Why is the idea of conflict between science and religion so popular in the public imagination?
The "conflict thesis"-the idea that an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion-has long been part of the popular imagination. In The Warfare between Science and Religion, Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley have assembled a group of distinguished historians who explore the origin of the thesis, its reception, the responses it drew from various faith traditions, and its continued prominence in public discourse.
Several essays in the book examine the personal circumstances and theological idiosyncrasies of important intellectuals, including John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who through their polemical writings championed the conflict thesis relentlessly. Other essays consider what the thesis meant to different religious communities, including evangelicals, liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Finally, essays both historical and sociological explore the place of the conflict thesis in popular culture and intellectual discourse today.
Based on original research and written in an accessible style, the essays in The Warfare between Science and Religion take an interdisciplinary approach to question the historical relationship between science and religion. This volume, which brings much-needed perspective to an often bitter controversy, will appeal to scholars and students of the histories of science and religion, sociology, and philosophy.
Contributors: Thomas H. Aechtner, Ronald A. Binzley, John Hedley Brooke, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Noah Efron, John H. Evans, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Frederick Gregory, Bradley J. Gundlach, Monte Harrell Hampton, Jeff Hardin, Peter Harrison, Bernard Lightman, David N. Livingstone, David Mislin, Efthymios Nicolaidis, Mark A. Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Lawrence M. Principe, Jon H. Roberts, Christopher P. Scheitle, M. Alper Yalcinkaya
Show moreWhy is the idea of conflict between science and religion so popular in the public imagination?
The "conflict thesis"-the idea that an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion-has long been part of the popular imagination. In The Warfare between Science and Religion, Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley have assembled a group of distinguished historians who explore the origin of the thesis, its reception, the responses it drew from various faith traditions, and its continued prominence in public discourse.
Several essays in the book examine the personal circumstances and theological idiosyncrasies of important intellectuals, including John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who through their polemical writings championed the conflict thesis relentlessly. Other essays consider what the thesis meant to different religious communities, including evangelicals, liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Finally, essays both historical and sociological explore the place of the conflict thesis in popular culture and intellectual discourse today.
Based on original research and written in an accessible style, the essays in The Warfare between Science and Religion take an interdisciplinary approach to question the historical relationship between science and religion. This volume, which brings much-needed perspective to an often bitter controversy, will appeal to scholars and students of the histories of science and religion, sociology, and philosophy.
Contributors: Thomas H. Aechtner, Ronald A. Binzley, John Hedley Brooke, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Noah Efron, John H. Evans, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Frederick Gregory, Bradley J. Gundlach, Monte Harrell Hampton, Jeff Hardin, Peter Harrison, Bernard Lightman, David N. Livingstone, David Mislin, Efthymios Nicolaidis, Mark A. Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Lawrence M. Principe, Jon H. Roberts, Christopher P. Scheitle, M. Alper Yalcinkaya
Show moreIntroduction
Mark A. Noll and David N. Livingstone
1. The Warfare Thesis
Lawrence M. Principe
2. The Galileo Affair
Maurice A. Finocchiaro
3. Rumors of War
Monte Harrell Hampton
4. The Victorians: Tyndall and Draper
Bernard Lightman
5. Continental Europe
Frederick Gregory
6. Roman Catholics
David Mislin
7. Eastern Orthodox Christians
Efthymios Nicolaidis
8. Liberal Protestants
Jon H. Roberts
9. Protestant Evangelicals
Bradley J. Gundlach
10. Jews
Noah Efron
11. Muslims
M. Alper Yalçinkaya
12. New Atheists
Ronald L. Numbers and Jeff Hardin
13. Neo-Harmonists
Peter Harrison
14. Historians
John Hedley Brooke
15. Scientists
Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle
16. Social Scientists
Thomas H. Aechtner
17. The View on the Street
John H. Evans
Contributors
Index
Why is the idea of conflict between science and religion so popular in the public imagination?
Jeff Hardin is the Raymond E. Keller Professor and chair of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin. Ronald L. Numbers is the Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the editor of Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. Independent scholar Ronald A. Binzley, who holds a doctorate in American religious history, is an environmental engineer at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
This is a book worthy of reading, digesting, and emulating in its
close analysis of science and religion. The Warfare between Science
and Religion will give the reader a trustworthy account of the most
recent scholarship about the religion science nexus.
—Arie Leegwater, Calvin University, Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith
Historians of science have been attempting to destroy this
myth—that science and religion have been perennially at war—for the
past 40 years or so. Nonetheless, as the subtitle of the book
conveys, this is the idea that wouldn't die. [The Warfare between
Science and Religion] brings together a group of historian
myth-busters who have been thinking about this question . . . One
of the virtues of this book is that it also looks at science and
religion interactions in Islam and Judaism as well as
Christianity.
—Peter Harrison and Charles J. Styles, Five Books
The history of the assertion that science and religion are
inevitably in conflict is dominated by two late nineteenth-century
narratives; John William Draper's History of the Conflict between
Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of
the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). The
present very welcome volume contains seventeen essays that examine
these classic texts, their reception by contemporaries and the
subsequent history of the conflict thesis.
—Geoffrey Cantor, University of Leeds, British Journal for the
History of Science
The questions whether, why, and to what extent science and religion
are in conflict has been one of the abiding motifs of Western
culture. This collection by an international group of scholars
covers the subject from a rich variety of angles . . . Those who
are interested in the science-and-religion debate, and the impact
of science as a cultural force, will find this book a fascinating
read.
—Peter Forster, Church Times
Accessible, historically illuminating, meticulous.
—Quarterly Review of Biology
The focus of this outstanding collection that criticizes the idea
of conflict between science and religion, represents the historian
John Hedley Brooke's call for attention to the complexities of
history . . . The idea of warfare between science and religion
largely deserves burial, but as these essays show, the sentiments
for conflicts endure.
—Paul J. Croce, Stetson University, Journal of American History
The Warfare between Science and Religion is amply successful in its
project of providing a historical understanding of the warfare
thesis—or, better, of the warfare theses—over a broad historical
and ideological range, through a series of accessible and
interesting chapters. And it is a vitally important project,
considering the persistence of conflicts involving science and
religion in the United States.
—Glenn Branch, National Center for Science Education, Reading
Religion - Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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