How Liberal Protestants Bought White's Conflict Thesis and Lost Their Faith

@Mervin_Bitikofer,

Of course! All erroneous pins should be knocked down.

Are you suggesting that the laws against dissecting humans is not an example of science vs. religious scruples? Didn’t you just type this sentence as well?:

“Northern Italy toward the end of the 13th century! No church disapproval in sight.”

I did just write a considerable amount about how conflict between science and religion was not a monolithic issue, yes? That it depended on the time and place?

So… do you specify Northern Italy in the late 1200’s because that’s just the first time anyone noticed that this was being done? Or is it noteworthy because, for whatever combination of factors, the religiously-based hysteria against dissection was letting its grip go?

Or, perhaps it wasn’t the Catholic Church that took a position opposed to dissection … Perhaps it would be Protestant communities that were more anxious over the matter.

In this discussion about the French dissector, Andreas Vesalius, we find this brief mention: “Unlike Britain, in which only the bodies of executed murderers could be used for dissection by medical men, France’s revolutionary edicts made it easy for medically minded men to obtain bodies to study.”
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Mervin, you are over-generalizing, are you not? You describe conflict between science “and religion”. I will always reject that sweeping generalization. But there is more than enough information about this or that religious group going out of their way to protect humanity from the moral taint of science.

Even here, at least once a week, we read someone talking about the immoral influences of studying Evolution - - because it supports the atheist agenda.

The Wiki article below provides a nice review about views all over the world. Christianity had no monopoly on the issues … Greek religious ideas, Chinese religious ideas, Roman religious ideas… even Islam - - all had their problems which interfered with the gaining of anatomical knowledge through the examination of the human body in the only way possible: when the body was deceased - - and no longer able to offer resistance!:

Not in antiquity – where the conflict thesis tries to claim all these things start.

If the only conflict thesis you are defending is the manufactured ones that exist now, then yes, of course there will be cases of people today who have bought into that. Biologos exists because of that.

What I am suggesting is that the only conflict you are finding examples of are ones that were manufactured in or around the 19th century by Draper, White, Huxley, and Co. So the only actually existing “conflict thesis” was started, not by the church, but by atheists and agnostics. Especially ones with a vested interest in wresting the scientific profession from its heavily pious roots. Then when they got fundamentalists to pick up the other end of that rope, finally something of a “conflict thesis” was born.

@Mervin_Bitikofer,

The link I posted earlier, and repeated below), describes bias against dissecting humans way back in Antiquity!

For example, it wasn’t until the age of enlightenment that Westerners learned enough from dissection of human bodies, that it was shown that Galen probably hadn’t actually dissected any humans - - that his observations were made from dissecting monkeys and lower primates.

Maybe you can be more persuasive if you can define/describe what you mean by “Manufactured Conflicts”.

Aren’t all of these conflicts “manufactured” in that they are almost always humans trying to stop science because of their religious scruples?

I’m not sure what it is in the wikipedia article that you are drawing on for support. It does offer up that ancient Roman laws and many other cultures had a deep taboo against the practice. …Which makes it all the more remarkable that the church (which was supposed to be against science) allowed this practice in universities. Did you read you own wikipedia article? It seems to have a lot of the very same corrections to some of your misconceptions that I’ve been writing of here.

Here is an article by the same James Hannam on our own Biologos site here which speaks to many of these issues, though of course you’ll get more details from his book. Read up on it! It is interesting.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

From the article you linked us to:
“As it happens, much of the evidence marshaled in favor of the conflict thesis turns out to be bogus. The Church never tried to outlaw zero or human dissection; no one was burnt at the stake for scientific ideas (not even Giordano Bruno);…”

“… and no educated person in the Middle Ages thought that the world was flat, whatever the Bible might imply. Popes have had better things to do than banning vaccination or lightning conductors on churches. The thought of a pope excommunicating Halley’s Comet is absurd, but this has not prevented the tale of Calixtus III (right) doing just that from entering scientific folklore.”

" It is remarkable that authors today, who consider themselves skeptics, can swallow some of these stories whole. Carl Sagan introduced his readers to a ‘baloney detector’ in his book, The Demon-Haunted World (1997). It is a great shame he never used it on his own writings. He presented a completely fictitious account of the murder of the pagan philosopher Hypatia in Cosmos and falsely blamed Christians for the destruction of the Alexandrian library.

Merv, I think the writer is pretty good at setting up straw men and then knocking them down with great drama and flourish.

As I’ve said before… it is easy to dismiss the Conflict Thesis if you think the thesis insists on a monolithic Religion opposing Science. If so… of Course it is a false thesis!

And you could even argue that the original purpose of the Thesis was to slam the Roman Catholics… and more recently by other writers - - to slam the protestants.

But I think one of the reasons that Conflict Thesis doesn’t die is because at its very core, it is a statement of fact. In world history, when science has been opposed, it is frequently opposed by people wielding religious or metaphysical objections.

So to find so many BioLogos folks who feel compelled to dismiss the Conflict Thesis… in the face of YEC’s constantly attacking BioLogos and Evolutionary science because of religious or metaphysical reasons … well, it’s incredibly ironic, isn’t it?

Do we think if we trash the anti-Catholic book by White that the Evangelicals will come to our side? I doubt it… since if anything many YEC’s may well still consider the Catholic Church as one of the enemies of God.

I think it safe to say we’re talking past each other by this point. You see any impediments at all to science (or that which was its closest equivalent through the various centuries of known history) as evidence that somebody was using superstition, metaphysics, religion, tradition, whatever … to help prop up what we can now see was a wrong idea. Okay – fair enough. By such a broad definition, of course conflict can always be found. And then to narrow this down to Theistic or even Christian conflict with science, you are pretty much forced to appeal to only the recent examples spawned by various atheistic and Christian fundamentalisms – in short the two-century old manufactured conflict that makes sites like Biologos necessary. I’ll freely acknowledge such conflicts are real. Are you willing to acknowledge that they do not (in any form you or anybody else has been able to demonstrate thus far) represent some historically-based pattern of general Christian opposition to science over the last two thousand years?

Regarding the straw-man thing. I don’t think Hannam created that — the CONFLICT thesis’ own proponents did. That their argument turned out to be so weak and easy to knock over should not be blamed on those that then show it for what it is. I do agree with you though – it is virtually indistinguishable from a straw man. We’re still waiting to see if anybody can make it any stronger.

I don’t think the irony is there because Biologos isn’t denying that it has modern detractors from certain (even substantial) Christian groups. What is being corrected here is the notion that the present conflicts are reflective of some kind of long-standing historical theme of Christian antagonism toward science stretching back through the last twenty centuries (especially the middle ages --hence my use of examples from that time period).

The juiciest irony I see is so many pious people all through history (some of them priests) giving birth to so much that we now recognize as science --starting up universities, clearing the way for scientific methods to be developed (also by pious people). And yet we’re supposed to believe that science as a whole was suffering under the thumb of theism!

Are you willing to concede that there is not a grand conflict theme that accurately reflects the longer stretch of history? I already concede that there are the recent conflicts birthed in the last couple of centuries. Nobody here (I think) is denying that conflicts (from some quarters) exist now.

Hey, I can go along with that, @Mervin_Bitikofer ! If you aren’t trying to “trick” me into denying history.

Sure … I can say that there was no master plan of the Church to oppose science. Of course there was not! As I said before, the conflict emerges from time to time because of the accidents of a particular time and a particular place.

It’s obviously not a master plan of any single church … the Vatican burned Bruno and put Galileo in house arrest … and then it mellowed out. Nobody expected that the Protestant Evangelicals would ever become like the Roman Catholic Church… but it just plain happened that way!

The sentence that you mark “… we’re supposed to believe that science as a whole was suffering under the thumb of theism!” is a bad one. Ideas like this come from the Atheist side of the equation … looking for a way to systematically invalidate the reputation of religion at large.

Finally, @Mervin_Bitikofer, you try to wrap it all up …

I think I’ve given you a glimmer of what my answer is going to be. If I don’t believe in an inevitable conspiracy … but I believe that conflict arises, here and there, now and then, because of the accidents of time and culture … then you must know what my answer is going to be:

From 2000 BCE to 2000 CE … every now and then someone religious decides that religion is more important than Natural Philosophy.

Socrates was executed, just because he taught that Athena was an old wive’s tale… and that only the world of nature was real.

Galen gave the impression that he dissected humans … but he never actually did. What was stopping him?

But, Mervin, if you want me to call out to the period which was mostly Catholic - - because the Protestants had not yet emerged to take on their equal share of interfering with scientific pursuits, I would think just two institutions would more than suffice!

(A) the Inquisition and (B) the list of Banned Books… frequently including books on science within its long reach.

The very first scholar executed by the Inquisition was in 1327, Cecco d’Ascoli (1257 – September 26, 1327, aka Francesco degli Stabili ). “He devoted himself to the study of mathematics and astrology. In 1322 he was made professor of astrology at the University of Bologna. It is alleged that he entered the service of Pope John XXII at Avignon. . . .”

“. . . According to Ernst Cassirer’s “The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy”, he died at the stake for his attempt to determine the nativity of Christ by reading his horoscope (p. 107).” Mervin, I hope you don’t expect me to trace all the terrible developments of the Inquisition in Italy and then in Spain!

On the topic of banned books… it becomes an “inquisition of books” . . .

The List of Banned Books (Traditions of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum):
The Pauline Index (1559) -
". . . a first version (the Pauline Index) was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, which Paul F. Grendler believed marked “the turning-point for the freedom of enquiry in the Catholic world”, and which lasted less than a year. . . .

The Tridentine Index (1558) -
. . . being then replaced by what was called the Tridentine Index (because it was authorized at the Council of Trent), which relaxed aspects of the Pauline Index that had been criticized and had prevented its acceptance.

Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1603 to ?___? ) -
"The burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, whose entire works were placed on the Index in 1603, was because of teaching the heresy of pantheism. . . (and yet all of Bruno’s works were banned, even the ones on scientific matters). . .

From 1621 to 1835 (Index continues until the 1940’s) -
Books thought to contain such errors included works by astronomers such as Johannes Kepler’s Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae, which was on the Index from 1621 to 1835…

From Copernicus to 1758 -
. . . the general prohibition of books advocating heliocentrism was only removed from the Index in 1758. . .

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But Let us Conclude - - as the Conflict with Vatican faded away … new men of Protestant virtues began to find their way, because of their unique times and circumstances, to breed contempt for Science. It was not a conspiracy… it was just an accident of the times in the English speaking world.

Merv, I am very satisfied with this article on the Catholic Church and it’s reaction to the Conflict Thesis. While it concludes there is no conflict. . . it is making this statement in describing itself!!!

“In the 19th century, the conflict thesis emerged to propose an intrinsic conflict or conflicts between the Church and science. The original historical usage of the term asserted that the Church has been in perpetual opposition to science. Later uses of the term [implied] the Church’s epistemological opposition to science. The thesis interpret[ed] the relationship between the Church and science as inevitably leading to public hostility, when religion aggressively challenges new scientific ideas — as in the Galileo Affair.”

"An alternative criticism is that the Church opposed particular scientific discoveries that it felt challenged its authority and power - particularly through the Reformation and on through the Enlightenment. This [alternative] thesis shifts the emphasis away from the perception of the fundamental incompatibility of religion per se and science-in-general to a critique of the structural reasons for the resistance of the Church as a political organisation."

This sounds like a good note to end on, George. It seems to me we’re in basic agreement on the main body of things even if we both find particulars still to quibble about. Thanks for good conversation on all this. Will respond more if there remain particulars you still want response about.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

And many blessed returns to you, Mervin. I want to offer another version of wrapping up these thoughts in my mind.

The first few lines of the section of the Wiki article that discusses White’s flawed premises are these:

“…[T]he 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.”

For the most part, I can accept the validity of this criticism. The criticism rightly rejects the notion that the “Church and the Popes” opposed Science [per se]. For centuries, the Church of Rome, as well as Priests, Abbots and Monks had sponsored considerable scientific advancements.

I think the statement that “only those who know nothing about history” would believe these erroneous stories is probably just not true. People who know significant portions of the history of Western Civilization can still be easily caught up in some of the more plausible exaggerations. But the phrase certainly has a “music” that appeals to those who have righteously discovered the errors in many of the more celebrated stories of the Conflict Thesis.

Finally, I’m not altogether happy with how this sentence was put together: “Much of it is due to the exaggeration of the significance of the Galileo incident.”

I do think that the Galileo incident, even when not exaggerated at all, is a pretty important case to store in our collective and institutional memories. Just as we should remember the much more banal topic of “banned books” - - and how many centuries a “banned book” list was maintained by “The Church”, and that many of the books that were banned were purely science books. I do not know when the last book of science was removed from the listings … but it wasn’t until the 1940’s that the list was finally discontinued.

For the sake of fairness, I would have liked it if the newly remade Cosmos TV series had been more explicit about the transformation of the Roman Catholic Church into a pro-science institution, while the descendants of some of those American protestants who stood in righteous indignation about the flaws of Rome have become the Evangelicals who exert themselves so fiercely now against either the Science of Evolution, or against the Science of Climate Change, or against both!

It seems clear that Draper, and White and their successors produced several faulty stories in order to support their criticism of either the Roman Catholics (at first) or to support criticism of any Religion (as with the New Atheists). I congratulate the historians who have been able to ferret out these exaggerations or outright faulty stories.

@TedDavis writes this fine summation in the article the current thread is linked to:

"I changed my mind after reading insightful comments about the Conflict Thesis from James Ungureanu, a young historian who is doing research on John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White—the people who gave us the classic version of the Conflict Thesis. Mr. Ungureanu’s main point is entirely right: rather than intentionally advancing unbelief (like the New Atheists of our day), Draper and White “were pitting two distinct theological traditions against one another: a progressive liberal Christianity against a more traditional conservative Christianity.”

But I will continue to caution us not to become so caught up in the frenzy - - to rightly put an end to some of these tropes, clichés and falsehoods - - that we automatically conclude that the modern conflict we have with Evangelicals is our own fault for ever endorsing the Conflict Thesis.

Darwin’s book was published in 1859! The outcries against Darwin’s heretical book were exuberant and comprehensive. And also well before Draper’s and White’s respective writings, both of which were released 15 years later in 1874!

White’s Conflict Thesis did not start the trouble for Evolutionary theory … it merely badly documented the precedents for earlier instances of similar conflict.

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George,

I’ve been quiet since early last week owing to having no time for further comments (as I told you would be the case). I finally have a few minutes today, but I’ll limit my further comments to the topic of human dissection, on which you and @Mervin_Bitikofer have exchanged a number of comments.

Galen did not dissect human cadavers, b/c it just wasn’t done at that point in history–it was apparently taboo. He did view human skeletons at Alexandria (where he did some of his medical training), and he frequently dissected (or vivisected) various animals, especially Barbary Apes. The only opportunities he had to look inside human bodies took place by chance and sometimes involved combat–remember that he worked as a surgeon to gladiators and in the Roman army. Any taboos on that activity, however, were wholly unrelated to Christianity. Galen worked in the second century, long before there were enough Christians in the Roman empire to have any political influence and long before any pope or bishop could have banned it with any effect.

For our purposes here, Galen is just a red herring.

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[quote=“gbrooks9, post:61, topic:32392”] wrote this to @Mervin_Bitikofer:

Of course! All erroneous pins should be knocked down.

Are you suggesting that the laws against dissecting humans is not an example of science vs. religious scruples? Didn’t you just type this sentence as well?:

“Northern Italy toward the end of the 13th century! No church disapproval in sight.”

I did just write a considerable amount about how conflict between science and religion was not a monolithic issue, yes? That it depended on the time and place?

So… do you specify Northern Italy in the late 1200’s because that’s just the first time anyone noticed that this was being done? Or is it noteworthy because, for whatever combination of factors, the religiously-based hysteria against dissection was letting its grip go?

Or, perhaps it wasn’t the Catholic Church that took a position opposed to dissection … Perhaps it would be Protestant communities that were more anxious over the matter.
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Merv has already made a very adequate reply, but let me chime in also.

First, there were no specific laws banning dissection in medieval Europe. Lots of laws prohibited physicians from robbing graves to get corpses, but not from dissecting cadavers. The idea that this happened comes mostly (as often) from A D White, who was guilty here (and elsewhere) of gross negligence as an historian.

Second, dissection was practiced systematically only in one place at one time prior to the middle ages–when it was common. The anatomists Erasistratus and Herophilus did dissections in Alexandria in the 4th C BC. There are plausible reports (far from unimpeachable) claiming that they also engaged in human vivisection, with criminals supplied by the Ptolemaic kings. Whether or not that happened, dissection wasn’t resumed until the high middle ages–in other words, in Catholic Europe–shortly before 1300 AD. No one has cherry-picked that date; it’s simply a statement of current historical knowledge. Your language, George, about this reflecting a lapse in “religiously-based hysteria against dissection” has no evidentiary basis that I am aware of. At least within a Christian context, such “hysteria” isn’t even a red herring.

The best short account of this is the chapter by Katie Park of Harvard in the Numbers book that I keep asking you to consult, Galileo Goes to Jail. She’s written quite a bit about medical history.

@TedDavis

If you’ve been reading my posts, you know that I agree that, intentionally or unintentionally, White and his successors egregiously exaggerated their evidence and their stories. It would seem White was an enthusiastic Catholic Basher. And more recently we’ve had some pretty zealous Atheists who want to bash religions in general.

But I don’t see the logic or value in trying to sweep every part of the Conflict Thesis into oblivion. One, I think people are capable of understanding bias well enough that they can benefit from learning to distinguish from bad story telling and accurate story telling. And two, the conflict between “religious scruples and science” is still pretty evident even after you dismiss the erroneous stories. The conflict emerges, off and on, from time to time, from place to place. It certainly isn’t monolithic.

So I hope you are “ok” with my stance on the Conflict Thesis: maybe I’ll spell it without the uppercase letters? (Certainly you know it’s a pretty serious matter if I’m willing to avoid all caps!)

The reason I asked about Galen is because I found him being used as an example of “no religious conflict” . . . because, it was claimed, he felt no hesitation about dissecting human bodies. And yet a deeper investigation actually comes up with the reverse conclusion - - which you are careful enough to acknowledge. But then you call the Galen case a red herring?

From the viewpoint of unfairly smearing the Roman Catholic church, absolutely - - he is a red herring. But he is still one of my exemplars of someone who had to work extra hard, and even came up with erroneous conclusions about human anatomy, because of the superstitious taboo against dissecting humans.

You point out, correctly, that taboos of this kind were not connected to the Christian Church at that time. And I concur with you. Later on, in different places, maybe the Church begins to invest in that taboo. But I haven’t made a study of it, so I won’t throw myself on a sword regarding the point.

I believe one of the reasons the erroneous parts of the conflict thesis continues to be so resilient against correction is because at it’s core we find superstition and metaphysics frequently do interfere with the pursuit of science. Sometimes it is an organized denomination, sometimes it is a tradition that can barely be considered religious.

When I was working as a contractor in Kuwait, I used to volunteer at a rescue operation for dogs, cats and all sorts of other creatures. While I was there, I found myself drawn into controversy around a frequently made by some Arabs that Allah doesn’t like dogs… And then on the other side is the assertion that only ignorant people say things like that. If there is any antipathy towards dogs, they argue, it’s not because of the Quran. It is because dogs never had much widespread appeal amongst Arab families - - long before the rise of Islam.

Naturally, I had to dig down and find out what was really going on. And wouldn’t you know, the truth is more complex than either Black or White.

If my memory serves me correctly, I found that the Quran was in favor of having a good dog to protect one’s livestock or even one’s family. But . . . if you allowed the dog to stay inside (you know, where the air conditioning is), then Allah’s angels would not enter the house. I don’t believe there is any text that would explain why.

My position on the conflict thesis is that you just can’t single out any specific denomination or church to consistently opposed to the pursuit of science. The Vatican used to have a list of banned books that included books that were purely scientific in nature. Now they don’t. And while they may have given Galileo a bad time, now they defend the reasonableness of Evolution.

Protestant groups used to criticize the Roman Catholic church for its zeal to silence scientific inquiry. And now, today, while the Roman Catholic scientists are making great headway, we have various evangelical groups (but not all) taking adamant stands against Evolution.

It’s a hodge podge for sure… but it’s important to remember that 15 years before White’s exaggerations were published, men of great faith all around the world were attacking Evolutionary theory with vigor.

But you can be assured, @TedDavis, you can count on me to help quash any of the erroneous/exaggerated stories too frequently used to support a conflict thesis of whatever variety.

George, whenever I read you making these points, I remember that pretty well the only example of science being consciously set entirely free from religious taboos was in the Third Reich. And sad to say, though much of the medical research done was both cruel and useless, the breaking of the taboo against experimenting on live human subjects produced some results that are still used, and could not have happened otherwise. Religion would certainly have got in the way of science had the Nazis not curbed its grip… but most of us regret that they succeeded.

The point is that to bracket a pagan reverence for the human body, broad Christian civilisation’s respect for human life and myths about the mediaeval flat earth, dissection bans, heliocentrism, distortions of the Wilberforce-Huxley debate etc together as “conflict between science and religion” makes for a nebulous discussion. There is no unifying principle other than that human activity is never separable from its social context.

Science, as a human activity, must be limited by human values, including religious considerations, or become a monster serving human vices instead. The Warfare Thesis, however, specifically says that Christianity habitually took a stance against legitimate (and somehow superhuman!) science based on superstitious ignorance and crass literalism. As Ted rightly says (and it is, after all, his academic field as it is that of Hannam and the other sources he cites) that thesis has long been demolished and decapitated. But unlike Goliath, its still keeps coming up for more in the mass media and even scientific discussion, a phenomenon which is far more interesting than what drove Draper and White long ago… though understanding the latter illuminates the former.

I’ve been chasing up the background of such claims, as I’ve come up against them in TV programmes, books and articles, for several years now. So far not one has proved to have a solid basis - in some cases the self-contradictions are laughably immediate, like the archaeological documentaries going on about how the Church opposed ideas of ancient man, and then reeling off examples of brave heretics who were nearly all, it turns out, serving clergymen.

One prime myth-busting example is the chapter in the notorious “The Fundamentals” on Evolution, called “The Passing of Evolution”, by G F Wright. What is not clear from reading it now is (a) that the geologist Wright had been a convinced Darwinist, whose later objections to his theory were based on scientific weaknesses and (b) that when he wrote it, Darwin was indeed generally considered passé and, other theories marginalised it until the Modern Synthesis arrived much later and swept the field. So Wright was commenting on the transience of old theories, not the impiety of new ones. He could have been writing today, warning Christians that neutral theory, niche construction, Evo-Devo and so on give good reason to beware of giving any one theory a theological imprimatur.

But what is clear from reading it is that in this foundational Fundamentalist tract, the argumentation is nearly all taken from scientists and scientific/philosophical reasoning - even the “religious” points are taken from the mouths of evolutionary scientists like Wallace and Gray. No appeal to the literal truth of a six-day creation, or the importance of fixed kinds. In this he was, I find, following the pattern of the actual (as opposed to the mythical) debate that had been happening even before Darwin.

@Jon_Garvey

Your posting is a marvelous aggregate of various philosophical themes. So let’s test it against some historical event (or two?) that I might name. For the moment, I have not had the time to pick what I consider the most useful example to study using your method. But I’ll get back to that in posting coming soon!

In the meantime, let’s proceed to your final paragraph:

The history of the Inquisition also feature some of thee West’s most powerful scholars. This is what some phases of religious interference in the realm of science frequently leads to: a man of Natural Philosophy, who shares the religious mores of the “blocking” party - - denouncing other men of Natural Philosophy who have arrived at a new scientific paradigm.

So I can agree with your conclusion - - with no resistance at all.

Back to you soon on a proposed caste study!

I don’t recall proposing a method. I just challenged the utility of your concept.

I’m confused by your last paragraph, too - I mentioned Wallace and Gray in the context of Wright. None “denounced the men who arrived at a new scientific paradigm” - Wallace co-invented the paradigm, Gray was the first non-English scientist to support it, and Wright as a geologist championed it as compatible with biblical Christianity whilst, always criticising the metaphysical use some philosophers (like Spencer) made of it. He later became more doubtful about the validity of some of the science - like many in the early 20th century, when Neo-Lamarckism for a while eclipsed Darwinism.

Opinions differ as to whether Wright became more of a biblical literalist later in life - but if he did, it would have been a conversion from the paradigm, not an entrenched resistance to it.

I’ll leave others to point you to the actual history of the Inquisition, especially in relation to science. White and Draper muddied the waters there, as well.

@Jon_Garvey,

Frankly, I have to say I have “lost the bubble” on understanding what it is you are still kavetching about.

If you want me to agree that some writers got out of control on criticizing the Roman Catholic Church, I would agree with you.

If you want me to say that the Roman Catholic Church never interfered with the pursuit of science, the Vatican’s Banned Book list should be enough to motivate your recovery from such a thought. I certainly won’t agree to that extremity.

If you want me to say that the Inquisition was really not so bad … I think you are drinking too much koolaid.

“The Inquisition’s ban on reprinting Galileo’s works was lifted in 1718 when permission was granted to publish an edition of his works (excluding the condemned Dialogue) in Florence.” [Footnote: Heilbron, J.L. The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999; p. 299]