Professor Ronald L. Numbers,
Department
of
the
History of Science, University of Wisconsin - Madison:
Galileo
Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion
The
greatest
myth
in the history of science and religion holds that they
have been in a state of constant conflict. No one bears more
responsibility for promoting this notion than two nineteenth-century
American polemicists: Andrew Dickson White and John William Draper,
both of whom wrote best-selling books on the subject. Historians of
science have known for years that White's and Draper's accounts are
more propaganda than history (as is an opposing myth, that Christianity
alone gave birth to modern science). Yet the message has rarely escaped
the ivory tower. The secular public, if it thinks about such issues at
all, knows that organized
religion has always opposed scientific progress (witness the attacks on
Galileo, Darwin, and Scopes). The religious public knows that science has taken the
leading role in corroding faith (through naturalism and antibiblicism).
In this talk I will use a recent book of the same title to try to
dispel some of the hoary myths that continue to pass as historical
truths.
This talk was unfortunately cancelled
because the cloud of volcanic ash hindered Prof. Numbers' flight to
Europe.
tirsdag den 20.
april, 2010, kl. 17.00
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