Post by bjorn on Jun 29, 2009 21:46:45 GMT
An interesting discussion at blogs.discovermagazine.com, based on the original posting at metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-confusion-in-accommodation-debate.html
For the full report see blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/06/29/science-religion-and-the-knowledge-of-history/
Unfortunately mostly unhelpfull comments, though. Seems like this approach creates a sensation, which tends to mean opposition, every time. And the attitude that this was in the distant past, based on fundamentally erronous presuppositions and with no or little relevance today.
Hopefully your book may amend matters somewhat, James
For the full report see blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/06/29/science-religion-and-the-knowledge-of-history/
Let me just give one sense in which religion inspired science. The point is based on my reading of John Hedley Brooke’s Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science), which is one very important academic study of the subject. For reference see p. 192-225 in Brooke.
Back in the days of natural theology–”intelligent design” before Darwin, back when it was actual “science”–many Christians thought that the natural world provided copious evidence of the brilliance of God’s handiwork. Accordingly, parsons and priests were often inspired to become naturalists and study nature in order to provide evidence of the divine. Science was a means of finding and understanding one’s Creator.
Scientific inquiry was therefore substantially driven by faith, and much scientific progress resulted from this impulse–albeit progress in a pre-Darwinian paradigm. After Darwin much of it remained good data, though of course it had to be reordered and seen through a new lens.
There are also, to be sure, ways in which religion thwarted science in the past. But the point is, you need to understand the rich historical picture, and if you do, you find that the Galileo case–although an incredibly important event–is hardly a skeleton key to the science-religion relationship over time.
Back in the days of natural theology–”intelligent design” before Darwin, back when it was actual “science”–many Christians thought that the natural world provided copious evidence of the brilliance of God’s handiwork. Accordingly, parsons and priests were often inspired to become naturalists and study nature in order to provide evidence of the divine. Science was a means of finding and understanding one’s Creator.
Scientific inquiry was therefore substantially driven by faith, and much scientific progress resulted from this impulse–albeit progress in a pre-Darwinian paradigm. After Darwin much of it remained good data, though of course it had to be reordered and seen through a new lens.
There are also, to be sure, ways in which religion thwarted science in the past. But the point is, you need to understand the rich historical picture, and if you do, you find that the Galileo case–although an incredibly important event–is hardly a skeleton key to the science-religion relationship over time.
Unfortunately mostly unhelpfull comments, though. Seems like this approach creates a sensation, which tends to mean opposition, every time. And the attitude that this was in the distant past, based on fundamentally erronous presuppositions and with no or little relevance today.
Hopefully your book may amend matters somewhat, James
