The Warfare between Science & Religion: The Idea That Wouldn't Die

by Jeff Hardin (Editor), Ronald L Numbers (Editor), Ronald A. Binzley (Editor)

Overview

A “very welcome volume” of essays questioning the presumption of irreconcilable conflict between science and religion (British Journal for the History of Science).

The “conflict thesis”—the idea that an inevitable, irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion—has long been part of the popular imagination. The Warfare between Science and Religion assembles 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 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. Others 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, and bring much-needed perspective to an often-bitter controversy.

Contributors include: 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 Yalçinkaya

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421426198
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	02/16/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	458
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction
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

What People are Saying About This

"When and why did the idea of conflict between science and religion emerge? These insightful and pathbreaking essays take us on an exhilarating historical tour which shows that notions of ‘warfare’ and ‘conflict’ reflected cultural realities of the time. It offers an essential intervention in modern debate."

Edward J. Larson

"The best single-volume collection of separate-author essays about the history of science and religion in the major modern monotheistic Western traditions. These essays from a host of distinguished historians remind us that history is complex because people are complex, even scientists."

Janet Browne

"When and why did the idea of conflict between science and religion emerge? These insightful and pathbreaking essays take us on an exhilarating historical tour which shows that notions of ‘warfare’ and ‘conflict’ reflected cultural realities of the time. It offers an essential intervention in modern debate."

Michael Ruse

"This very timely collection is to be valued. The contributors are all first class."

Editorial Reviews

"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."

Journal of American History - Paul J. Croce

"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."

Five Books - Peter Harrison and Charles J. Styles

"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."

Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith - Arie Leegwater

"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."

Reading Religion - Journal of the American Academy of Religion - Glenn Branch

"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."

British Journal for the History of Science - Geoffrey Cantor

"Accessible, historically illuminating, meticulous."

Quarterly Review of Biology

"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."

Church Times - Peter Forster