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The idea that science and religion are at war with one another
is actually fairly recent. It really only arose in the last third of the
nineteenth century, after the publication of Darwin's book on evolution. In the
wake of the furor over Darwin's idea that humans were descended from apes, some
people on both sides tried to paint the other side as the enemy.
A key factor here was the publication of two best-selling books,
which specifically portrayed religion as the enemy of science. One book, by John
Draper, a medical school professor in New York city, was called "History of
the Conflict Between Science and Religion" (1874). The other, written by
Andrew Dickson White - the first president of Cornell University and a great
champion of science - was a long, detailed, two volume work with the more
inflammatory title "The History of the Warfare Between Science and Theology
in Christendom" (1896). According to Draper, the Roman Catholic Church in
particular was the enemy of science, "ferociously suppressing by the sword
and the stake every attempt at progress." White, whose book was extremely
influential, saw the conflict between science and religion as nothing less than
"a war waged longer, with battles fiercer, with sieges more persistent,
with strategy more shrewd than any of the comparatively transient warfare of
Caesar or Napoleon."
Although at the time there were many people - both scientists
and religious believers - who did not see a conflict between the two worlds, the
warfare view became deeply entrenched in many people's minds, and it has
continued to influence thinking throughout the twentieth century. This is
particularly so in America, where the even today conflicts between science and
religion tend to be much more bitter and divisive than in other Western nations.
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| Contributed by: Margaret Wertheim
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