Mythbusting

1. Mythbusting • Are science and religion really at war?

2. Galileo Goes to Jail • and other Myths about science and religion • edited by Dr. Ronald Numbers, (Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison)

3. Dr. Numbers’ Goal • To confront “The greatest myth in the history of science and religion . . . that they have been in a state of constant conflict.” • — Ronald Numbers

4. Genesis of a Myth • In 1874, American polemicist John William Draper wrote: • “The antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is the continuation of a struggle that commenced when Christianity began to attain political power...” • (History of the Conflict Between Science and Religion, 1874)

5. Why is this important to Bahá’ís? • The polarities this “battle” creates is of vital importance to Bahá’ís because • Our own faith—born three decades before Draper made the above claim—has as a primary principle the harmony of science and religion. • The scriptures of the Bahá’í Faith state clearly that if science and religion seem to disagree, then we have misunderstood what one or the other (or perhaps both) are telling us.

6. On science and faith • “The third principle or teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the oneness of religion and science. Any religious belief which is not conformable with scientific proof and investigation is superstition, for true science is reason and reality, and religion is essentially reality and pure reason; therefore, the two must correspond. Religious teaching which is at variance with science and reason is human invention and imagination unworthy of acceptance, for the antithesis and opposite of knowledge is superstition born of the ignorance of man. If we say religion is opposed to science, we lack knowledge of either true science or true religion, for both are founded upon the premises and conclusions of reason, and both must bear its test.” • — Abdu’l-Bahá

7. Is Draper’s contention true? • Has science been at war with faith since the dawn of Christianity? • Dr. Numbers notes that the discussion of the relationship between science and religion heated up in the early 19th century when the word “science” came into vogue to replace the terms “natural philosophy” and “natural history”. • Up until this point, while there had been some dialogue around the subject of the roles of faith and reason, no one was pitting an entity called Religion against a second entity called Science.

8. The Christian Philosopher • The first English-language book that linked science and religion was the 1823 volume THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER (aka The Connection of Science and Philosophy with Religion) by Thomas Dick. • At the time Bahá’u’lláh was establishing His faith in Persia with its emphasis on the harmony of science and faith, there were chairs and programs in several American colleges and seminaries “demonstrating the harmony of science and revealed religion” (Numbers). • It wasn’t uncommon at this point for men of science to engage in discourse on scripture (the Bible, in the West) and for seminarians to consider scientific themes. • Science was, to the believer, a way of knowing God and appreciating His activities in the universe.

9. Williamof Occam Catholic monk, philosopher Nicolai Kopernik, Catholic clergyman, astronomer Moses ben Maimon, Jewish rabbinical scholar, physician Sir Isaac Newton, Anglican theologian, physicist Ibn Firnas, astronomer, meteorologist, aviator • The involvement of religious believers in the work of science goes back millennia. al-Khwārizmī, Muslim. father of algebra

10. Food for Thought • There are religious people who fear and distrust science, or who see it as being dangerous and in conflict with their beliefs. • There are non-religious people who fear and distrust religion and who see it as being dangerous and in conflict with their beliefs. • Surprise fact: recent surveys and polls about religion and science have shown that, while there is an unhealthy percentage of people worldwide who do not accept any theory of evolution as fact, not all of them are religious or reject evolution for religious reasons.

11. Bahá’ís may find themselves in the position of having to grapple with both scientific and religious illiteracy in the people they interact with. • This means it’s critical that Bahá’ís have a good grasp of both science and religion!

12. Abdu’l-Bahá wrote: • Scientific knowledge is the highest attainment upon the human plane, for science is the discoverer of realities. It is of two kinds: material and spiritual. Material science is the investigation of natural phenomena; divine science is the discovery and realization of spiritual verities. The world of humanity must acquire both. A bird has two wings; it cannot fly with one. Material and spiritual science are the two wings of human uplift and attainment. Both are necessary... • — Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 138 (23 May 1912, Cambridge, MA)

13. The Scientific Mystic: • “Science is an effulgence of the Sun of Reality, the power of investigating and discovering the verities of the universe, the means by which man finds a pathway to God.” — Abdu'l-Bahá

14. The Mystical Scientist: • “Do not be afraid of being free thinkers. If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all Religion. You will find science not antagonistic, but helpful to Religion.” — Lord Kelvin

15. A Look at Some Myths

16. A Look at Some Myths • The rise of Christianity began the demise of science. • The medieval church stifled scientific thought. • Medieval Christians taught that the world was flat. • Islam is, and has always been, anti-science.

17. The rise of Christianity began the demise of science.

18. Hypatia and Orestes • Hypatia was a 5th Century pagan mathematician. • When in her sixties, she was torn from her chariot and slaughtered in an Alexandrian church by a mob of fanatical Christians. • The story was featured in a 1720 pamphlet written by John Toland: The History of a Most Beautiful Lady; Who Was Torn to Pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria to Gratify the Pride, Emulation, and Cruelty of the Archbishop, Commonly but Undeservedly titled Saint Cyril. • Some authorities view Hypatia’s martyrdom as the “the beginning of the Christian Dark Ages” (Martin) and the death of science and math in Alexandria, and hold the story up as an example of what happens when ignorant religion conflicts with enlightened science.

19. Hypatia and Orestes • According to a recent biography of Hypatia by Maria Dzielska: • Hypatia’s work with mathematics had nothing to do with her death. • She was friends with Orestes, the regional Roman Prefect, who was in a political struggle with Cyril the Not-So-Saintly (Dzielska calls him “an ambitious and ruthless churchman eager to extend his authority”.) • Cyril used Orestes’ friendship with the pagan Hypatia to blacken his reputation, even going so far as to charge the poor old woman with witchcraft.

20. Hypatia and Orestes • What evidence do we have that this is so? • Some years after he’d disposed of Orestes, Cyril went on a campaign against pagans—NOT natural philosophers like Hypatia. Those, he left alone. • Science and mathematics flourished in Alexandria for decades to come. • In other words, the historical record does not bear out the claim that the rise of Christianity as a faith tolled the death knell of science.

21. The medieval church stifled scientific thought.

22. “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” —Tertullian • This question forms the basis of the myth that the medieval church actively suppressed the growth of science. • “The Church . . . set herself forth as the depository and arbiter of knowledge . . . She thus took a course that determined her whole future career; she became a stumbling block in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more than a thousand years.” — John Draper, The History of Conflict Between Religion and Science, (1874)

23. 100 years of lost opportunity? • Carl Sagan’s 1980 book Cosmos contains a chart of astronomical progress that leaves a 1000 year gap between mathematician Hypatia (and her contemporaries) and Copernicus and DaVinci. • The caption: “a poignant lost opportunity for mankind”.

24. How Dark Was It? • Accomplishments from this allegedly dark era in Europe (scientifically speaking) include: • William of Saint-Cloud’s work on solar eclipses, • Dominican friar Dietrich von Freiberg’s discoveries about rainbows, • Jean Buridan’s application of impetus theory to explain projectile motion, free-fall acceleration, and the rotation of the night sky. • Bishop Nicole Oresme’s arguments for the rotation of the earth, • Oxford’s natural philosophers application of mathematics to the study of motion.

25. How Dark Was It? • We now know that science was happening in the Middle Ages. • Universities were founded at Oxford, Bologna, and Paris before 1200 CE. • By 1500, there were about 60 of these institutions seeded around Europe, with about 30% of the curricula dedicated to the study of the natural world.

26. Mythbuster The organization most supportive of the financial and educational development of these institutions was . . . • . . . the Catholic Church.

27. Role of the Church • “The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient data in the late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, than any other, and probably all, other institutions.” — Science historian John Heilbron in The Sun in the Church, Harvard University Press, 1999

28. Curriculum • The curriculum of these Universities included: • Theology (the “Queen of Sciences”), which was taught only by ordained professors to students who had take vows. • Natural history • Mathematics • Astronomy • Medicine • All of this with the encouragement and blessing of the Church.

29. Let me sum up: If the Catholic Church intended to quash the sciences, its methods were darned peculiar.

30. Medieval Christians taught that the world was flat.

31. Why we should not celebrate Columbus Day. • In school, I learned that “everyone” believed the Earth was flat until the brave Cristobal Colonne (aka, Christopher Columbus) argued the point with Isabella and Ferdinand and sailed off to prove it was a globe, discovering the new world in the process. • Myth! • How do we know this was a myth? • Because people in the middle ageswrote things down: few people believed the world was flat. • So, why do so many of us today believe they did?

32. Columbus & the Flat Earth • The idea that Columbus’ discovered the Americas, proved the world was a globe, and ushered in the age of modernity was introduced in 1828 by storyteller Washington Irving (of Rip van Winkle fame) in The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. • Almost fifty years later, John Draper expressed the myth this way: “. . . the question of the shape of the earth was finally settled by three sailors, Columbus, da Gama and, above all, Ferdinand Magellan.” — History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, 1874

33. Columbus & the Flat Earth • According to the reports of Fernando Colonne, and Father Bartolome de las Casas, Columbus’ argument with the crowned heads of Spain was not about the shape of the planet, but its size. • According to his own diaries and logs, far from flouting authority, Columbus was a devout Catholic who thought he was doing God’s work by providing the Church and Crown with riches and slaves.

34. Remember the Universities? • University records show that the curriculum included Aristotle’s mathematical proof of the sphericity of the world. • Natural philosophers whose work supports a spherical earth include: • Ambrose (d. 420), • Augustine (d. 430), • Aquinus (d. 1274), • Bacon (d. 1294), • Magnus (d. 1280). • Jean de Sacrobosco (d. 1410), archbishop of Cambrai and author of De Sphera, which demonstrated the sphericity of the Earth and which was used as a textbook in universities throughout the Middle Ages.

35. Were there Dissenters? • Two early scholars whose words on the subject are ambiguous are Lactinius (4th century) and Isadore of Seville (5th century encyclopedist). • Only one medieval scholar is known “explicitly to deny the sphericity of the earth” (Lesley B. Cormack, Dean of Social Sciences at Simon Fraser University): • Cosmas Indicopleustes—a Byzantine monk who developed a scripturally based cosmological model that featured Earth as a table-land.

36. Was Columbus’ crew afraid of going over the edge? • Nope. But they did grumble a lot because: • The voyage was taking too long. • The prevailing wind was westerly and they feared they wouldn’t be able to sail east. • There wasn’t enough grog.

37. Islam is, and has always been, anti-science.

38. Whence the Myth? • This myth has been stated and restated over time: • “The pious Muslim . . . was expected to avoid . . . [rational] sciences with great care because they were considered dangerous to his faith. . .” — Ignaz Goldziher (1916) • “. . . possession of all this ‘enlightenment’ [of Greek thought] did not prompt much intellectual progress within Islam, let alone eventuate in Islamic science.” — Rodney Stark (2003) • “Alas, Islam turned against science in the twelfth century.” — Steve Weinberg (2007)

39. The Historical Record • Abu Abdullah Mohammad Ibn Musa al-Khawarizmi—mathematician, astronomer and geographer. • He was he was the founder of several branches and basic concepts of mathematics. • His surname gives us the term “algorithm.” • The word “algebra” was derived from his book Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah. (The Restoration)

40. The Historical Record • Abbas Ibn Firnas (810 - 887 A.D.) • Invented a water clock. • Manufactured colorless glass. • Developed an armillary to display the motions of the planets and stars. • Created a “weather” room that mechanically simulated stars, clouds, thunder, and lightning. • In 852, he jumped from the minaret of the Mezquita mosque in Córdoba using a huge wing-like cloak to break his fall, which he survived with minor injuries. This was the first example of an early parachute. In 875, at age of 65, he made the earliest attempt at flight using a rudimentary glider. He crashed and injured his back.

41. The Historical Record • Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi (864-930 C.E.) aka Rhazes • His al-Judari wal Hasabah was the first treatise on smallpox and chicken-pox. • Favored cure through correct and regulated food combined with an emphasis on the influence of psychological factors on health. • Tried proposed remedies on animals first to evaluate their effects and side effects. • Was also an expert surgeon and was the first to use opium for anesthesia.

42. The Historical Record • Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (aka Avicenna). • Wrote commentaries on Aristotle’, correcting what he saw as errors in Aristotle’s logic. • Was one of the earliest pioneers of the scientific process of peer review. • Wrote the 14-volume Canon of Medicine, a standard medical text in Western Europe for 7 centuries. Arabic edition published at Rome in 1593, Hebrew edition at Naples in 1491. • Correctly asserted that tuberculosis was contagious. • Described and catalogued the symptoms of diabetes.

43. The Historical Record • Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd (1126 – 1198) (aka Averroes) • Wrote commentaries on the works of Aristotle, including a rebuttal of The Incoherence of Philosophers, al-Ghazali’s polemic against Aristotelean logic. • Wrote medical encyclopedias including Kulliyat (“Generalities”), from which we get the European pronunciation Colliget, possibly the parent of the word “college”. • Wrote works about celestial mechanics. (He rejected the Ptolemaic system.) • Wrote works of physics.

44. Let me sum up: Far from being inimical to science, documentation shows that the civilization raised on the foundation of Muhammad’s teachings dominated the field of science from roughly 800-1300 CE.

45. Science Religion Why did religion come to be seen as the enemy of science?

46. Science Religion Medieval Context • “Science” as a discipline didn’t exist. • Its progenitor—natural philosophy—wasn’t distinct from religion or philosophy. • Beliefs about nature, medicine, wellness, sickness, natural phenomena and life in general were studied and written about often with emphasis on their relationship to God(s). • The idea that religious folk of this period were dullards who didn’t think of anything beyond the pages of the Bible (which they didn’t possess as such), is cartoonish. • The study of creation—was seen as the province of Christian thinkers and non-Christian thinkers alike. • It would be centuries before these avenues of thought were posted with street signs that read “Science” and “Religion”.

47. The Thinkers • Christian scholars such as Tertullian and his contemporary, Tatian had some disdain for “Athens”. • “Athens” was short-hand for “pagan”. • Tatian asked: “What noble thing have you produced by your pursuit of philosophy? What of your most eminent men has been free from vain boasting? . . . Wherefore be not led away by the solemn assemblies of philosophers who are no philosophers, who dogmatize the crude fancies of the moment.” (quoted in Galileo Goes to Jail p. 11)

48. Augustine on Nonsense • Far from denigrating knowledge, the early Christian thinkers promoted the benefits of a knowledgable congregation. • Deploring the ignorance of some Christians, Saint Augustine wrote: “Even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements . . . about the motion and orbit of the stars . . . and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to, as being certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel [a non-Christian] to hear a Christian . . . talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”

49. Sound familiar…? • Bahá’u’lláh has expressed a similar sentiment: • “Knowledge is like unto wings for the being (of man) and is like a ladder for ascending. To acquire knowledge is incumbent upon all, but of those sciences which may profit the people of the earth, and not such sciences as being in mere words and end in mere words.” • But He adds: • “The possessors of sciences and arts have a great right among the people of the world. Indeed, the real treasury of man is his knowledge. Knowledge is the means of honor, prosperity, joy, gladness, happiness and exaltation.”—The Tajallíyát. • Does this indicate a conflict with natural philosophy (aka, science) or, as Tatian puts it, with those who “dogmatize the crude fancies of the moment”?

50. What noble thing …? • What the Christian philosophers were arguing, was the purpose of knowledge, and the appropriate attitude toward what one could ferret out of physical reality.