Grad Student Humanist

This is such a great point, and right on target!

Hugo Holbling

Agreed, but i still suggest that the mechanical metaphor didn't appear out of nowhere. I found an interesting reference in Shapin to the negative influence of Renaissance naturalism and the Catholic Mersenne's opposition to the idea of the anima mundi. It's on page 43.

Would you agree with Koyre and Lindberg, then, that metaphysical influences were more important than methodological?

Of course, but neither they nor the Muslims believed they could discover secondary causes in the world. I will leave your point about other Christian regions for Bede because i don't know enough about this area.

This is mistaken. During the Middle Ages there was much concern on just this point - how Christian natural philosophers could reconcile the possibility of God's intervention with the search for a communis cursus nature - with Burridan and Ockham taking the view that the methodological assumption should be made that nature acts always according to law. Anticipating some more modern philosophy of science, Burridan defended this conception by stating that the scientific principles so derived "are accepted because they have been observed to be true in many instances and false in none." Much later, Boyle would say the same thing (cf. Shapin, 150 - see also 152 - 153 for further counterexamples of the idea that Christianity could not stand for a rational worldview).

I have and am very interested in the influence of alchemy and hermeticism; however, see Copenhaver or Vickers for some criticism.

I mean (in this context) the idea that reality is out there to be discovered and may be known by men to a greater and greater degree of approximation. In addition to these attitudes being held, there is also the matter of considering the investigation of God's order to be both a duty and a form of praise (see my earlier references). On a separate issue entirely, i'm wondering if the peculiar merit of realism is that it has more place in a history of the development of science than anti- or irrealism.

This sounds like just the same anachronism you were complaining about earlier. I'll say some more about your presupposition below, but you may care to look over the paper i linked to earlier, in which the conflict reading that you inexplicably reiterate here is shown to be wholly inadequate.

This is a strange case. Lindberg points out that "the interpretation of the creation account in Genesis was quite traditional and generally lacked the quantitative and hypothetical, imaginary character that dominated other aspects of theology". He laters remarks that "occasionally the literal meaning of scriptural statements conflicted directly with universally accepted scientific theories and observations. In such instances the scriptural text had to be reinterpreted", further commenting that "during the late Middle Ages broad and liberal, rather than narrow and literal, interpretations were the rule in biblical exegesis involving physical phenomena." I wonder if Bede has any thoughts as to why there was this discrepancy?

Clearly this is a major presupposition and one we have intentionally been arguing within. However, if you care to defend it as valid i will be happy to oppose it. For the time being, it strikes me a just another example of the convergent realism that Laudan argued so thoroughly against.

Vorkosigan

Agreed, but i still suggest that the mechanical metaphor didn't appear out of nowhere. I found an interesting reference in Shapin to the negative influence of Renaissance naturalism and the Catholic Mersenne's opposition to the idea of the anima mundi. It's on page 43.

I don't have The Scientific Revolution.

Would you agree with Koyre and Lindberg, then, that metaphysical influences were more important than methodological?

No. I tend to take the the view that metaphysics was of little account and responded to, rather than initiated, change. Thus, I tend to focus on artisanal traditions, social change, technology, transmissions from abroad, capitalism, politics, etc.

Of course, but neither they nor the Muslims believed they could discover secondary causes in the world.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Islamic science was robust and diverse, empirical, and very accomplished -- they were in contact with the Chinese long before the west. Muslim theology did not permit secondary causes, but that is not the same as saying that muslim scientists believed there were no secondary causes. People are not theologybots. The extensive empirical accomplishments of Islamic science argues that practically speaking, they behaved as though they believed in secondary causes.

I will leave your point about other Christian regions for Bede because i don't know enough about this area.

Bede and I have been over that ground. Eastern Christianity is a thorough refutation of this recent ideological recolonization of history.

This is mistaken. During the Middle Ages there was much concern on just this point - how Christian natural philosophers could reconcile the possibility of God's intervention with the search for a communis cursus nature - with Burridan and Ockham taking the view that the methodological assumption should be made that nature acts always according to law.

Quite true. But the fact of this concern confirms my point. You can only get rid of the arbitrary and irrational nature of god by reconfiguring it to be lawlike. But that did not come from Christianity, it came to Christianity. Causation in this scheme is running backwards. It was not the lawfulness of god that made men think of it as lawlike; it was the evident lawfulness of the world that made men recast their god in its image.

Anticipating some more modern philosophy of science, Burridan defended this conception by stating that the scientific principles so derived "are accepted because they have been observed to be true in many instances and false in none." Much later, Boyle would say the same thing (cf. Shapin, 150 - see also 152 - 153 for further counterexamples of the idea that Christianity could not stand for a rational worldview).

You're reading my comments against your own beliefs. Christians could easily tolerate a rational worldview. They did so by reconfiguring their beliefs to fit their beliefs/discoveries about the world, or simply paying lip service to uncomfortable theology, while being alchemists and heretics in secret.

I mean (in this context) the idea that reality is out there to be discovered and may be known by men to a greater and greater degree of approximation. In addition to these attitudes being held, there is also the matter of considering the investigation of God's order to be both a duty and a form of praise (see my earlier references).

Again, this is men reconfiguring their religion to fit their social beliefs. Like discovering that god was against slavery, for homosexuality, initiated the Big Bang, allowed evolution to occur with intermittent intervention, etc. The same process.

As for my comments about mysticism, a similar junction of nature mysticism and empirical arose -- the Brethren of Sincerity -- that led to much scientific output, culminating in men like Hazrat Nizam ud-Din Aulia, who invented laws of motion strikingly similar to Newton's.

On a separate issue entirely, i'm wondering if the peculiar merit of realism is that it has more place in a history of the development of science than anti- or irrealism.

Heck, I always thought it was because realism was right. But I take your point.

This sounds like just the same anachronism you were complaining about earlier. I'll say some more about your presupposition below, but you may care to look over the paper i linked to earlier, in which the conflict reading that you inexplicably reiterate here is shown to be wholly inadequate.

What conflict reading? Of course religion and science conflict. Of course they also cohere. Isn't that what I said? Where religion is found to conflict with reality, it is generally brought into conformity with it. The beauty of Christian theology is that it is essentially meaningless and plastic, like any fantasy.

Numbers and Lindberg's paper is simply a useful attack on White. They do not offer any coherent view of a new outlook, but simply call for one. In any case, it is published by ASA and is not likely to have any other view! Moreover, like good academics they hedge their bets...

"We will uncover as much struggle and competition within the Christian and scientific communities as between them."

...and of course, disposing of White does not dispose of the conflict thesis. That would take a lot more work.

This is a strange case. Lindberg points out that "the interpretation of the creation account in Genesis was quite traditional and generally lacked the quantitative and hypothetical, imaginary character that dominated other aspects of theology". He laters remarks that "occasionally the literal meaning of scriptural statements conflicted directly with universally accepted scientific theories and observations. In such instances the scriptural text had to be reinterpreted", further commenting that "during the late Middle Ages broad and liberal, rather than narrow and literal, interpretations were the rule in biblical exegesis involving physical phenomena." I wonder if Bede has any thoughts as to why there was this discrepancy?

See? In some places Christianity did act as a hindrance, in others, once properly reconfigured by reality, it fostered intellectual growth. The sort of crude conflict view a la White is passe, but there is no denying that the theology held by early scientists strongly influenced their views about the world. The first two hundred years of geology and natural history is a panorama of bright men struggling to reconcile the world with their religious beliefs. There's no evading this issue. After the scientific evidence became overwhelming, theology was then again reconfigured, and all mainstream churches now accept old earth and evolution, which once the theology opposed. It's not a strange case, but the definitive one.

Clearly this is a major presupposition and one we have intentionally been arguing within. However, if you care to defend it as valid i will be happy to oppose it.

LOL. No thanks.

Vorkosigan

Hugo Holbling

Would you like me to quote those passages I referred to?

I find this fascinating. No doubt you’re aware that Feyerabend was suggesting the same thing; indeed, he pointed out that while philosophers were debating the nature of reality, as well as the atomic theory and whether it was verified or falsified at different times, artisans and craftsman continued to work away happily (using, I might add, an instrumentalist approach…).

For a long period, yes; but Islamic science went into decline during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. According to Lindberg’s account, more study is needed in this area to understand why that was, but not the least of factors was the increasing conservatism in religion; i.e. a trend from (Greek) science to Islamic science, the latter having to accept a greatly reduced role.

I found this thread (i.e. I didn’t realize some of these things had been discussed before). I wonder why all debates on these subjects have to turn out so ill natured?

I don’t think that’s quite accurate. In its early days Christianity was absorbing pagan influences, particularly Greek philosophy and the concept of a divinely ordered world. There’s a Biblical passage often referred to which I can’t recall – something about God having made the world according to number and measure. Of course, we don't want to get into the game of "what the Bible says"...

This remark is ambiguous, in that it isn’t clear whether you mean to imply that I’m Christian or that I believe in what I’m posting. Either way, you ought to know that such things are irrelevant; I’m tired of having to explain that I’m not a theist or that I may take any rhetorical position I like here, whether I agree with it or not. Where’s the challenge in defending popular beliefs (popular in the SecWeb context, at any rate)?

Now it’s your turn to get things backwards. I presume you already know about the theory-ladenness of observations; the tendency is very much the opposite – to see what you’re looking for. Moreover, you understand the importance of theology here but assert its debilitating effects at other times.

On your other point, have you studied hermeticism at all? (I’m asking, not suggesting you haven’t.) The injunction “as above, so below” was hardly in conflict with the Christian orderly worldview, while alchemists like Boyle were still devout. In addition, if I were an apologist I would take your remark about secret heretics with a pinch of salt. I expect Bede would like to know which were so disguised. Even so, i hope we don't end up arguing over who was a real Christian and who was a heretic in secret.

Hmm. You’ve missed the obvious point that your examples are all ad hoc, whereas the positing of an ordered world was both metaphysical and methodological. Also, you seem to consider this process to be all one-way.

*sigh* Another realist.

Wow. You weren’t kidding about realism being right: this is a spectacular simplification and a good example of why I wanted to ask whether the history of science reads differently without the realist presupposition.

What can I say to that? I suppose I could quip that the same goes for realist explanations of the success of science.

As I said earlier in this thread, I’m having trouble finding further links – anyone interested in the scholarship will have to seek it out for themselves. I presume you’ve read Grant, Numbers and Lindberg so you’re aware they explain the conflict hypothesis is inadequate, notwithstanding White or Draper?

I’m sure you realize that’s irrelevant: Numbers and Lindberg are two of the pre-eminent scholars in the field and not given to writing polemic for Christian sites.

Agreed – work which has been done, as we explained earlier in the thread. The Shapin remark I noted with regard to the conflict hypothesis was:

I hope we don’t have to go over the same ground again.

Huh? I pointed it out – of course I see it. Btw, I just realized I quoted Grant but attributed it to Lindberg. My apologies.

This is another massive simplification that does enough evading on its own. It’s not enough to declare that religious beliefs were saying one thing while the world was asserting to the contrary; hell, this smacks of a positivist account.

I don’t understand. You said it was a huge presupposition; I agreed and suggested we challenge it. Obviously if it falls then it renders most of the complaints against Christianity here moot, but you won’t take it on?

*makes noise like a chicken*

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Hugo Holbling
Would you like me to quote those passages I referred to?

Go ahead. I've never read that book of Shapin's.

I find this fascinating. No doubt you’re aware that Feyerabend was suggesting the same thing; indeed, he pointed out that while philosophers were debating the nature of reality, as well as the atomic theory and whether it was verified or falsified at different times, artisans and craftsman continued to work away happily (using, I might add, an instrumentalist approach?.

Exactly. But gradually over the course of the 14,15,16 centuries, the people who worked with their minds and the people who worked with their hands combined to become scientists. Even today, if you are going to be a particle physicist, you have to build your own detector. Science has never really become completely divorced from its artisan root.

For a long period, yes; but Islamic science went into decline during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Yes, but that is really beside the point. How influential do you really think theology is on human behavior? Islamic science is a good answer. The Koran may assert that there are no secondary causes, but Islamic scientists and artisans did not behave that way. What people say, and what they do, are vastly different. They pay lip service to theology, and then six days a week live in a rational world in which virgin births do not occur.

According to Lindberg’s account, more study is needed in this area to understand why that was, but not the least of factors was the increasing conservatism in religion; i.e. a trend from (Greek) science to Islamic science, the latter having to accept a greatly reduced role.

Too many factors...

I found this thread .

That's not the thread I was referring to.

I don't think that's quite accurate. In its early days Christianity was absorbing pagan influences, particularly Greek philosophy and the concept of a divinely ordered world.

Which Christianity? There's no monolithic thing out there. There are a diversity of Christianities. I am sure we can find one that would accomodate both are views.

There is a Biblical passage often referred to which I can’t recall ?something about God having made the world according to number and measure. Of course, we don't want to get into the game of "what the Bible says"...[/b]

Certainly not! Where Christianity got the idea is really irrelevant. Gods are made, and remade, by men.

This remark is ambiguous, in that it isn’t clear whether you mean to imply that I’m Christian or that I believe in what I’m posting. Either way, you ought to know that such things are irrelevant; I’m tired of having to explain that I’m not a theist or that I may take any rhetorical position I like here, whether I agree with it or not. Where’s the challenge in defending popular beliefs (popular in the SecWeb context, at any rate)?

No, I meant you seem to be treating me as an unreconstructed conflict supporter, whereas I am a well-grounded conflict supporter.

Now it’s your turn to get things backwards. I presume you already know about the theory-ladenness of observations; the tendency is very much the opposite ?to see what you’re looking for. Moreover, you understand the importance of theology here but assert its debilitating effects at other times.

I wasn't clear. Theology is endlessly plastic; it's purpose, after all, is to uphold the power of the clerical authorities in an ever-changing world. Its importance lies in the fact that among the debaters in this period it is a shared framework whose moral approval all require in order to function. But all these men were intelligent, and all knew that theology could be reconfigured to support their views if they only made the right arguments. That is why the causation here is so slippery. You can't really argue that Christianity led to or created anything without turning people into theologybots. I don't like that; people are not theologybots or culturebots, especially at the level we are talking about here; they are playful users of their theological operating system. I personally prefer to refer to the institutions of Christianity rather than its theological views. There you can have actual causation by actual organizations of actual people. But when I hear people getting ideas from Christian theology, I wonder which way the ideas are running. It seems especially odd that people would be arguing that the universe was orderly right at the time "order" was an especially serious social and political problem, and new ideas about logic and empiricism were flowing in from Islam, and men were looking at machine and thinking about how they might model the universe.

On your other point, have you studied hermeticism at all? (I’m asking, not suggesting you haven’t.) The injunction “as above, so below?was hardly in conflict with the Christian orderly worldview, while alchemists like Boyle were still devout. In addition, if I were an apologist I would take your remark about secret heretics with a pinch of salt. I expect Bede would like to know which were so disguised. Even so, i hope we don't end up arguing over who was a real Christian and who was a heretic in secret.

Oh, the secret heretics remark was off the cuff. The point is that people are not theologybots, but very complex animals juggling multiple realities, identities and social roles.

Hmm. You’ve missed the obvious point that your examples are all ad hoc, whereas the positing of an ordered world was both metaphysical and methodological. Also, you seem to consider this process to be all one-way.

I think here is the heart of our disagreement. You seem to have reified theology as a thing-in-the-world that operates on the minds of humans, with some kind of autochthonic, organic origin. But I tend to look at it sort of like Gramsci would -- what is this dominant ideology and who does it serve? Who deploys it? Against what? Who can make this "theology" and who can't? Why do they make it?

My examples are ad hoc because theology is ad hoc. When order is necessary, it is called forth. When rationality is useful to those in power, theology will embrace it; when mysticism is needed, it will be emphasized. In the 17th century the Pope had Suarez write a ringing defense of the rights of man, in the 19th century the Pope denied that democracy was a good idea. For the first 18 or so centuries of history the Church more or less claimed god made organisms as they were, now all the mainstream churches are pro-evolution. <shrug> Theology is made by men for human purposes. When the scholastics debated, they did not take their ideas from "theology," rather, they appealed to, and interacted with, theology as a normative force -- backed by the social and temporal power of the Church. "Theology" is like any culture, a complex dialogue between the world out there, the social world, and the temporal power of the Church. It is made and remade constantly by living human beings in their search for power and authority over other men, and in responses to that power and authority. It is flexible, ad hoc, elastic, evolving, and ultimately empty of little-t truth. That is what I mean.

*sigh* Another realist.

Evolutionary naturalist, to be precise.

Wow. You weren't kidding about realism being right: this is a spectacular simplification and a good example of why I wanted to ask whether the history of science reads differently without the realist presupposition.

Of course it reads differently. There's a lot more emphasis on the social in the construction of explanation; you tend to get much richer and more interesting explanations from the anti-realist crowd. But also -- they tend to leave out facts in a way that suggests ethical lapses. Read Collins and Pynch's account of cold fusion in [i]The Golem{/i] and then read a realist account of the same. You'll find significant facts are left out. Did you read Higher Superstition on Shapin's Leviathan yet?

What can I say to that? I suppose I could quip that the same goes for realist explanations of the success of science.

What's your point? That theology is not fantasy? That it is not made by humans?

As I said earlier in this thread, I’m having trouble finding further links ?anyone interested in the scholarship will have to seek it out for themselves. I presume you’ve read Grant, Numbers and Lindberg so you’re aware they explain the conflict hypothesis is inadequate, notwithstanding White or Draper?

Quite so. I aware that the classic conflict thesis is inadequate. But calling it inadequate does not make the external and internal conflicts of men like Ray, Buffon, Woodward, Hooke, Bonnet and other thinkers of the 16th and 17th century disappear. The "conflict" thesis for the 15th and 16th centuries doesn't work very well, partly because science was so undeveloped, and partly because it was not working on origins. Really, whether the earth goes around the sun, or vice versa, is of little moment to theology; it can live happily with either. But it is difficult to see the real anguish experienced by John Ray, who sought most of his career to explain fossils and reconcile what he observed with what the Bible said, without arguing that at least some sort of conflict is going on.

I'm sure you realize that's irrelevant: Numbers and Lindberg are two of the pre-eminent scholars in the field and not given to writing polemic for Christian sites.

Probably not. Did you read their When Science and Christianity Meet? The conflict view has given way to a more complex view, but that does not mean that the two did not conflict.


This is another massive simplification that does enough evading on its own. It’s not enough to declare that religious beliefs were saying one thing while the world was asserting to the contrary; hell, this smacks of a positivist account.

Well, when John Ray has to either assume that fossils are mineral growths in rocks, and insist that the Creator could not have designed so many varieties, and so any variation is trivial, or else confess that his theology is has massive holes, it is hard to avoid some kind of simplistic positivist account that is going to note things like cognitive dissonance. Linnaeus was forced to go even further; his account of god's "orderly" creation made him opt for a proto-theistic creationist view; he accepted change; indeed, his students were among the first to report the existence of new species formed by hybridization. Because his classification caught the diversity of life nicely, he was forced to concede that the whole issue of identifying which animal was the original "kind" created by god was extremely ticklish. In other words, Linnaeus' science was a diverse interaction between the normative force of theology, the reality he was trying to map, his own sense of where he could with the evidence he had, etc. When Buffon arranged the world in seven epochs, do you think he did so because evidence demanded it, or because it had something to do with the seven days of creation? Here are intelligent human beings struggling with a dominant ideology that is an important part of their own identity.

I am not sure about your position on all this. Are there really fossils in rocks? I mean, what exactly were the 17-19th century arguments about?

I don’t understand. You said it was a huge presupposition; I agreed and suggested we challenge it. Obviously if it falls then it renders most of the complaints against Christianity here moot, but you won’t take it on?

That's right. That last time I had that argument was in a grad seminar with a fellow student who was arguing that smearing cow shit on wounds was just as effective as using modern antibiotics, only my cultural outlook prevented me from accepting that as a valid way to treat a wound. I am not making this up.

*makes noise like a chicken*

Not chicken, just angry. Irrealism kills.

Vorkosigan

Gurdur

So I see we've already reached a consensus in this thread that religion --- even Christianity --- is not ipso facto a hindrance to science, I see.
It can be hindrance, it can be a help, it is only in etxretemely modern times that it becomes almost irrelevant --- and the reason why it will never totally become irrelevant is that for many people, religion is a source of ethical exploration, and science without ethics is inhuman.

While we may pose secular humanist ethics in place of religious humanist ethics, we all know that many people will stay religious --- which is why the important thing is humanism, whether religious or secular, and religion can never be holus bolus declared inimical to science.

Just a few quibbles then:

see point regarding ethics above.
See my point in previous thread regarding Netwon's mechanistic Deism.

Precisely.
No, this blanket statement ignores the drive of many people towards their own theology to explain their intuitions.
The history of subversive mystical theology is a perfect case in point; the theological writings of Hadewijch of Antwerp, Marguette Porete and Mechtild of Magdeburg, or Rabi'a al-'Adawiya, are good examples.

And that, I think, is where we are in full agreement.
This would seem to be ignoring the inbuilt drive of many towards theologies --- the God In The Brain.
Realism itself is hardly immune to ethical lapses.
As far as anyone knows, Dr.Mengele was a realist of sorts.
I've now known at least five atheist people who've commented that SecWeb tends to make them more angry than otherwise.
But then, realism has been known to kill too --- because there is no "realist" source of definitive ethics.

Bede

Well, it seems the conflcit thesis is not as popular as it once was, so that's progress.

I note that people seem to be assuming that I'm arguing Christianity was the only cause of modern science or sufficient or uniquely essential. I've said none of these things. All I'm doing is considering one variable among many and explaining why I think it was important. The alternative (which at least one person on this thread has done) is list everything you can think of and then think you've explained something. Clearly you haven't.

Two solid counters have been mentioned to the Christianity was a cause idea. First, the lack of a single Christianity makes it impossible to claim it caused anything and second that the lack of science in non-western Christian cultures shows it didn't help.

Clearly, both these points are untenable. Christian is extremely fluid and has, as Vork said, been able to adapt itself many times. Quite why changing your mind in the face of new evidence and situations is a virtue for a scientist but not for a theologian escapes me. An ability to change is a good thing even if Christians have often found it hard to cope with. We could say that Eastern orthodox churches failed to help science while being able to point to reasons why Latin Christianity did so help. It might be a useful exercise and certainly not countered by any childish points that any form of Christianity that does not in all ways resemble southern state fundemantalism is actual Bediatianty instead.

As for the second point, Vork attacked himself with his list of 15 possible causes for science. Indeed, he gave the impression he'd willingly credit anything apart from Christianity. If any of these factors was necessary for science but lacking in Russia, for instance, then we don't need to dispose of the notion of Christianity also being necessary. We can all agree it isn't sufficient.

My initial thoughts are that we need to actually look at Latin Christianity rather than elsewhere to find out if it might have been a cause of modern science.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Hugo Holbling

I've taken that rhetorical position for the purpose of debate, but i'll be glad to drop it now.



I don't know what you're talking about. You raise some interesting points again in your reply and i want to get to responding, but we have both agreed that this issue is the presupposition behind everything that needs to be questioned. I can well believe your story from grad seminar days but it has nothing to do with whether or not there exists a sure path to progress which religion should keep off. Moreover, am i supposed to take your assertion as anything more than a massive non sequitur?

The instrumentalist irrealist account of the success of science does not imply that cow shit is as good as antibiotics. I don't know where you're getting this stuff from but i hope you'll add some further remarks defending your claim - at the moment it's nothing short of inexplicable.

lpetrich

Vorkosigan:
That last time I had that argument was in a grad seminar with a fellow student who was arguing that smearing cow shit on wounds was just as effective as using modern antibiotics, only my cultural outlook prevented me from accepting that as a valid way to treat a wound. I am not making this up.

An alternative hypothesis is that he was claiming that your "cultural outlook" was keeping you from recognizing that certain "therapies" can be successful, like cowshit as a wound dressing.

lpetrich

Bede:
I note that people seem to be assuming that I'm arguing Christianity was the only cause of modern science or sufficient or uniquely essential. I've said none of these things. ...

Except that it's not the unified front that is implied by loosely tossing out the word "Christianity". Which is why I've used the term "Bedianity".

As to "southern-state fundamentalism", one has to acknowledge that Biblical literalism has a certain simplicity, that it does not seem like the double-talk and bull excrement that allegorical interpretations often seem like ("Let me get this straight. Do you mean to tell me that the Bible does not really mean what it says?").

In fact, the premise that the Bible is divinely inspired, absolutely true, and inerrant does seem most consistent with Biblical literalism. This consistency may not be absolute, but it is not much weaker than (say) Galileo's arguments for heliocentrism.

But the Universe that science has discovered is not the Universe of Biblical literalism, outside of such hypotheses as the Philip-Gosse created-appearance hypothesis, and Biblical literalism has thus been a hindrance to science.

As for the second point, Vork attacked himself with his list of 15 possible causes for science. Indeed, he gave the impression he'd willingly credit anything apart from Christianity. ...

Seems to me that Bede is constructing a convenient theology which I've called Bedianity. And then moaning and groaning that others don't consider it all of Xtianity.

In a similar fashion, we don't see any good reason to credit the worship of the Olympian deities with Greco-Roman science, despite those scientists being at least nominal Hellenic pagans. Try reading the original text of the Hippocratic Oath -- it mentions and invokes some of the Olympians. So does that mean that to be a good doctor one must worship Apollo and Asklepios?