SCIENCE and RELIGION: The war that wasn’t

SCIENCE and RELIGION: The war that wasn’t Neil Greenberg Departments of Ecology, Medicine, and Psychology University of Tennessee, Knoxville TVUUC FORUM April 6, 2008 Tiffany, “Education” (1890) January 2008

SCIENTIST or THEOLOGIAN ? The “archetype of the inductive scientific genius” – Whewell in History of the Inductive Sciences, 1837) "I give myself over to my rapture. I tremble; my blood leaps. God has waited 6000 years for a looker-on to His work." Johannes Kepler in 1610 (laws of planetary motion)

SCIENTIST or THEOLOGIAN ? Physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, theologian, and alchemist " God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done." Isaac Newton in 1689 (calculus, gravitation)

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;God said "Let Newton be" and all was light. Isaac Newton by Blake 1795

“In the late 18th century, the Enlightenment came to an end with a sudden outburst of hostility toward reason and science. • This philosophic temper tantrum has a name: romanticism. The leaders of the movement advocated the primacy of feelings over reason and sense perception, the rejection of logical analysis as anti-life, and the view that nature is an incomprehensible war of conflicting opposites. • With Kant's Critiques providing the fertilizer, romanticism took root mainly in Germany. In this lecture, Mr. Harriman shows that the impact on German science was widespread and devastating in the early 19th century.”

Lamia Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalog of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air and gnomed mine-- Unweave a rainbow. (Keats, Lamia: II, 229-237, 1819) Lamia by Herbert Draper 1909

“At first glance, science and Romanticism might seem at irreconcilable odds… science advocates the rational, the empirical and the mental, Romanticism embraces the irrational, the metaphysical and the emotional. Science represents realism and tough-mindedness; Romanticism, idealism and escapism. But this supposed incongruence seems only so to our early 21st-century sensibilities. As EG Wilson points out, the poets and scientists of the early 19th century thought of themselves as soul mates.” EG Wilson, Professor of English at Wake Forest

SCIENCE is done by SCIENTISTS Scientia simply means “knowledge” but “Scientist”–coined in 1833 by Whewell -- referred to a natural philosopher (rather than an intuitive philosopher) William Whewell (d. 1866; polymath, scientist, theologian) But see “The Scientist in the Crib.”

SCIENTIST Once the word was in place, it came to apply to a special group of people who slavishly followed a method that disallowed subjective experience. William Whewell (d. 1866; polymath, scientist, theologian)

In the midst of change uncertainty can be intolerable… (“God does not play dice,” Einstein would assert in the 20th C.) But even William James would be uncertain about uncertainty: 1880: “Philosophies of uncertainty cannot be acceptable; the general mind will fail to come to rest in their presence, and will seek for solutions of a more reassuring kind.” 1895: Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they to be found? . . . We must go on experiencing and thinking over our experience, for only thus can our opinions grow more true.” The climate of 19th century

The climate of 19th century • The mystery that energizes the spiritual impulse was about to be solved. And in this post-enlightenment atmosphere, something dark was cooking in America • Alien peoples and their religious faith with its allegiance to a foreign dictator were swarming our shores • The Irish famines led to about 1.5 million deaths; over 2 million fled; about 1.5 million came to America • for example, in 1847, 37,000 Irish showed up in a city of 115,000 Anglo-Saxon Protestants: Boston …there was an enormous anti-Catholic sentiment

The climate of 19th century • The Panic of 1873: “sixty-five months during which • in New York, construction was cut in half, both in terms of number of new buildings and their value. • One hundred thousand people were thrown out of work, nearly one-quarter of the city's labor force. • Ten thousand homeless roamed the city's streets. • Those who still had work suffered a severe drop in wages, roughly 30 percent across the board. Socialism gained in popularity throughout the working-class neighborhoods of the city.”

There was unprecedented and deeply resented Irish immigration

Fear of Catholicism grows • The First Vatican Council (1870) formalized a long-standing tradition as the “Doctrine of Infallibility.” • To whom were the many new immigrants loyal?

John William Draper • founder of NYU Medical School • First president of American Chemical Society • Believed in the positivism of Auguste Compte which held that civilization moves through stages of which science is the peak. • Spoke of the “expansive force of human intellect and the compression arising from traditionary faith.” 1

John William Draper • Wrote "History of the Conflict between Religion and Science”(1874) • using his beloved “immutable laws” that governed almost everything – science, culture, history-- in support of anti-Catholic sentiment. • For example, it was the Catholic church that frustrated the “law of nature” that human populations should double every 25 years. 2

John William Draper • Continually quotes authorities out of context – most notably St Augustine • Spiraled into a vitriolic rant against Romanism • Regarded Protestantism as a sister of science and Islam, the “Southern Reformation.” 3

Andrew Dickson White • Historian, Founder of Cornell, the first major secular university in America • He hoped this would "an asylum for Science—where truth shall be sought for truth's sake, not stretched or cut exactly to fit Revealed Religion." • Deeply hurt by attacks on him by the religious right for founding a secular university Andrew Dickson White honored at Cornell

Andrew Dickson White • In response to attacks on him about Cornell, he wrote "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom" (1896) to describe how pernicious the (Catholic) religion was. Andrew Dickson White, 1985

Andrew Dickson White • Eventually, even Christian groups took White to task for perpetuating myths by his biases and cooking of the facts. • misrepresented Augustine as holding beliefs contrary to understanding, when he actually held such beliefs up as examples of what must not be taken literally because they contradicted understanding. Andrew Dickson White, 1985

Andrew Dickson White • White also misrepresent Columbus as having to fight against church-defended flat earth beliefs • misrepresented the religious attacks on Darwin as being broadly supported by the authorities. • apparently believed that the fight against the dogmatic critics who attacked him justified winning over being right. Andrew Dickson White, 1985

Both these books are wretched history Draper’s "History of the Conflict between Religion and Science” (1874) White’s "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom" (1896) Unacceptable by any reputable historian… rife with well known fallacies and avoidable errors.

But damage has been done In America, evolutionary theory is still viewed with doubt or suspicion

SCIENCE and RELIGION: The war that wasn’t