Scientus

The Conflict Hypothesis-A Conflicting View

In modern liberal societies, the belief that church and science conflict is almost as fundamental as the belief in the separation of church and state. This "Conflict Hypothesis" is taught at all levels of education and often underpins discussions of science and famous scientists. Some might be surprised to know that this belief has only been popular for about 150 years. The main pillars of this belief that the church is inherently against science during these years was the medievals' belief in a flat earth, the Galileo Affair, and Giordano Bruno.

It is now accepted that one of the pillars of the conflict hypothesis, the belief that medievals commonly believed that the earth was flat, is a myth. It is a modern wonder that this myth was so widely believed given how thin the data supporting the theory was and how much contradicting data there was. Perhaps more amazing is that the myth is still claiming victims today from those trained to be discriminating in their use of data (including scientists and historians). Regardless, when a key support for a hypothesis is accepted as false, it is prudent to take a second look at the entire hypothesis.

The two pillars left after the Flat Earth Myth is discarded, Galileo and Bruno, both deal with cosmology. The narrow focus of these discussions is highlighted when viewed against the backdrop of modern science. The map of modern science shown below illustrates the relative contributions of the different disciplines of science (more information on the map is available at Eigenfactor.org). Cosmology does not even show on the map; it represents a small part of the Astronomy and Astrophysics bubble.

Map by EigenFactor

If scientrometrics shows a disconnect between these discussions and the practice of modern science, a scan through any room in a modern office or home, or a walk through any modern public space will show a disconnect with the impact of science on the modern citizen. The video below is a 360 degree scan of Times Square. We really do live in a world of watts, volts, amps and ohms. Three of these electrical units are namesakes of scientists that had very deep connections with the Jesuits. Alessandro Volta and Andre-Marie Ampere were trained by the Jesuits, and the Jesuits funded the sabbatical for Georg Ohm which resulted in the publication of Ohm's Law. Ohm's law is certainly one of the scientific laws that most deeply affects our modern society. These three scientists are rarely part of the discussion.

Site Organization

This site presents a critical view of the "conflict" hypothesis which assumes that the church and science are inherently opposed. It does not provide a complete treatment of the history of science and the church since that would require thousands of pages. Hopefully, it will help broaden the discussion by including more disciplines, a greater span of history, and discussions of scientific practice. So many of the discussions focus almost entirely on one discipline, cosmology, that represents less than 1% of modern scientific activity. They also seem to concentrate on events over a 40 year period in the seventeenth century, ignoring most of the rest of history. The elements of scientific practice in these discussions are either ignored or treated as an afterthought.

This site is an e-book organized around 6 sections. Although there are many articles, most of the articles stem off the theme articles. Science:Beyond Method and Modern Times discusses the actual workings of science as a background to discussing Science and the Church. Cooking History discusses how complete eras in history and some very important scientific developments are ignored. Fathers of the Telescope discusses the important role that church scientists played in the development of the telescope. The Galileo Soundbite looks at the Galileo incident as a soundbite and provides a wider view of the incident by looking at related events that occurred before, during and after Galileo's life. Finally, Duhem:The DaVinci Code discusses bias and censorship amongst historians, focusing on the censorship of Pierre Duhem. This site also has a Telescope Timeline and a Classical Mechanics Timeline. This site is a work in progress. More articles and perhaps more themes may be added in the future. Feedback is appreciated and can be emailed here.