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. "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) Into the 21st century, historians of science widely accept a complexity thesis. The lack of engagement with the advancements in the history of science perpetuates belief in the thesis.
Global studies on scientists show that most scientists do not see religion and science in conflict and studies on the views of the general public indicate that the conflict perspective is not prevalent either.
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 Oxford English Dictionary dates the origin of the word "scientist" to 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". 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). 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,Alexander, D (2001), Rebuilding the Matrix, Lion Publishing, (pg. 217) but also making criticisms of Islam and of Protestantism."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) Draper's preface summarises the conflict thesis:
In 1874 White published his thesis in Popular Science Monthly and in book form as The Warfare of Science:
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:
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),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. Reviews: which he dedicated to Pope Pius X:
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".David C. Lindberg, Ronald L. Numbers, God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science, University of California Press (1986) During the 20th century, historians' acceptance of the conflict thesis declined until fully rejected in the 1970s. David B. Wilson notes:
In his course on science and religion, historian Lawrence Principe summarizes Draper's and White's works by saying:
In the coursebook, Principe writes:
Regarding the scholarship of Draper's work, Principe says:
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".Russell, Colin A., "The Conflict of Science and Religion", Encyclopedia of the History of Science and Religion, p. 15, New York 2000
In Science & Religion, Gary Ferngren proposes a complex relationship between religion and science:
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.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. 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.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. 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.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.
Galileo affair
The Galileo affair was a sequence of events that begin around 1610,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. culminating with the trial and house arrest of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633 for his support of heliocentrism.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." In 1610, Galileo published his (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 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.Heilbron (2010), p.218 Part of the verdict on Galileo read "[Heliocentrism] is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture".From the verdict of the Roman Inquisition Finocchiaro. M. A. Defending Copernicus and Galileo: Critical Reasoning in the two Affairs. 2010, Springer. 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.