Spot is quoting Kevin Phillips and his new book, American Theocracy(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). He’s describing the stagnation of scientific progress in the West when religion set its heavy hand on learning.
Symptom number two [referring to attributes regimes that become increasingly theocratic], related to the first, involves the interplay of faith and science. What might be called the Roman disenlightenment has been well dissected in Charles Freeman’s The Closing of the Western Mind (2002). He dwells on how Rome’s fourth- and fifth-century Christian regimes closed famous libraries like the one in Alexandria, limited the availability of books, discarded the works of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and embraced the dismissal of Greek logicians set forth in the gospel of Paul [well, there is no gospel of Paul, but never mind]. To Freeman, the elevation of faith over logic stifled inquiry in the West- leaving the next advances to Arab mathematicians, doctors, and astronomers-and brought on intellectual stagnation.” It is hard,” he wrote, “to see how mathematics, science or associated disciplines that depended on empirical observations could have made any progress in this atmosphere.” From the last recorded astronomical observation in 475, “it would be over 1,000 years-with the publication of Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus in 1543-before these studies began to move ahead again.”
Keep that in mind while reading Orac’s discussion of creationists in medicine. It’s depressing that such an important and respected profession is overrun with shortsighted ignoramuses.
You can be an adequate doctor and be a creationist: you don’t need to understand evolution to follow your training and cut out a gall bladder or give an injection or diagnose a known disease. It just means that you will follow by rote the procedures of your predecessors. The practice will stay the same, but progress will stop. We will fall once again into the situation Phillips describes (although I suspect our successors will emerge from Farther Asia this time around.)
Orac talks about some of the reasons why it’s difficult to get doctors to be solidly and openly on the side of good science, but I think it’s essential for the prestige and future advancement of the medical profession that more of them think about correcting this failing in their training policies. Are they to be smart, flexible, adaptive, creative, and intellectual people striving to understand the workings of the human body, or is it enough to be a collection of technicians who know how to manipulate the tools of their trade? What makes a doctor different from a chiropractor if neither are to be rooted in good science?
I still disagree with your premise that religion MUST stifle scientific inquiry. Freeman makes the assumption that religion in Rome stifled such inquiry, such as through the closing of Alexandria. He mentions nothing about the dramatic disintegration of social and political fabric during this period, as the Germanic tribal invasions decimated Rome and its ability to govern. Might this explain the drop in literacy and scientific inquiry.
Yes, I know that the Church hindered inquiry in early medieval times, if it conflicted with the cosmology the church adopted. Is this a reason to condemn religion, (or God), or a reason to condemn misguided men?
By this yardstick one could easily condemn neo-Darwinists such as Peter Singer putting forward their shocking utilitarian theories of infanticide.
it’s difficult to get doctors to be solidly and openly on the side of good science, but I think it’s essential for the prestige and future advancement of the medical profession that more of them think about correcting this failing in their training policies. Are they to be smart, flexible, adaptive, creative, and intellectual people striving to understand the workings of the human body,
Now, I’ve not read Orac. Are you saying that a doctor such as described above must be a neo-Darwinist? An atheist?
Argh. I meant to say that one could easily condemn neo Darwinism based on Singer’s theories.
Yes, I know that the Church hindered inquiry in early medieval times, if it conflicted with the cosmology the church adopted. Is this a reason to condemn religion, (or God), or a reason to condemn misguided men?
By this yardstick one could easily condemn neo-Darwinists such as Peter Singer putting forward their shocking utilitarian theories of infanticide.
First, since religion is and always will be implemented by (misguided) men and women, it is pointless to say that somehow, there is nothing wrong with religion in the abstract. How can you have religion without humans to believe in it, decide what is right and wrong, and put together some kind of enforcement scheme and hierarchy?
Second, bwah? What does Peter Singer have to do with anything? Last time I checked, he wasn’t in a position to stifle science. Religion is. The anti-science wingnuts who run this administration are. You’re comparing apples and screwdrivers, I’m afraid.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/19/fossil.snake.ap/index.html
PZ, I just read news you and yours might be interested in, oldest fossil snake…….
Are you saying that a doctor such as described above must be a neo-Darwinist? An atheist?
Compass, the opposite of ‘creationist’ is not ‘atheist’.
Personally, I’m surprised that some doctors are staunch creationists, especially since the Church used to consider the ideas of attributing disease to natural causes, and attempting to treat illness and injuries through medicine to be utterly blasphemous.
It may be my inner cynic, but, I’m waiting for the day when a YEC doctor will say to his patient, “God has given you trachoma because you have sinned! Repent your wickedness, and then you can be healed!”
compass,
You just don’t seem to want to accept anything but cheering for religion. Your correct religion doesn’t have to snuff out science. It just usually does when based on an ancient book written by people in caves. Buddism accepts the finding of science quite readily as does deism.
And what where these men misguided by? Are they misguided by the same thing our modern creationists are? Would they have had such thinking if such misguiding dogma wasn’t placed into them from infancy?
Oh and which God? You seem to speak with such certainty that yours is the correct one. Establish your premise first then go from there.
No you couldn’t. Evolution the science theory says nothing about what he says. On the other hand various religions have ‘sacred texts’ which form the basis for their ignorance.
Simply reading the theory of evolution won’t lead you to infanticide. Reading Genesis will lead one to creationism or ID.
I admit I haven’t researched this, but isn’t there a consensus (in the West at least) that this is what happened to science in the Islamic world? That is, that the reason for the collapse of learning and science in Arab countries (which usually surpassed what was going on in Europe a thousand years ago) was basically that the clerics took over learning there, imposed religion on all scholarship, and free scientific inquiry sort of went out the window?
“I admit I haven’t researched this, but isn’t there a consensus (in the West at least) that this is what happened to science in the Islamic world? That is, that the reason for the collapse of learning and science in Arab countries (which usually surpassed what was going on in Europe a thousand years ago) was basically that the clerics took over learning there, imposed religion on all scholarship, and free scientific inquiry sort of went out the window?”
Yes, that’s pretty much what happened soon after the Mongol armies came, and what’s pretty much still happening today.
Although it is a rare thing for me, I have to agree with compass. Freeman (via Phillips) might make good anti-Christian polemic, but it is shockingly inept history. For a start, one needs to note that the Romans pre-Christianization were very suspicious of Greek learning, and (in general) took over only the bits and pieces that were of evident utility. They never really got to grips with mathematicians like Apollonius and Archimedes, even while the Roman state was still officially pagan.
And the careful reader will observe that Arabs were not atheist materialists, but, well, Muslims.
The thing about the Library of Alexandria is a complete canard. The principal destructions of books were (I believe) under Julius Caesar and an Arab general.
By the way, why doesn’t it matter that there is no Gospel of Paul? Surely that should be a sign that someone hasn’t done their homework, and is not a reputable source? You would not let a creationist get away with some sloppy half-truth about Neanderthals – and you would be quite correct not to. Honestly, there is plenty to be said against the ignorant fundamentalists who are damaging science education in this country – but quoting distorted and ignorant histories at them is no better than what they do to evolutionary biology themselves.
More on the main topic of the post: I recently had to get a series of shots, in order to get my Green Card. Homeland Security, or whatever they call themselves, had one clinic in town which does all the shots for immigrants – predictably, at a free clinic in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. When I finally got to see the doctor, he started making chitchat, and I happened to mention that I was teaching the Galileo trial at the moment – “you know, faith versus reason, that sort of thing.” Doc: “oh, ho ho ho, faith versus reason, is it?” and proceeded to reveal that he was a YEC, and had just been on a bus trip to Mt St Helens, where the guide (“he was a PhD, you know, a university professor just like you”) explained that all supposedly ancient geological events (like the Grand Canyon) could have happened through very recent cataclysms.
I was flummoxed – what do you say to the guy when (1) he’s holding a needle in his hand and (2) you need him to sign a stack of papers if you’re going to get a work permit? So I smiled and made non-committal comments, then hated myself afterwards. What especially annoyed me was that, with those kinds of critical thinking skills, you just know he finished somewhere near the bottom of his class – and here he is, caring for the poorest and most vulnerable in society (I don’t mean me!).
OT but I had to point this out.
http://helives.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_helives_archive.html#114544736233028364
Has David Heddle come clean?
However, I completely disagree with what I see as the primary strategies of the ID community.
The first strategy I disagree with is proclaiming ID as science. Philosophical discussions aside, I will accept ID as science when I read something like this:
A scientist at (some respected research university) has been awarded a grant to do experiment X. ID predicts the result of the experiment will be Y. Non-ID predicts the result will be Z.
The second strategy I disagree with is attempting to get ID placed in the science curriculum. Obviously this is related to the fact that ID is not science. And this strategy, flawed even in principle, has backfired. Not only is ID not in the curriculum, the well has been poisoned.
The third strategy I disagree with, and this is the most germane to this post, is to deny that ID is religiously motivated. I don’t personally know any ID advocate who is not religiously motivated–and I don’t know one (personally) who is a strong ID proponent based solely on the physical evidence, although I am told such people exist.
I note that Charlie Wagner always claimed to not be religiously motivated but he’s such a lying tard I never believed him. Presumably Heddle doesn’t either.
I’m not sure I even believe Heddle. But I am interested in hearing how the usual morons respond to Heddle’s bailing.
There’s more at the link, and it does get much stupider than the preceding paragraphs:
What then is ID?
It is a scientifically-based apologetic. It is part of God’s general revelation. That’s what I think ID is, and that is where I think it is most effective: bringing glory to God, and showing men how they are without excuse. It can be an effective form of witnessing–it worked for me, and I have seen it work for others. Not because it proves God, but because it suggests God.
Sure it does. I don’t deny it works as a “religious apologetic.” Of course, so does the “observation” that gays are more likely to get AIDS than straights … at least in some parts of the world.
Pretty much anything works as an apologetic if you’re trolling in the waters of ignorance.
That’s one of many reasons that I find religion so appallingly inane.
John Gray in his fabulous book Straw Dogs makes the point evolution would not have caused a scandal had it been formulated in Hindu India, Taoist China or animist Africa. It is only in (post-) Christian cultures that philosophers labor so piously to reconcile a scientific account of man as an animal with high-minded tortuous gibberish, religious or “secular”, about his Humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_alexandria
The clip from Phillips is a comment on the reality of his (Phillips) summation of Freeman not a comment on Freeman’s thesis. A small portion of Freeman’s argument is that the interpretation of the writings of Paul led many to abandon reason (Like in Phillips this is a gross simplification of Freeman’s book). Phillips sums this up as “the Gospel of Paul” and then notes that there is not one.
[Derail] Straw Dogs? Had one troll I was arguing with form a legion of them in front of me and commence to knocking them down. [/Derail]
GWW: I’m pretty sure Charlie Wagner is at least not motivated by Christianity – it’d be hard to reconcile his hostility toward the Big Bang with that. No, I think Charlie Wagner is motivated, like pretty much all evolution deniers regardless of other ideological identification, by “my granddaddy ain’t no monkey.” You don’t have to be a Christian to fall prey to that.
Let me play the devil’s advocate: Why should we expect the average physician to know any more about evoultion or be any less likely to take the creationist position than an airplane pilot or the linesman who brings electricity into our homes? Now, yes, of course, science is required to advance medicine. Science also is required to design airplanes and power grids.
But most of the workers who deliver those benefits to us are craftsmen, not scientists. And even the craftsmen who often have to learn quite a bit of science to ply their craft often do so piecemeal, and with a focus on application, rather than with the researcher’s eye toward acquiring and extending knowledge.
Yes, it is a bit mind-boggling that a physician, who must deal with bacteria that evolve disease resistance, and with parasites that have speciated along with the species they inhabit, could believe that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old. Isn’t it equally mind-boggling that a civil engineer, who blasts through geological layers, leaving them exposed, would believe that? For that matter, how can any educated person today believe the earth is a mere 6,000 years old?
What makes the physician special in this regard?
Well, since I don’t have any more reputable sources at hand, we’ll have to go with the Wikipedia article (which is essentially based on Canfora’s book The Vanished Library, which is the one I dimly remembered reading.
Note that it was the Serapeion which was destroyed on the order of the (Christian) Emperor Theophilus; the inference that he destroyed the books as well is due to Gibbon, that famously even-handed historian.
The article mentions Caesar, and the Arab general Amrouh. But the actual destruction of the library is hard to pinpoint. For all of the dramatic stories of wicked ideologues and burning books, the truth may have been more banal: papyrus has a shelflife of only 60-odd years, and then it disintegrates (unless preserved in some extraordinary way, like being buried in dry sand). To maintain a library of that size, a team of copyists had to be employed full-time to recopy books as they reached the end of their life. A generation without the royal patronage needed to support such an institution – and the collection rapidly begins to disappear.
[I emphasize that this is outside of my specialization – the above explanation was recalled from a senior seminar from some 15 years ago!]
“The clip from Phillips is a comment on the reality of his (Phillips) summation of Freeman not a comment on Freeman’s thesis. A small portion of Freeman’s argument is that the interpretation of the writings of Paul led many to abandon reason (Like in Phillips this is a gross simplification of Freeman’s book). Phillips sums this up as “the Gospel of Paul” and then notes that there is not one.”
Thank you. I read Freeman last year and spent some time wondering what people were nattering on about since it certainly doesn’t resemble what I read, which was anti-Christian only in the sense that it would not lie to preserve the delicate sensibilities of Christians.
Actually, I might be mistaken about one aspect of what I posted. I do not have access to my books at the moment. I do remember Phillips’ discussing Freeman’s book and I think I remember him referring to “The Gospel of Paul” but I don’t remember if he had the comment about there not being a “Gospel of Paul” or not. If yes, then my comment remains unchanged. If no, and the comment is from the writer of the article and not Phillips, then the only modification to my post would be:
The clip from Phillips is a summation of Freeman’s thesis. A small portion of Freeman’s argument is that the interpretation of the writings of Paul led many to abandon reason (Like in Phillips this is a gross simplification of Freeman’s book). Phillips sums this up as “the Gospel of Paul”. My recollection is that the is no mention of a “Gospel of Paul” in the sense of a separate book like, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in Freeman.
Sorry for the mix up.
I’m not sure I even believe Heddle. But I am interested in hearing how the usual morons respond to Heddle’s bailing.
Heddle is very likely not lying. My take on Heddle is that he tells you the truth as he sees it. The form of the truth that he sees can be bizarre, full of internal contradictions, and logical leaps that don’t work, but he doesn’t know X but tell you Y. His problem is that he’s trying to reconcile a sort of childishly literalist Christianity with scientific empericism, but without compromising on the former. This leads him to some truly remarkable mental gymnastics, but in his way he believes they’re logically valid.
Nevertheless, I am relieved when I see ID/C types come out and admit it’s all about religion and not about science. At that point they essentially become Christian theologians, and as such they’re not really my (or science’s) concern. The dishonest IDC shills who insist that it IS science and that religion has NOTHING to do with it are far more of a menace.
I’m not entirely sure I buy Phillips’ argument about the “Roman disenlightenment” either. Platonism was integral to the thinking of many early Christian thinkers (e.g. Origen). More importantly, I’m not sure that one can argue that the medieval “West” wholly abandoned the Greek philosophical tradition: what about the Byzantines? I agree with Altabin: this really is pretty shoddy history.
It seems to me that practicing medicine doesn’t really require a lot of deep understanding. Medical school seems to be mostly about breadth: memorizing pathways, anatomy, drug reactions, that kind of thing. It seems more like engineering than science. So I guess it’s not surprising that people can progress far into the subject who are good at memorization but not so good at reasoning.
Altabin gives an excellent argument against Freeman’s remarks. However, I still think the general point is valid. In the last couple centuries, scientific progress (and, I’d argue, ethical and governmental progress) was mostly made by, and in the community of, nonreligious or deistic people. That’s very obviously the case right now. Reasoning people are the people who make progress, and reasoning people are largely atheists.
I was, if the need arose, going to suggest to a relative who needed instruction and a little convincing about how evolution really worked, to consult with his child’s doctor about the treatments he’s been receiving, then thought better of it. Orac confirmed something that I, having no real knowledge in this area, have suspected: one does not need training in evolutionary biology in order to become a physician. Thank you, Orac, and yes, there are a lot of creationist doctors out there–I believe you, I believe you.
Precisely. It would also be worth specifying – y’know, just for historical accuracy, an’ all that – that Theodosius (not Theophilus, as I wrote above; that was the Patriarch of Alexandria at the time) was a Greek-speaking Emperor, based in Byzantium. The very notion of “Roman disenlightenment” is a caricature; but this was a Greek emperor, brought up (as you say) within a highly Platonized religious culture – who most probably read Homer and Plato as a schoolboy.
Not that Theophilus (the Patriarch of Alexandria) wasn’t a complete scumbag, or anything (and Theodosius II was himself a bit of a sh*t). I’m not trying to leap to the defense of the reprehensible pagan-baiters and cultural warriors who really were an unpleasant reality of the fifth century. But “How Christianity destroyed Reason” is no less silly than those books with irritating titles like “How the Irish Saved Civilization.”
It is a common practice to use the phrase “Gospel of Paul” as a designation for the teachings of Paul as contained or implied in his epistles, as opposed to the title of an actual stand-alone treatise.
There’s also the myth that modern day physicians are more scientifically minded than their predecessors. Not true. They’re no less practitioners today than their 19th century counterparts (excepting perhaps pharmacopedics). They certainly rely on the latest medical research to practice their craft but they don’t do or need to do the research themselves.
As in other professions and disciplines, there’s a division of labor that doesn’t necessarily mirror the other. I would start to worry only if those doing medical research began believing in creationism, which is very unlikely.
The length of time between the halting of science, and its resurgence, is a poignant lesson. It’s most obvious in Islamic countries today, but in the past was hindered by other religious forces.
When I was an undergrad, I was a geology/biology double major, which meant at my small college that I hung around with quite a few premed students. The majority of those students were not in the field because of their thirst for knowledge and their desire to understand cause and effect relationships in biology. They were intent on medicine because one or both parents were doctors, or because they had grown up with their parents pushing them to become doctors, or because medicine was a good route to financial rewards and/or high social status, or because they didn’t have any better career plans and in the interim being a premed student was a good way to pick up sorority chicks, or because they would be able to play god with people’s lives and health. This was all a few years ago, but I doubt it has changed a lot. None of those goals necessarily motivate the premed students to become experts in evolution.
Absolutely. It should make everyone stop and think: an educational system, once dismantled, is very difficult to reassemble. Once basic scientific and mathematical knowledge ceases to be taught, scientific research and technology throughout society is endangered.
But, again, let’s not reduce this to religious caricature. The textbooks in late-antique schools remained pagan, by and large, even when the culture was overwhelmingly Christian. The deterioration of the standard of the texts and of their teaching was for reasons entirely unrelated to religion.
And let’s also keep in mind the identity of the men responsible for recovering and surpassing the scientific heritage of antiquity: Copernicus (church canon); Tycho Brahe (Protestant, borderline fundamentalist); Kepler (crazy, crazy mystical Lutheran); Galileo (devout Catholic); Newton (you just don’t want to get him started on the subject of God).
This is not to endorse the idiocy of Steve Fuller, who sees the scientific content of these men’s works as inherently religious, just like ID – poor Steve cannot keep separate in his mind “context of discovery” and “context of proof.” But we have a responsibility to the truth of history, just as much as to the truth of science. Religion, in some quarters, has become antagonistic to science – and I know there are many here who would argue that religion in and of itself is incompatible with scientific understanding (although myself an agnostic, I disagree). But it is simply false to maintain that religion has always been science’s principal foe. Myself, I would put economic mismanagement, foreign invasion, religious war and dumb luck ahead of religion.
I don’t think the question is “Did religion stop logical thinking?”, but, “Did religion stop scientific progress?” It’s clear that Christian Rome and Byzantium still taught and honored logic, but when logic is applied to the dogma and doctrines of the Church, or even to the scientific observations of long dead philosophers, paradigm shifts are unlikely. The threat of excommunication or burning at the stake would be disincentives to critical thinking as well.
I find it interesting that some are disparaging a book based on the gross simplification of one minor aspect of that book as stated by another author without having read either. For those who might actually be interested: “How Christianity destroyed Reason” is not the thesis of Freeman’s book. He explores how Christianity contributed to the “closing of the western mind” during that period with the intention of showing that it was to a larger extant then previously portrayed. I don’t think anyone would dispute that Christianity had a hand in this. I think the question would be one of degree.
I never got the sense that Freeman was asserting that Christians were the sole perpetrators. He does spend considerable time pointing out the connection between Platonic philosophy and its early Christian adoptions. But this mostly had to do with the Forms and the One and Christian assertions of the Trinity. In other words, early Christians appealed to that aspect of Platonic (or actually neo-Platonic – see the book) philosophy that they felt propped up their views. I found it an interesting read. As with all history it should be viewed as one view not as some sort of final statement on the topic.
whomever1 said: “Myself, I would put economic mismanagement, foreign invasion, religious war and dumb luck ahead of religion.”
I agree. In that order. I haven’t read Jared Diamond’s latest book, Collapse, but an idea about societies mismanaging their resources (aka economic mismanagment) leading to degradation of certain cultural activities (art, education, trade, etc) comes through in Guns, Germs and Steel. So I think it’s reasonable to think that economic mismanagement could lead, indirectly, to a reduction in scientific skills and critical thinking. Critical thinking, empirical investigation and laboratories are probably all luxuries relative to not dying of starvation, or avoiding an unpleasant death at the hands of an unpleasant person.
I’d go along, but I also think religion is one of those corrupting influences that keeps humming along and contributing to economic mismanagement, foreign invasion, and religious war.
I am taking the MCAT on Saturday, but I can tell you that the more science I learn, the LESS interested I am in medical school: I love evolutionary biology, I am constantly in wonderment the more I learn about genetics and am awestruck by life in its myriad forms. The thought of leaving that all behind to become what one former medical student terms “a mechanic” makes me sad.
And reading how some medical students reject science outright makes me sadder.
PS I know it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s what I’m trying to find for myself. And I don’t think of MDs as mechanics — I have too many friends and relatives who practive medicine to believe so simple a description.
“The deterioration of the standard of the texts and of their teaching was for reasons entirely unrelated to religion.”
I don’t know about that. The church certainly was against reasoning and scientific thinking throughout the middle ages, both east and west. Theodosius, as an example since he’s already been mentioned, supported the burning and pillaging of libraries because they were associated with paganism.
And while we’re remembering the men of the Renaissance who started advancing science in the west again, let’s not forget how the church sometimes treated them. How religious a man do you suppose Galileo was for his time?
I agree – mea culpa. In my defense, I have to say that having opinions about books I haven’t read is one of the luxuries – some would say, a job requirement – of being a humanities professor.
But, in fairness, I was responding to PZM’s use of the text – in which the historical claims in the extract were clearly meant to have some argumentative or persuasive force (or did PZ post it simply because he admires the prose style?)
In any case, you’re right – critiquing a book I haven’t read, in a public forum is, at the very least, unfair to the author. I’ll try to keep quiet.
It’s hardly disparaging to doctors to compare them to engineers. Or mechanics for that matter.
N Wells wrote
I taught in a similar college for 20 years and noticed the same thing, though it wasn’t wholly universal; there were some intellectually curious premdes. I’ll be teaching a lab course in evolutionary modeling in the bio department next fall. I’ll be interested to see if I get any premeds in it.
“I’d go along, but I also think religion is one of those corrupting influences that keeps humming along and contributing to economic mismanagement, foreign invasion, and religious war.”
I agree with that too, Dr. Myers. I think the interactions between those factors are probably just as important as the individual effects. There are probably lots of positive and negative feedback effects, too. For example, economic mismanagment based on the advice of delusional priests leads to conflict with a neighbour, followed by war, which gets propagandised into a religious war, followed by further economic mismanagement, etc.
If medical practitioners are comparable to engineers, perhaps the Salem Hypothesis applies? :)
I’d go along, but I also think religion is one of those corrupting influences that keeps humming along and contributing to economic mismanagement, foreign invasion, and religious war.
OK. Find me the guiding sociological “guider” or system that prevents economic mismanagement, foreign invasion and war over the state/system’s belief?
Good point, Gandalf! Works here, certainly.
Having had time now to consult the two books in question I would like to point out a few things:
1.) the thrust of Phillips argument (at least in the section of the book in question) is that the combination of the state and religion has had a debilitating effect on societies not that Christianity alone (or any religion for that matter) was the cause of any “disenlightenment
“.
2.) He never claims that religion is the sole reason for the failure of societies and does address many of the reasons discussed in Diamonds two books.
3.) Freeman’s book is not represented as being a condemnation of the Christian religion in Phillips presentation. The key phase is: “Christian regimes”. Phillips is talking about the impact of theocratic governments. Reading the whole book (Phillips) would make that clearer. His quoting of Freeman is due to:
4.) Freeman’s book is a detailed analysis of the impact of Christianity becoming closely tied with the State in Rome. It highlights the impact to both and that both suffered as a result of their combination. As I stated previously it is not a condemnation of the religion of Christianity but rather of a theocratic government centered in Christianity. The real difference in his book over others on the same topic is that he feels the religious aspects had a greater impact than previously stated.
5.) Phillips book does not rely on the history of the Christian centered theocratic Rome alone. He also addresses the Spanish, Dutch, and English misfortunes with Christian centered theocratic governments.
IMHO both books are interesting reads and if the topic interests you and would be worth the time.
Let’s not forget that there was a time in Europe when common people were not permitted to read the Bible because they might misinterpret it; misinterpreting it, they might fall into heresy; falling into heresy, they would be damned.
When you believe you’re dealing with literally infinite stakes, no finite sacrifice is too great. Worldly knowledge simply wasn’t worth the risk to men’s souls.
Well, its not so much “religion,” but what religion carries with it like the Black Plague that is at issue; dogma, dogma that crushes rationalism.
As the original post cited, the decline in scientific inquiry in the West occurred precisely at a time when control of public thought via the straightjacket of religious dogma was rising. However, one swallow does not a summer make.
Unfortunately we see the same sort of thing east of Suez too in the Islamic world.
Islam, in the 12th century had extruded from it any line of heterodoxy. And it is the presence of such heterodoxy in the West that has lifted it beyond the Islamic world in economic strength. This Western heterodoxy is called rationalism
While it is true that a summation of some of the glorious things brought to the world by Muslims and Islam would fill libraries. Yet with all that this civilization, one that spanned the Eurasian continent for over a millennium, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it declined intellectually, philosophically, economically, and scientifically.
The evolution of a fierce orthodoxy in Islam after the time of Ibn Rushd throttled the brightest intellectual and scientific culture the world ever saw up to that time. The manner of distrusting human reason and favoring towards mysticism in al-Ghazali’s “the Destruction of the Philosophy” served as a standard for later Islamic theology and served as a cudgel in the hand of those who swayed the Ulema against rationalism.
The stress brought about by this roll back of rationalism in Islam was not overnight, there were still magnificent achievements by Muslims across a wide range of arts, sciences, architecture, and medicine, but the damage was done. The stifling of rationalism played as major a part in the decline of intellectual thought in the Islamic world as did the Mongol invasions in the 13th century to their physical empires.
For 500 years now the West has had the dynamic tensions of the Cities of Man and of God in conflict, viz., the Greek Paganism and Rationality versus Judeo-Christian Morality and religious iconography. Islam snuffed out this conflict long ago.
I am sore put to believe a scientific renaissance can grow from Islam or Christianity if each new scientific fact discovered is merely defined as mystical revelation of Allah/God, and any disputes about the features of such discoveries considered within the realm of discourse for definitive truth by a council of mullahs or ministers.
Many years ago, when I was very small ( about 1952 ) a ne local vicar was appointed to the old church I can still see from my house front-windows.
He was a fundie, as oposed to his predecessor.
My parents gradually stopped going to church.
My godmother nearly caused a riot, however.
She had been a nursing auxiliary in London during WWII (that’s right, picking bits of people out of bombed buldings)
This vicar delivered a sermon on “The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children”
He’d got about 5 minutes into this, when she stood up, and shouted him down (!!!)
She told him that there were people in the congregation with Down’s syndrome children, and she knew that he knew this, and HOW DARE HE?
Given social structures and relations in England in 1952, therte was a certain amount of kefruffle.
Needless to say, she never went back, but the vicar lost a lot of what would now be called “Street-cred”.
It would appear that as usual, the religious are like the Bourbons – learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.
Arguably Christianity was originally reasonably favourable to science. That is, not ideal but better than all the available alternatives. It’s not like any of the other major cultures created something remotely akin to modern Western science. And the West was, until recently, quite Christian.
The assumption was that God had created everything and he was going to end everything, eventually, but in the meantime he had delegated the running of the universe to his laws. Divine intervention in the form of miracles, while not impossible, was assumed to be quite rare.
You had the right to use your head and try to understand God’s creation. His work (Nature) was more important that your theories. Saying ‘even Heaven makes mistakes sometimes’, like a Chinese astronomer did when dismissing the failure of reality to live up to his predictions, was not acceptable.
Now the philosophy of the Greeks may be more appealing than Christianity to an Atheist like myself, but it was a tiny elite thing that meant nothing to the majority.
“I still disagree with your premise that religion MUST stifle scientific inquiry.”
Ideologically and historically religion is incompatible with science. Deism has the same ideological problems since it abrogates the skepticism built into science in particular areas. These conflicts are stifling, to say the least.
Heddle says: “The second strategy I disagree with is attempting to get ID placed in the science curriculum. Obviously this is related to the fact that ID is not science. And this strategy, flawed even in principle, has backfired. Not only is ID not in the curriculum, the well has been poisoned. I used to be able to go to public schools and talk about fine-tuning, but not anymore. (Yes, I know it is not illegal to discuss ID, even after Dover, but that doesn’t mean that principals have to invite me, or that they have to accept my offer. They used to, at least on occasion, but not anymore.)”
This is intriguing – has the truth of what ID is really started to hamper its use, at least as pseudoscience?
“I note that Charlie Wagner always claimed to not be religiously motivated but he’s such a lying tard I never believed him.”
I think you may be right. I found this on http://loom.corante.com/archives/2006/04/10/the_final_adventures_of_the_blind_locksmith.php charlie wagner says first “I do not represent the Discovery Institute, I am not a religious creationist and I do not defend Michael Behe, Bill Dembski or the “Intelligent Design Movement””. But finishes with abruptly declaring “I may pass on to my reward before this issue is resolved”. I can’t parse the later as anything else than an implicit acknowledgement of being religious, christian perhaps, and that it is his motivation after all.
“And let’s also keep in mind the identity of the men responsible for recovering and surpassing the scientific heritage of antiquity”
I can’t see why this point is relevant. Of course the initial scientists were influenced by the culture of the times. (And I don’t think Newton were as religious after his scientific breakthroughs.) On the contrary, the fact that nowadays most influental scientists are secular or atheists instead suggests strongly that I said above, they found religion is hampering their science.
Lurker writes, “It’s not like any of the other major cultures created something remotely akin to modern Western science.”
Except the Greeks, who in fact did create western science, five centuries before Christianity. This is a part of history that doesn’t get much taught. It’s as if the dark age were still hiding that feat. So it’s worth repeating some of what the Greeks did. They invented astronomy. Yes, older cultures made astronomical observations. But the Greeks were the first to turn this into a cohesive theory of the solar system, and to apply math to the calculation of the distances and sizes of the planets. Columbus famously thought the earth was about a third smaller than Eratosthenes had calculated. Eratosthenes was right. Columbus was lucky. There’s a reason Ptolemy’s Almagest was the most read science text until the Renaissance. Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler all built on what the astronomy that the Greeks previously had invented.
Speaking of math, the Greeks were the first to create formally axiomatized systems. You can still teach plane geometry from Euclid’s Elements. Diophantus introduced symbolic algebra, and the study of the polynomial equations eponymously named for him. Archimedes calculated the limits of geometric series, and the centers of gravity of paraboloids. A student who learns only the math that the Greeks discovered can step from that to Newton and Liebniz, who invented calculus almost two millenia later.
Archimedes provides a nice transition from astronomy and math to physics, since he applied that math to mechanics, including articulation of the basic principle of fluid mechanics that today bears his name. In the life sciences, the Greeks were the first to think that documented dissection was critical to the study of anatomy.
Yes, there was a lot screwy about Greek science. It was overly attached to philosophy, and they got a lot wrong. But everything has to begin somewhere. Western science began there.
I haven’t read Freeman’s book, but I must note that neo-Platonism, like its relative, Christianity, is very science-hostile, given how metaphysically idealist it is …
chuko: It is my view that the vast majority of the figures who were involved in pushing the scientific revolution were heretical. (Kepler – the Platonist, Newton – the Arian, Descartes – who only once ever entered a church as an adult, and Leibniz [who wanted to reconcile Protestants and Catholics with his own view] certainly were, Galileo almost so, for example.)