the earth, the heavens, and the
other elements . . . about the motion and orbit of the
stars . . . and so forth, and this knowledge he holds
to, as being certain from reason and experience.
Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an
infidel [a non-Christian] to hear a Christian . . .
talking nonsense on these topics; and we should
take all means to prevent such an embarrassing
situation, in which people show up vast ignorance
in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”
•
•
•
•
•
Sound familiar…?
Bahá’u’lláh has expressed a similar
sentiment:
“Knowledge is like unto wings for the
being (of man) and is like a ladder for
ascending. To acquire knowledge is
incumbent upon all, but of those sciences
which may profit the people of the earth,
and not such sciences as being in mere
words and end in mere words.”
But He adds:
“The possessors of sciences and arts
have a great right among the people of
the world. Indeed, the real treasury of
man is his knowledge. Knowledge is the
means of honor, prosperity, joy, gladness,
happiness and exaltation.”—The
Tajallíyát.
Does this indicate a conflict with natural
philosophy (aka, science) or, as Tatian
puts it, with those who “dogmatize the
crude fancies of the moment”?
What noble
thing …?
What the Christian
philosophers were arguing,
was the purpose of
knowledge, and the
appropriate attitude toward
what one could ferret out of
physical reality.
Applied Knowledge
Yet, both Christian and non-Christian
cite Tertullian to support the view that
there is a war between science and
religion.
But … the difference between the
“scientific” and “religious” ideologies
was (and is) largely one of attitude.
Christian (and Muslim) natural
philosophers advocated applied
knowledge—knowledge that did not
“begin in mere words and end in mere
words”, but was a tool to be used
toward an understanding of the
purpose of human existence.
Let me sum up:
“Scientific knowledge is the highest
attainment upon the human plane,
for science is the discoverer of
realities. It is of two kinds: material
and spiritual. ... The world of
humanity must acquire both.”
—Abdu’l-Bahá
More myths ...
That Galileo was tortured and thrown
in prison for his scientific work.
Nicolai Copernicus dethroned the
Earth.
That Giordano Bruno was a martyr to
science.
That Christianity gave birth to
modern science.
That the “scientific revolution”
liberated science from religion.
That dogmatic belief is okay as long
as it’s not religious belief.