Why is the idea of conflict between science and religion so popular in the public imagination?
The "conflict thesis"-the idea that an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion-has long been part of the popular imagination. In The Warfare between Science and Religion, Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley have assembled a group of distinguished historians who explore the origin of the thesis, its reception, the responses it drew from various faith traditions, and its continued prominence in public discourse.
Several essays in the book examine the personal circumstances and theological idiosyncrasies of important intellectuals, including John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who through their polemical writings championed the conflict thesis relentlessly. Other essays consider what the thesis meant to different religious communities, including evangelicals, liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Finally, essays both historical and sociological explore the place of the conflict thesis in popular culture and intellectual discourse today.
Based on original research and written in an accessible style, the essays in The Warfare between Science and Religion take an interdisciplinary approach to question the historical relationship between science and religion. This volume, which brings much-needed perspective to an often bitter controversy, will appeal to scholars and students of the histories of science and religion, sociology, and philosophy.
Contributors: Thomas H. Aechtner, Ronald A. Binzley, John Hedley Brooke, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Noah Efron, John H. Evans, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Frederick Gregory, Bradley J. Gundlach, Monte Harrell Hampton, Jeff Hardin, Peter Harrison, Bernard Lightman, David N. Livingstone, David Mislin, Efthymios Nicolaidis, Mark A. Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Lawrence M. Principe, Jon H. Roberts, Christopher P. Scheitle, M. Alper Yalcinkaya
Industry Reviews
This is a book worthy of reading, digesting, and emulating in its close analysis of science and religion. The Warfare between Science and Religion will give the reader a trustworthy account of the most recent scholarship about the religion science nexus.
-Arie Leegwater, Calvin University, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
Historians of science have been attempting to destroy this myth-that science and religion have been perennially at war-for the past 40 years or so. Nonetheless, as the subtitle of the book conveys, this is the idea that wouldn't die. [The Warfare between Science and Religion] brings together a group of historian myth-busters who have been thinking about this question . . . One of the virtues of this book is that it also looks at science and religion interactions in Islam and Judaism as well as Christianity.
-Peter Harrison and Charles J. Styles, Five Books
The history of the assertion that science and religion are inevitably in conflict is dominated by two late nineteenth-century narratives; John William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). The present very welcome volume contains seventeen essays that examine these classic texts, their reception by contemporaries and the subsequent history of the conflict thesis.
-Geoffrey Cantor, University of Leeds, British Journal for the History of Science
The questions whether, why, and to what extent science and religion are in conflict has been one of the abiding motifs of Western culture. This collection by an international group of scholars covers the subject from a rich variety of angles . . . Those who are interested in the science-and-religion debate, and the impact of science as a cultural force, will find this book a fascinating read.
-Peter Forster, Church Times
Accessible, historically illuminating, meticulous.
-Quarterly Review of Biology
The focus of this outstanding collection that criticizes the idea of conflict between science and religion, represents the historian John Hedley Brooke's call for attention to the complexities of history . . . The idea of warfare between science and religion largely deserves burial, but as these essays show, the sentiments for conflicts endure.
-Paul J. Croce, Stetson University, Journal of American History
The Warfare between Science and Religion is amply successful in its project of providing a historical understanding of the warfare thesis-or, better, of the warfare theses-over a broad historical and ideological range, through a series of accessible and interesting chapters. And it is a vitally important project, considering the persistence of conflicts involving science and religion in the United States.
-Glenn Branch, National Center for Science Education, Reading Religion - Journal of the American Academy of Religion
