Conflict thesis

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For a socio-historical theory with a similar name, see Conflict theory
Galileo before the Holy Office by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, a 19th century depiction of science clashing with religion
Galileo before the Holy Office by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, a 19th century depiction of science clashing with religion

Conflict thesis is the theoretical premise of an intrinsic conflict between science and religion. The term was originally used in a historical context: its proponents claim the historical record is evidence of religion's perpetual opposition to science. Later uses of the term may refer to an epistemological rather than historical opposition between religion and science. Both popular and academic texts at times conflate the two meanings and characterize the conflict thesis as both historical and epistemological.

The historical conflict thesis, also known as the warfare thesis, the warfare model or the Draper-White thesis, is an interpretive model of the relationship between religion and science according to which interaction between religion and science almost inevitably leads to open hostility, usually as a result of religion's aggressive challenges against new scientific ideas. The historical conflict thesis was a popular historiographical approach in the history of science during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but most contemporary historians of science now reject it.[1][2][3] It remains a widely popular view in the general public.[4]

“ Despite the growing number of scholarly modifications and rejections of the conflict model from the 1950's...in the 1970's 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"...[by] James Moore...at the beginning of his Post-Darwinian Controversies (1979). [5] ”


Contents

[edit] The historical conflict thesis

[edit] Origins

The most influential exponents of the conflict thesis were John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. In the early 1870s, Draper was invited to write a book on History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874). Reacting to recent papal edicts such as the doctrine of infallibility, he directed his criticism primarily against Roman Catholicism,[6] while assessing Islam and Protestantism as having a friendly relationship toward science. The essence of the conflict thesis is summed up from a line in the preface to Draper's work:

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.[7]

In 1896, White published the History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, the culmination of thirty years of research and publication on the subject. His target was any form of restrictive, dogmatic Christianity. In the introduction to his work, White emphasized that he had come to his position after facing difficulty in trying to assist Ezra Cornell in establishing a university which did not have any official affiliation with any particular religious sect.

As described in the historical analysis given in David Lindberg's and Ronald Numbers' God and Nature:"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 strident anti-Catholicism soon dated his work and because White's impressive documentation gave the appearance of sound scholarship".[8] Most advocates of the conflict thesis, like Draper and White, focus on the purported hostility of Christianity toward science, though some consider Islam to be hostile as well.


In 1908, the physician and historian of medicine, James Joseph Walsh, published - as a direct answer to White’s Warfare - The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time[9] in which he strongly criticized White’s view as antihistorical:

“the 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”[10]

[edit] Contemporary views

Today, much of the scholarship in which the conflict thesis was first based is considered to be inaccurate. Stephen Jay Gould writes: "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 utilize the same myths to support their narrative".[11] And Colin Russell, in a summary of the historiography of the thesis, say 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”.[12]

Regarding the model in itself, subsequent historical research indicates that religion has a much more complex and close relationship with science than the conflict thesis acknowledges. As is expressed by Gary Ferngren in his historical volume Science & Religion:

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.[13]

Today historians acknowledge that many scientific developments, such as Kepler's laws and the 19th century reformulation of physics in terms of energy, were explicitly driven by religious ideas.[14] Religious organizations figure prominently in the broader histories of many sciences, with many of the scientific minds until the professionalization of scientific enterprise (in the 19th century) being clergy and other religious thinkers.[15] Even the most prominent examples of conflict, such as the Galileo affair and the Scopes trial, were not purely instances of conflict between science and religion; personal and political factors also weighed heavily in the development of each.[16]

One reason for the current appeal of the conflict thesis is the existence of ongoing debates that seem to follow a pattern of religion versus science, or religion versus what some claim to be social progress, where this supposed progress is linked in some way to science or technology. Examples include the creation-evolution controversy, stem cell controversy and controversies over the use of birth control. For instance, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, in their article on Religious Change And Past Religious Conflicts, while not entirely agreeing with White's attitude towards religion, write that it gives a useful multistage model for understanding religious reactions to scientific innovations.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Quotation: "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." (p. 7), from the essay by Colin A. Russell "The Conflict Thesis" in Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0".
  2. ^ Quotation: "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." (p. 195) Shapin, S. (1996). The Scientific Revolution. University of Chicago Press Chicago, Ill. 
  3. ^ Quotation: "In its traditional forms, the [conflict] thesis has been largely discredited." (p. 42) Brooke, J.H. (1991). Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives.. Cambridge University Press. 
  4. ^ Quotation: "...while [John] Brooke's view [of a complexity thesis rather than historical conflict thesis] has gained widespread acceptance among professional historians of science, the traditional view remains strong elsewhere, not least in the popular mind." (p. x) from Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0.
  5. ^ Wilson, David B. The Historiography of Science and Religion in Ferngren, Gary B. (2002). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0.  p. 21, 23
  6. ^ Alexander, D (2001), Rebuilding the Matrix, Lion Publishing, ISBN 0-7459-5116-3 (pg. 217)
  7. ^ John William Draper, History of the Conflict Religion, D. Appleton and Co. (1881)
  8. ^ David C. Lindberg, Ronald L. Numbers, God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science, University of California Press (April 29, 1986)
  9. ^ Fordam University Press, 1908, Kessinger Publishing, reprinted 2003. ISBN 0-7661-3646-9 Reviews: [1][2]
  10. ^ 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, Fordam University Press, New York 1908, p.19
  11. ^ Gould, S.J. (1996). "The late birth of a flat earth". Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History. New York: Crown: 38–52. 
  12. ^ (p. 15) Colin A. Russell: The Conflict of Science and Religion in Encyclopedia of the History of Science and Religion, New York 2000
  13. ^ Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0. (Introduction, p. ix)
  14. ^ On Kepler, see: Barker, Peter and Bernard R. Goldstein. "Theological Foundations of Kepler's Astronomy". Osiris, Volume 16: Science in Theistic Contexts. University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp 88–113. On energy physics, see: Smith, Crosbie. The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. London: The Athlone PRess, 1998.
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ On the Galileo affair, see: Blackwell, Richard J., "Galileo Galilei" in Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction. On the Scopes trial, see: 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.

[edit] External links

[edit] 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.
  • Ferngren, Gary (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0
  • 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," 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.)
  • 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 0-472-06190-9
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