It’s not a majority vote issue
James Hannam is confused about accommodationism.
As the battle between creationism and evolution heats up, some atheists, like Jerry Coyne, have been insisting that it is really a battle between religion and science. Coyne resists any accommodation between religious and non-religious scientists…In order for his position to make sense, he needs to show that there is some sort of existential conflict between religion and science. So it is unfortunate for him that the historical record clearly shows that accommodation and even cooperation have been the default positions in the relationship.
No, that’s not right. It would perfectly possible for the historical record to show that and for the accommodation still to be philosophically incoherent. Coyne’s claim is not that accommodation has never happened but that it is not coherent.
True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind…The real question is whether there is a philosophical incompatibility between religion and science. Does the empirical nature of science contradict the revelatory nature of faith? Are the gaps between them so great that the two institutions must be considered essentially antagonistic?
What has happened in the past is fundamentally irrelevant to what Coyne is arguing, in the same way that a contemporary opinion poll would be. The historical record makes essentially the same claim as an opinion poll could make: lots of people think or have thought that science and religion can be reconciled. Coyne already knows that, and has stipulated that they can be reconciled in the trivial sense that a person can do both. His point is that the reconciliation is not coherent. Majority opinion, now or in the past, can’t decide that question.
Unfortunately for him, Hannam’s entire article rests on this irrelevant claim about the history of the conflict, which just isn’t what Coyne is talking about. Oh well.
It’s Hannam, not Hallam. And unfortunately that’s not all you got wrong.
History is the test bed for our ideas. In fact, it’s the only one we’ve got. If your philosophy contradicts the historical record it might be things have suddenly changed. More likely, you’re just mistaken.
Well, Mr. Hannam, perhaps you can help me. It’s interesting that, in the last twenty years or so, there seems to have been a sea change amongst (at least Christian) historians, who have sought, as you do, to re-establish the relationship between religion and science, and to deny that the ‘war’ of science and religion ever took place. (But then I know fundamentalists who are doing their PhDs in philosophy, so none of this comes as a big surprise.)
Yet, the truth still seems to be that Christianity, to go no farther, did oppose many scientific advances. The flatness of the earth may not have been a deep concern of the church, but its centrality was. Galileo may not have been imprisoned or tortured, but he was forced to recant his belief regarding the two world systems (Aristotle’s and his). Even that, in dialogue form, was not permitted to be published, and Galileo himself was threatened with torture. As for those who were placed on the index, whether scientists or not, Erasmus Darwin, Bacon, Locke, Montesquieu, Montaigne, Hume, Hobbes, Heine, Kazantsakis, Mill, Milton, Swift: all these (an of course many others) were indexed.
It seems a bit of an exaggeration to suggest that religion and science, over the centuries since the Renaissance, had a peaceful and mutually supportive relationship. Suddenly, in this wonderful post-modern age, Christians and other religious are rereading the evidence, and the whole of history is refurbished to meet with religion’s new ascendence in this age of science. Our science, our values, everything that makes life worthwhile is to be attributed to religion. My, oh my! It’s all about gods, after all.
Were religion and reason not opposed throughout the 18th century? Were there no objections to the use of human bodies for medical research? None at all? No problems, as we have today, with vaccinations? No issues with anaesthesia? No struggles with biblical scholarship? No problems with human freedom, with the acceptance of democracy, the ascription of rights?
Suddenly, Christians, like Hannam, are claiming that religion is blameless in all these respects. Not only that, but no one, says, Hannam, was burnt for his scientific beliefs. Of course not. That’s a simple one. People were burnt for heresy, not for science, but science could be heresy. That’s why Galileo was held under house arrest. There seems to be a great white-washing job being done on religion’s anti-scientific activities. We are to believe that no religious authority, before the befuddled creationists, ever had a problem with science. It strikes me as a con job, and I’m not buying it, yet….. It will take more that a bit of bluster to change my mind.
And since James Hannam thinks that the fine-tuning argument is still a powerful support for belief in a god, it’s going to take more than “God’s Philosophers” to convince me that religion is the mainstay and support of science.
Oops, sorry about the name.
Your reply, on the other hand, is not entirely convincing.
I’d say Mr. Hannam’s reply isn’t convincing at all. It’s just a slightly wordier “Harumpph.”
Even if we were to stipulate that you were correct about their being no historical fight between science and religion, what does that have to do Precisely nothing. There really is, in the U.S., a serious public fight going on between a rational outlook and a religious one, and about how religion damages public discourse and civic life by getting a free pass from scrutiny. This is just a fact, Mr. Hannam. It doesn’t become less of a fact, or less of a legitimate concern, even if it were the first time in history that such a conflict occurred.
Damnable lack of a preview feature. I meant to write above:
“Even if we were to stipulate that you were correct about their being no historical fight between science and religion, what does that have to do with the conflict that is going on right now? Precisely nothing.”
“If your philosophy contradicts the historical record it might be things have suddenly changed. More likely, you’re just mistaken.”
Simply restating the same fallacious argument is not a good way to prove your point.
Imagine if we used your standard to evaluate other propositions. Some scientists read horoscopes so astrology and science must be compatible! Some people believe in Big Foot so he must exist!
Maybe Galileo should have just acquiesced to conventional wisdom instead of asking whether the heliocentric theory was consistent with the evidence.
I meant geocentric, obviously.
James Hannam: In your Guardian article you are concerned to show that there has never been any serious conflict between religion and science. But you fail to make a distinction between religious thought and religious authority. Galileo’s fight was not with the Bible, but with the Inquisition and the Pope, as was Bruno’s.
“For a long time it was supposed that the Renaissance thinker Giordano Bruno had died for his science. But we now know he was an occultist whose support for Copernicus was not based on scientific grounds and neither was it a reason for his execution…”
Well, I’ll be the mug: what was he executed for? What fine distinction needs making in his case?
Your article is just short of being an apology for the man’s treatment by the Church. I read it as implying that if he had been into science and not the occult(?) the burning of him would have been worse than it was.
I can agree with you to the extent that religion has never been against all science. As far as I am aware, the teachings of Archimedes were never put onto the Papal Index, though if the Bible had dealt anywhere with mechanics and flotation things would have been different.
“It is a sad fact that both Catholics and Protestants were engaged in the despicable practice of burning heretics. But no one was ever executed for their scientific views…”
Is that so? Well, it depends I suppose on how one defines ‘scientific’ as a subcategory of ‘views’. If http://www.geocities.com/christprise/holy-inquisitions-3.html is anything to go by, untold thousands perished horribly in the Church’s war on ideas, even if at times mass hysteria took over from clerical direction. Many women who were keen on the (occult?) arts of herbalism and midwifery became targets and victims.
The Bible in many parts is a pretty plastic document, but not for example where it says “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus 22:18) It could hardly be more definite there. God only knows the final tally of victims of the inquisitions, and He is not saying.
“Only with the trial of Galileo, put under house arrest for life for teaching that the earth goes around the sun, does popular perception have much basis on fact. But even this case was more about the pope’s self-esteem than science.”
Perhaps the Pope was having a bad hair day, and Galileo made fun of him over that. Perhaps the Pope had a hangover; or one hangover after another. I may have it wrong, but it seems to me that your concern is to airbrush intolerance out of Church history. If that is your aim, it would be hypocritical of me to wish you luck. The histories of Christianity and Islam both indicate that religions, and particularly monotheisms, imply intolerance and commonly lead to it.
People engaged in scientific enquiry seek answers in nature, not in holy writ. The theory that mental illness is down to possession has no place in modern psychiatry, despite the record that Christ supported it. Religion has no place or role in science, though science has often been appealed to in a religious context. This is true, however otherwise ‘compatible’ they may be.
I know professing Christians who home-educated their children because they did not want them taught evolution at school, and who see modern science education in particular as leading to secularism. On the latter, I think they are probably right. God has to find an ever-diminishing number of gaps to fill.
This part is even sillier:
“History is the test bed for our ideas. In fact, it’s the only one we’ve got.”
No it isn’t.
We can test our ideas through empirical investigation. If I think pouring water out of a glass will make my ceiling wet, I can test that idea by trying it. I’ll then discover I was wrong.
People used to think all swans were white. They didn’t change their minds because this idea failed the test of history. They changed their minds when they found black swans.
It is not even true to say that history can be used to test ideas. You are confusing cause and effect. Ideas persist because they are good ideas – not vice versa.
Only believing things that have stood the test of time is a recipe for conservatism. We’d never be able to embrace any new ideas ever again.
This is an absolutely excellent post that sums the issue up very well
Jakob:”Only believing things that have stood the test of time is a recipe for conservatism. We’d never be able to embrace any new ideas ever again.”
::-) Or a recipe for someone’s strawman stereotype of conservatism. Conservative social attitudes don’t prevent innovation. Eg RG LeTourneau, “Men and Mountains”.
Firstly, thank you to the posters here for addressing the substance of my article rather than go off in tangents. I nearly ended up derailing my own thread at CiF.
On history, of course the past is evidence. It’s a four thousand year case study about how mankind has dealt with the problems that afflict him. We can see how lots of important scientific figures have reconciled science and religion. We do see that generally speaking, they have ‘rubbed along fine’. That’s not just the major figures like Newton and Faraday. It’s also the everyday work by hundreds of thousands of religious individuals striving in their own scientific spheres. Surely if no lesser figure than Darwin proclaims that there is no contradiction between theism and evolution, we should take note.
Second, the myths. A few more were noted above on, for instance, vaccines, for which see here:
http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2009/03/pope-leo-xii-and-vaccination-ban.html
And why bring in all those unscientific subjects? Getting a bit stuck for undebunked examples? Anyway, the myths are a problem because they prevent us from analysing the evidence reliably. If your case study has lots of false data attached to it, you are far more likely to draw the wrong conclusions. Besides, I’m a historian so care about these things.
Naturally, we are interested in the here-and-now. But looking back, a clear lesson seems to be that the accommodationists got things done. So even if Coyne and Myers are right (and of course, I don’t think they are) about the incompatibility of religion and evolution, prior experience suggests that they should nonetheless respect differences and even hold their noses for the good of science.
No one would expect them to hide their views. But at the moment, they give the impression that they are partisans for atheism rather than for evolution. Let me make it simple. Here’s the problem:
You have a group of people who reject evolution because of their religious beliefs. You have a mission to educate these people.
Do you:
a) explain that many of their learned co-believers have thought carefully about this issue and don’t think there is a contradiction;
b) say nothing to these people and let the likes of Coyne, Dawkins and Myers convince them that they are right to be scared through other channels.
Now, if you care about evolution, this looks like a no-brainer to me.
On other issues, yes the inquisition was despicable, notwithstanding quite a lot of mythology has grown up around it. And the modern freedoms we so value did not exist so very long ago. They didn’t exist anywhere, least of all in ancient Greece.
Best wishes
James
http://jameshannam.com
ChrisPer,
A refusal to ever consider new ideas is almost a dictionary definition of conservatism.
James Hannam,
I think you are still missing the point. Religion and science are philosophically incompatible.
That doesn’t mean that scientists can’t be religious. If people were incapable of holding philosophically incompatible beliefs, we wouldn’t have needed to spend thousands of years solving philosophical problems.
When considering philosophical questions, history is only useful as a way of finding out what arguments have already been put forward. It is no of use for judging the strength of arguments.
Whether notable figures have advocated accommodationism is irrelevant. Argument from authority is a fallacy, and so is “x number of people can’t be wrong.”
“It’s interesting that, in the last twenty years or so, there seems to have been a sea change amongst (at least Christian) historians, who have sought, as you do, to re-establish the relationship between religion and science, and to deny that the ‘war’ of science and religion ever took place. (But then I know fundamentalists who are doing their PhDs in philosophy, so none of this comes as a big surprise.)”
There has been a longstanding attempt by historians of science to refute the ‘historical conflict thesis’ which was formulated by Dickson White and Draper in the late 19th century. I think it misses the mark to characterise this as christian propaganda, not least because some of the principle proponents are atheists. Here I might point to Ron Numbers who co-authored this article with David C lindberg:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1987/PSCF9-87Lindberg.html
Another example would be the early modern period you refer to. Stephen Gaukroger (a respected historian with no theological motives) writes in ‘The Emergence of a Scientific Culture’ that:
‘…what made natural philosophy attractive to so many in the seventeenth and eighteenth century were the prospects it offered for the renewal of natural theology. Far from science breaking free of religion in the early-modern era, its consolidation depended crucially on religion being in the driving seat: Christianity took over natural philosophy in the seventeenth century, setting its agenda and projecting it forward in a way quite different from that of any other scientific culture, and in the end establishing itself as something in part constructed in the image of religion.’
Of course these are only two examples but I hope it goes some way to showing that the scholarship that has been done in the science-religion area goes far beyond mere ‘white washing’.
Regarding the anaesthesia point I would submit my own meagre contribution here and recommend the work of A D Farr:
http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2008/12/deep-sleep-of-adam.html
I still think that religious historians are engaged in a comprehensive con-job about the relationships between science and Christianity during the modern period, whether the tension was with superstitious and uneducated Christians, or whether it was with top theologians.
As Josh has pointed out there is already a fairly widespread struggle with science amongst contemporary religionists of practically every stripe. Canada has a minister for science and technology who denies (so far as we have been able to get a straightforward statement from him) the existence of evolutionary processes. And there are enough people around who think that prayer alone is sufficient for those with serious diseases to reinforce the idea that religion and science are still at loggerheads. Bruno was not burnt for his scientific beliefs, we are to suppose, and whatever the outcome of the debate between Huxley and Wilberforce, science and religion, or, more specifically, evolution and religion, have never been on close terms, however much liberal theology has been able to assimilate scientific thinking, finding places for God in the gaps that are left.
As for that, the ‘God of the gaps’ isn’t an ignus fatuus either. Of course, as is well known, Bruno was burnt for heresy, not for his scientific beliefs, but it was his scientific beliefs which led him to adopt heretical pantheistic opinions. And whether anaesthesia was or was not opposed by the religious, there are many religious today who nevertheless insist that people in great pain may not relieve that pain by receiving assistance in dying. Suffering, we are told, is a necessary part of life, and cannot be relieved by making a quicker escape from it.
I’m not an historian, so I cannot say, but the revisionism of history to accommodate a harmony between religion and science, and even to claim science for religion, seems to have been gaining apace in the last few years. It is still not compelling. And whether Victoria herself overcame uneducated fears of anaesthesia, or whether there were those who really believed that giving birth without pain was somehow an offence against the god who said that women would suffer henceforth in childbirth, is neither here nor there. Historians cannot simply ignore contemporary beliefs, just because they can now find, in the literature, beliefs expressed by ‘top’ theologians who were at the forefront of bringing about change.
Besides, did science have much effect upon religion? Has religion grown up to show itself somehow compatible with increasing scientific understanding? No, it has not. Despite all the posturing by contemporary (largely religious) historians of science, religion keeps to its own way, wedded to ideas which are still as incompatible with science as they were when Huxley and Wilberforce crossed verbal swords in Oxford.
As Owen Chadwick says in his contribution to McManners’ history of Christianity, “It is observable how little had changed. The church was still in the context of the historic doctrines, from the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to all the doctrines mentioned in the catholic creeds, including the virgin birth and the resurrection of the body. So far as a restatement of the words of Christian doctrine was concerned, Darwin need never have written.” (356)
Indeed, natural theology might have found some purchase in the growing scientific picture of the world in the 18th century, but Hume held this theologising up to ridicule, and Darwin brought an end to it. Theology will always be finding shelter in the next scientific theory or discovery to come along, so of course there were many clergymen amongst those at the forefront of science. One sociological aspect of clerical life is telling: clerics were practically the only well-educated men who had the ‘flex time’ to devote to the study of nature. Mendel, after all, was a monk, and every teacher at Oxford or Cambridge was, at one time, in deacon’s orders, at least. Darwin, himself, as everyone knows, was designated for the church.
But now, it seems, Christian historians want to go on the offensive. It’s not just that there were Christians who were leading scientists – how could it have been otherwise in a world dominated by religious belief – but Christianity itself, we are to believe, provides the foundation for the scientific study of nature. However, if there were foundational ideas within Christianity – and that there were seems to me incontestable – it took more than just those ideas to bring about the scientific revolution. And the fact that Christianity emerges from this period of revolutionary science with its doctrines largely unchanged, gives the lie to the idea that science and religion are compatible.
Owen Chadwick speaks of “the conflict between science and religion, which raged between about 1840 and 1939.” (ibid., 354) Is he just wrong about this, great Christian historian that he is (?), or have contemporary historians come up with something that was not known when Chadwick flourished? Why, I ask myself, should historians of science be so keen, as Humphrey Clark says, to refute the historical conflict theory?
The task of history is to tell us what happened. The fact that, during a long period, scientists and other thinkers, felt themselves under threat from the “ancien regime”, and hid behind anonymity or borders – Voltaire living conveniently close to Switzerland for this purpose – or even death – as with the posthumous publication of Hume’s Dialogues – suggests that the relationship between religion and science was not, as the revisionists continue to claim, one of amity and agreement, but one where religion often used its power to suppress freedom of thought and investigation. Or did I just dream of the Syllabus of Errors, the anti-modernist oath, and the Index of Prohibited Books?
Eric,
Quick point: neither Voltaire nor Hume were scientists. Both were philosophers. Given we are talking about conflict or otherwise between science and religion, you really should stick to science. To bring up non-scientists as your examples is just sloppy and suggests that you are running short of authentic evidence for your case.
And yes, Chadwick is rather dated. Believe it or not, in history its a good idea to use recent scholarship as things change. Just like in science.
Best wishes
James
James Hannam: Thanks for your brief (zero-word) answers to my questions above. At least I have been spared the sort of condescension you trotted out for Eric.
Heliocentric astrophysics and Darwinian biology were the two big cannons fired by scientists at traditional belief, but churchmen saw themselves and their institutions as targets only after the fact. Once the offending doctrines were published, censorship offered no solution. But refutation was attempted at all levels in Christianity.
As a teenager in the 1950s, I was treated to refutations of Darwin delivered various visiting speakers to our Anglican church’s youth fellowship. These I now see as the last echoes of the argument between science and religion that goes back in European culture at least as far back as the trial of Galileo in 1633, 116 years after Luther nailed his theses to the cathedral door. Clerics and theologians since have gradually and sensibly decided to refrain from pronouncing or trying to rule on matters in the fields of the natural and human sciences. Though Galileo came close enough to following Bruno to the stake, it was the Church that got burned as a result of his trial. Catholic scholars have been fighting an apologetic rearguard action over it ever since, as they are still doing over the inquisitions.
Geologists followed up with burgeoning evidence from palaeontology and other sources that questioned assumptions about the age of the Earth based on biblical accounts of creation and genealogies back to Adam and Eve, at around the same time that Darwin was formulating his theory. This was added to the challenges to religious doctine intrinsic in Galileo’s astrophysics (after Copernicus) and Darwin’s theory. Modern Young Earth creationism does not challenge heiocentricity, but does challenge evolution and conventional stratigraphy.
The basic propositions of modern biology and geology have caused theologians great trouble, the more so because they had no effective arguments in response. The only ones that could be advanced with any confidence on their parts depended on the audience’s prior acceptance of the proposition that if it was in the Bible, it was true. So the only major field of science which has not got into a clash to date with Christian doctrine is chemistry, there being nothing stated pertaining to that field in the Bible. To the Young Earth creationists on the other hand, their own best chance of eternal life depends on the literal truth of the Bible. If it can be found wrong over creation, the same applies over what really matters to them, which is sin and redemption.
If God had taken the trouble to reveal and dictate the scientific canon to Moses, Mohammed and the rest: a bunch of knowledge including all He knew about physics, chemistry, geology and biology, He would have save not just a lot of trips up blind alleys (such as phlogiston theory) but an awful lot of human lives as well. Better still, He could have handed ready-made printed copies of it all to them. The Bible even today would still be the only text-book of science. There would be no dispute between science and religion ever, because religion would include all of science.
He could have done it, I am sure. Perhaps the idea never occurred to Him.
Ian, Bruno was burnt for his occult beliefs and not his science. It’s hardly apologetics to point out historical facts.
You seem to be making a case for NOMA, which is fine by me. Modern science has shown vast swaths of stuff that people previously believed is wrong. Some of the wrong stuff got canonised by the churches and people got defensive about it. But this was relatively rare because the church has usually realised that it should not treat theology as science.
As for all the stuff on witches, what was your point on that? What has it to do with science? The deaths of 50,000 men and women is a tragedy whether it happens over three hundred years of witch trials or in a single day at the Battle of the Somme. But it isn’t evidence of a conflict between science and religion.
Best wishes
James
Mr Hannam
Two small points arising.
You postulated two courses of action re. the suposed evolution/creationism conflict.
These were:
“a) explain that many of their learned co-believers have thought carefully about this issue and don’t think there is a contradiction;
b) say nothing to these people and let the likes of Coyne, Dawkins and Myers convince them that they are right to be scared through other channels.”
However, this seems to be a flse dichotomy, since there is also option (c) – that most creationists, especially those in public “debate” on the subject are deliberate liars and con-men, who have been caught out telling their lies time and again and again ….
And, that APART from the overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution, there is also the slight problem of the creationists repeated dishonesty?
You later raise the spectre of NOMA, but unfortunately this is not a viable option, either, since science is based on EVIDENCE, and religion is based on no evidence whatsoever.
The underlying philosophical and operating principles are incompatible, unless you are prepared to carefully shut-off the inconsistencies in your own private belief-forms.
( As Newton did, incidentally, since he was technically an heretic – he was what would now be called a unitarian, since he didn’t have any time for the “trinity”)
Greg, let’s assume that (c) is true.
What course of action would you suggest. My initially feeling is telling people that their religious leaders are liars is unlikely to help them accept evolution.
Best wishes
James
James Hannam
“On history, of course the past is evidence…We can see how lots of important scientific figures have reconciled science and religion. We do see that generally speaking, they have ‘rubbed along fine’.”
Yes of course the past is ‘evidence,’ but it’s not evidence for what Jerry Coyne is arguing, so your whole claim is fundamentally beside the point that you’re attempting to make. It’s not evidence that Coyne is wrong that religion and science are not philosophically compatible. Coyne already knows that it’s possible for the two to ‘rub along fine’ – in the sense of ignoring the underlying philosophical incompatibility.
You go on to say ‘the problem’ is people who reject evolution because of their religious beliefs. But there is more than one problem. There is no such thing as ‘the problem.’ That’s why all this advice about tactics can be so entirely beside the point.
Tingey: stay out of this. You’ve been told approximately ten thousand times not to call people liars here. Do not comment here.
Eric, forgive me if you thought I was condescending. My problem with your posts is that you are throwing in everything up to the kitchen sink so it is hard to know where to start.
Let me just say this: it is hardly surprising that core religious doctrines have remained unchanged by the advance of science. That is because science has nothing to say about those doctrines. And that, really, has been one of my points all along.
As for Coyne, Ophelia, I’m not interested in arguing about the differences between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. I think he’s wrong that theism and evolution are incompatible but see little chance to persuade him or you otherwise. History teaches us that even if Coyne is right about this, it doesn’t have to create a conflict.
I am concerned about his tactics for dealing with creationism. The biggest service that religious scientists can do is say in good faith, “I am religious like you and I accept the findings of evolution. There is no conflict.” This is precisely the message that Coyne wants to prevent NASE (sp?) from letting them promulgate. So Coyne wants to make our job harder which is an odd thing for a champion of evolution to do.
I’m not interested in arguing about the differences between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism either. It’s Chris Mooney who’s been riding that particular hobby horse, and he’s on your team.
You see little chance to persuade him or me otherwise? That’s a bit rich! Try offering an actual argument!
For instance, you could explain why science has nothing to say about the core doctrines of religion. That’s an enormous claim, and you must know that many scientists point out that the core doctrines of religion include many perfectly testable claims about the world.
Hannam writes:
No, no, no. Do you bother to read what Coyne actually writes? He (and many of us) are not trying to tell the NCSE not to mention the undisputed fact that some theists see no conflict between their religion and evolution. He is objecting to the NCSE’s positive endorsement of the position that there is no conflict between science and religion. They’re not just merely claiming “some people see no conflict,” which is true and unobjectionable. They are, instead, positively promoting the claim that there is no conflict at all. That is disputed.
Can you not see the difference, or, I ask again, did you simply not read what Coyne wrote?
Josh, the difference is, in practice, meaningless. NCSE can’t allow individuals to speak through them and then turn around and say, well actually we don’t endorce that view. They have enough trouble with creationists claiming that they are anti-Christian without having to specifically say they actually don’t have a view.
Stop complaining. I’m sure the Richard Dawkins Foundation is exactly the organisation you need, but I doubt it is making much progress persuading creationists.
Best wishes
James
Note continued failure or refusal to offer an actual argument.
Wouldn’t you think theists would realize that they don’t do themselves any good by failing or refusing to make an argument? Wouldn’t you think they would realize it doesn’t make a good impression?
Ophelia,
Actually, my latest attempt not to offer an argument went shmoot as the train I was in entered a tunnel. So I’ll take that as a sign and return to the matter, argument and all, in a blog post as soon as I’m able.
Thanks all the folks here for the stimulation.
Best wishes
James
James Hannam:
Two quotes from your contributions to this thread: (1) addressed to me: “As for all the stuff on witches, what was your point on that? What has it to do with science? The deaths of 50,000 men and women is a tragedy whether it happens over three hundred years of witch trials or in a single day at the Battle of the Somme. But it isn’t evidence of a conflict between science and religion.” And (2) to us all as a parting tribute: “Thanks all the folks here for the stimulation.”
I take it from both the above that you could find further stimulation from a read (however critical on your part) of an interesting product of the 1970s feminist movement. That is ‘Witches, Midwives, and Nurses – A History of Women Healers’ by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. It is at http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/witches.html
Historians attempting to get to the substance of the mediaeval witch-hunts in Europe and the relevant inquisitions have to deal with the usual problem that the only documentary evidence left was written by the victors in the conflict. None the less there is a school of thought, to which I incline in agreement, that the good old war between religion and science was even then and in that context, up and running.
(BTW I don’t agree re NOMA. The Church’s problem has ever been to keep its domain free from scientific trespassers. Auguste Comte’s classic statement about physical limits to scientific inquiry and knowledge is pertinent here.)
A short quote from Ehrenreich and English to whet your appetite:
“The Church saw its attack on peasant healers as an attack on magic, not medicine. The devil was believed to have real power on earth, and the use of that power by peasant women —whether for good or evil— was frightening to the Church and State. The greater their satanic powers to help themselves, the less they were dependent on God and the Church and the more they were potentially able to use their powers against God’s order. Magic charms were thought to be at least as effective as prayer in healing the sick, but prayer was Church-sanctioned and controlled while incantations and charms were not. Thus magic cures, even when successful, were an accursed interference with the will of God, achieved with the help of the devil, and the cure itself was evil. There was no problem in distinguishing God’s cures from the devil’s, for obviously the Lord would work through priests and doctors rather than through peasant women.
“The wise woman, or witch, had a host of remedies which had been tested in years of use. Many of the herbal remedies developed by witches still have their place in modern pharmacology. They had pain-killers, digestive aids and anti-inflammatory agents. They used ergot for the pain of labor at a time when the Church held that pain in labor was the Lord’s just punishment for Eve’s original sin. Ergot derivatives are the principal drugs used today to hasten labor and aid in the recovery from childbirth. Belladonna—still used today as an anti-spasmodic—was used by the witch-healers to inhibit uterine contractions when miscarriage threatened. Digitalis, still an important drug in treating heart ailments, is said to have been discovered by an English witch. Undoubtedly many of the witches’ other remedies were purely magical, and owed their effectiveness —if they had any— to their reputation.
“The witch-healer’s methods were as great a threat (to the Catholic Church, if not the Protestant ) as her results, for the witch was an empiricist: She relied on her senses rather than on faith or doctrine, she believed in trial and error, cause and effect. Her attitude was not religiously passive, but actively inquiring. She trusted her ability to find ways to deal with disease, pregnancy and childbirth — whether through medications or charms. In short, her magic was the science of her time.”
Alluded to in that is also an interesting line of inquiry which trespassing geneticists could carry out in the religious domain: namely on the manner of inheritance and transmission of original sin. Just one of many.
As Hamlet said: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…”
‘…. core religious doctrines have remained unchanged by the advance of science. That is because science has nothing to say about those doctrines.’
I suspect some religious claims, core or otherwise, are dying the death of a thousand qualifications and evasions under the impact of science.
And if science says nothing about these doctrines, how should we interpret these US survey results?
Belief in a personal god.
General public: c70+%
Scientists: c40%
Elite scientists (NAS): c10%
Of course, survey results don’t prove philosophical incompatibility (and I think there’s a problem with the methodology of the NAS survey), but IF we are going to use history as evidence of compatibility, then history is ongoing and today’s religion driven hostility to stem cell research and the teaching of evolution is at least as relevant as Hypatia’s death 1600 years ago.
“I take it from both the above that you could find further stimulation from a read (however critical on your part) of an interesting product of the 1970s feminist movement. That is ‘Witches, Midwives, and Nurses – A History of Women Healers’ by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. It is at http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/witches.html“
Hi Ian
Can I point you to Tim O’ Neil brief review of Witches, Midwives, and Nurses as it references a number of important analyses of the book.
http://historyversusthedavincicode.com/chaptertwentyeight.htm#midwife
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses was subjected to critical analysis after the Seventies and it was found to be deeply flawed, specifically the research was selective, incomplete and ultimately false. Ehrenrich and English had simply taken a few isolated cases, assumed they were the normal course of affairs and then extrapolated from them to conclude that healers and midwives were a particular target of the Witch Crazes. In fact, the evidence indicates otherwise.
David Harley systematically examined the evidence in his article “Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch” (Social History of Medicine 3 (1990), pp. 1-26.) and found that being a midwife decreased the chances of being charged with witchcraft.
Many accusations of witchcraft centred on still-births and infant deaths, with the blame for these occurrences being put on the malicious magic of witches. Far from being more likely to be accused of witchcraft, midwives and village healers were more likely to be the accusers, or to be witnesses summoned to support such accusations.
Diane Purkiss in ‘The Witch in History’ (p8) wrote that:
‘There is no evidence that the majority of the accused were healers and midwives; in England and also in some parts of the continent, Midwives were more likely to be found helping witch-hunters. Most women used herbal medicines as part of their household skills, some of which were quasi-magical without arousing anxiety.’
You can read the relevant page here.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nQjIGOp16xIC&dq=diane+purkiss+the+witch+in+history&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=Zj0lgi21qs&sig=AN0okfLMpuy61DNA-5ln7V_QciE&hl=en&ei=yDY3StegGKLQjAeTsJCkDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA8,M1
Thanks for your post Ian. On Ehrinreich and English, you might be interested in the book quoted here. It explains why historians have an extremely negative view of their work:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MK-onYxMjT4C&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=Ehrenreich+and+English&source=bl&ots=_nGpjUSofj&sig=4_Rhdub-McUub8TPCJGqcPZk4Do&hl=en&ei=hjg3Sq-9KsyrjAfY8NGZDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7
Genetics is more interesting and I may try to get back to you on that.
Best wishes
James
Humphrey Clarke and James Hannam: Noted, and again noted.
I am a bit pushed for blogging time at the moment, so I have had to put my agents to work on this case.
Watch this space.
This is a side issue and has almost nothing to do with the subject of my post. I would prefer to discuss the subject of my post rather than the historiography of witch hunts. Rushing up a side track simply allows Hannam to go on ignoring my substantive disagreement with his piece at Comment is Free.
Ophelia, I’m a historian. History is what I do and what I am interested in.
Anyway, my article shows that even if there is some sort of cosmic conflict between science and religion, that’s irrelevent to everyone except the extremists on both sides. So the rest of us can get on with science while you wave your spear at us. If the conflict only exists in theory and not in practice, then frankly who cares about it? Except philosophers of course. But I’m not one.
So your substantive disagreement is irrelevant. My last line was “If JAC really wants to promote evolution….” not “JAC has made a philosophical error…”
Best wishes
James
First of all, James, your article shows nothing of the sort. It makes that claim, but does not in fact even begin to show it.
Second, your article, while referring to historians who dispute the fact of conflict between science and religion, does not suggest what is meant by such conflict. In your article on your web page you suggest that those, like the French philosophes (though surely not only the French), who saw such a conflict, were mistaken.
But what were they mistaken about? What did the philosophes themselves mean when they spoke of that conflict? You are setting out to explode a myth. You are scarcely suggesting that the philosophes meant nothing by it, and that it was not a part of their experience, that their view of the world, and the religious view of the world, were at odds. Surely you are not suggesting this?
But you are talking about science, not philosophy, you will say. The distinction is false. Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Voltaire, Hume, Spinoza, Kant: all, in some way, saw their own thinking as opposed to the religious tradition in which they lived, and without them, and their enlightened views, is it plausible to suppose that the scientific revolution should have occurred at all? I don’t know. I’m not an historian, but clearly historians can tell tales to suit their purpose just as well as philosophers. My own sense, having, for many years, read in and around the philosophy and theology of the modern period, is that, while scientific investigations could proceed to a large extent, though not wholly, without face to face encounters with religious authority, the world view of science, which constituted a part of the ethos in which scientific exploration and experimentation was possible and encouraged, was in conflict with religion. And only an unrealistic distinction between science and all that is not science can make this conflict disappear.
You say you are an historian, and not a philosopher, but I think, truth be told, that, in order to make your point about the conflict between religion and science, you must do some philosophy first. It is precisely this question which is at issue in the contemporary debate about accommodationism. Your dispute with Coyne is similar to the dispute between the philosophes (Coyne) and the church (Hannam). You are making claims about world views, and that is where the conflict takes place. It is still taking place, despite all your historical arguments to the contrary. The thing which you deny is happening now, and you have just become part of it.
Thank you, Eric.
James, as Eric said, your article doesn’t show that at all. History doesn’t just straightforwardly ‘show’ things such as ‘that’s irrelevent to everyone except the extremists on both sides.’ You’re attempting to make an argument without making an actual argument, and then resorting to ‘I’m a historian’ by way of saying you don’t need to make an argument. The historians I know would not thank you for presenting the discipline in such a light!
I’m neither a historian nor a philosopher, but I still want reasons for thinking truth-claims are true. You’ve neglected the job of giving reasons.
Ophelia, as I’ve said, I will try to return to the question of what science can and cannot say about religion. I also promised to say something more about genetics. But I won’t do it now because I have a day job, two young children and not enough time.
On history, I can bang out answers because I’ve seen it all before. And it interests me rather more than what I still think will be a pointless philosophical discussion.
Best wishes
James
“And it interests me more [that is, banging out answers to historical questions because, of course, you’ve ‘seen it all before’] than what I still think will be a pointless philosophical discussion.”
But then to say that you are going to tell us what science can and cannot say about religion! Talk about arrogance! One moment you’re an historian, and the next moment, hey, presto, you’re going to tell us, mark you, what science can and cannot say about religion. What, pray tell, will that be? An historical point or a philosophical one? Or, Dog forbid, a theological one?! I am all agog!
You want to say something about the historical relationship between Christianity (not religion generally, I suppose) and science. But you have interpreted science in such a way that it does not include the real conflicts that took place. Certainly, there were a few paradigm cases like Galileo, which, I suspect, was more than just a piece of papal pique. But you have to remember all the works that were not published for fear of the Inquisition, or for fear of the censors in France, or the Kirk in Scotland, like some of Descartes’ later work. But Descartes was not a scientist you may say. Well, was he not?
And while you’re thinking about how to define science (for the 17th and 18th centuries – you are an historian, right?), just recall the deep theological quagmire that resulted from the scientific and philosophical revolution of the 17th century. Recall that there was suddenly a spate of works about religion within the bounds of reason alone. Why this sudden change in theology if there was not conflict between theology and science? Why, suddenly, did deism become a favoured option? Why was Arianism resurrected?
So far as I can tell, you’re going to have to do an awful lot of special pleading in order to fulfil your objective, because the relationship of science and religion was not as simple as your religious apologetic makes it out to be. But what I come back to as I write this is the fact that the conflict is still very real, and you’re one of the (religious) players.
OB: Your preferred course for the discussion is noted and respected.
Or to put it another way – James can ‘bang out answers’ but the ‘answers’ don’t answer the questions that are actually under discussion, and they don’t even answer the questions James thinks ought to be under discussion either. The banged-out ‘answers’ aren’t really answers.
But hey, it would take up too much of his time to do it right, and he’s a busy guy.
Hannam’s attitude is difficult to fathom. Judging philosophical arguments on their historical uptake is like judging the quality of wine based on it’s price. There is some weak correlation between the two, but that hardly makes wine-tasting redundant.
Maybe it is just a case of academic tribalism. History has all the answers so there’s no need for those pointless philosophers with their arguments and their logic. As if that’s the way to find things out!
Hmmmmm.
Surely Faith and theological….er….research? might have the same ‘aims as the scientific method (sc) but they produce converging results. The sc might not clash inevitable with canny religious teaching with regards to a helio v geocentric solar system. But in the case of evolution or quantum mechanics or even the nature of space time, that clash is insurmountable with conceding on either the science or the scripture.
Those who re-iterate and update the traditional metaphoric reading of the creation myths are excepting that. Others such as creationists cannot. Are they less religious? Consider if CERN throw up a workable model of a self creating universe. Into what shapes will these clerio-scietists and pundits have to contort themselves? The Creationists at least have the literal nature of their reading. Any challenge can be ignored as neo-heretics. What can the compromisers do?
If one excepts as religion as a form of ordering the world, setting norms, role etc, plus TMT and all that, then a contested but symbiotic relationship with Science until a certain point is to be expected. When the sky pixie weltanschuuang is legitimate i.e. has no conceivable joined up alternative and has very deep cultural resonance, a science not striking mortal blows at its narrative at the time might well be ‘in-tune’. Yet when Science began, as it did, to produce results and models san a deity and sans a need for deity, it was shattering.
Shorter – There is a functional dissonance betwixt the two. Science cuts the ground away from ‘metaphorists’ at every discovery, the gaps grow smaller and less god shaped. The reasons behind the revival in science denialism amongst the faithful speak of the threat to their world view. The ‘metapohorists’ are become obsolete
I have come across this discussion too late for it to be likely that anyone will read this, so I won’t address the various points in full. I should mention that I am not any sort of believer. I am a sceptical historian of science.Were religion and science not opposed throughout the 18th century?“Religion” and “Science,” in this sense, had not been invented in the 18th century. This question derives from the late 19th-century positivist depiction of an endless conflict. The question therefore should be, “Was there a conflict between particular kinds of theology and particular natural philosophies?” As natural philosophy had been subaltern to theology for centuries, it would hardly be surprising to find, for example, some Catholic theologians rejecting some Protestant natural philosophy. However, Newton’s natural philosophy was attractive to some Catholics, such as Malebranche, because it required constant divine miraculous operation, to maintain and adjust the immaterial force. Some Protestants, such as Leibniz, found the idea of the universe as the divine sensorium incomprehensible. Their God was incarnate, whereas that of Newton was not. Cartesians held out for decades, because Newton’s system was not material.Were there no objections to the use of human bodies for medical research?
The dissection of human bodies had been routine in universities and surgeons’ gilds for centuries. The discoveries of the Padua anatomists were inseparable from their particular religious interests. The surgeons recognizably depicted in Dutch anatomy paintings were pious Calvinists, for the most part. The main problem in the 18th century was an insufficient supply of corpses, which led to the market for stolen corpses.
No problems, as we have today, with vaccinations?
Despite some mockery about the use of material from cows, the use of vaccination promoted by Edward Jenner was quickly accepted from Russia to Rome. The earlier, riskier use of inoculation had been the subject of disputes in London during the 1720s and 1750s. Tory surgeons and preachers, all High Church Anglicans, opposed inoculation as interfering with God’s special providence, by introducing a deadly disease into a healthy body. Whig physicians and preachers, all Low Church Anglicans or Calvinist nonconformists, regarded inoculation as a means supplied by God’s general providence. It will be recalled that the main advocate for inoculation in North America was the Revd. Cotton Mather, FRS.
No issues with anaesthesia?Here we move into the 19th century. Those who promoted the notion of a “war between science and religion” endlessly claimed that Lister’s use of anaesthetic had been opposed by the clergy in barbaric Scotland. Homeopathic practitioners were especially fond of this. However, Lister himself mentioned only a single critical letter from a clergyman. He himself was a member of a small ultra-strict group that broke from the Church of Scotland, because its Calvinism was regarded as too lax.
No struggles with biblical scholarship?
Here we move into the 20th century, when the American fundamentalists broke away from the Presbyterian Church. One of their main objections was the teaching of historical criticism, imported from German seminaries, at Princeton’s Presbyterian seminary. Some Christian groups found the historical analysis of texts more problematic than others did. Hardly surprising. In those Christian denominations where there was a strong intellectual tradition, the acceptance of the new scholarship was relatively easy. There were fierce struggles in some Baptist colleges in the Southern US.
No problems with human freedom, with the acceptance of democracy, the ascription of rights?
Here we are moving even further from science, and it is unclear what countries and periods are involved. These are ongoing projects in all countries, to a greater or lesser extent. It would be hard to find anything like an exemplary democracy in most of the developed world. Certainly not in the US. Religious toleration developed in Holland and England as a religious response to the fierce denominational conflicts of the 17th century. It found its way into the US First Amendment because none of the Founders wanted the established religion of some other state imposed on their state by the federal government. Most of the early state constitutions are not notably tolerant.The concept of universal rights was proposed in the 18th century as an expression of divinely provided natural law. It was no regarded as contradicting the institution of slavery, but abolitionism rather than the defence of slavery sprang from religious motives. There were, of course, preachers in both armies during the US Civil War. Nobody advocated democracy until well into the 19th century, and it wasn’t a religious matter until women’s suffrage was advocated in the US by Unitarians and Quakers.
Well I read it.
Well, it wasn’t totally wasted then, even if you hated what I said. If a few more people notice, I might write some more.
Actually if you’d like I could post it as a guest post on my blog, which is now a lot busier than this site. I don’t hate it at all.
It’s not really a freestanding piece, just a comment. I have no special knowledge of the subjects in question, so there would be no very good reason for me to turn it into something larger. I was just tossing some general knowledge at the wall, to see if it would stick.I’m no philosopher, but I suspect that I would be too SSK for your taste. I am unmoved by the absence of a metaphysics that will securely link epistemology to ontology. The Real is presumably out there, but I’m not. I’m interested in the history of the uses of a concept, because I don’t think ideas have a history of their own. It is we who have histories, and who make them.
If anyone’s interested, I’ve returned to midwives and am undertaking, among other aspects, a partial demolition of the “Midwives Were not Witches” orthodoxy. It’s a task I’ve wanted to undertake for more than a decade.
I wrote more about science indeed being a majority issue, but I lost what I had written and couldn’t be bothered to rewrite, in view of the unlikelihood of anyone reading this.
I read it!