BioBeing

The Christians, as has been pointed out, did start most of the European Universities, a step towards Science and Intellectualism, perhaps. But did they start that way, or were they just theology schools? Was general learning the key, or was it a by product? [I am asking because I really don't know].

Also, many people (e.g. around Darwins time) studied nature as a way of studying God's work. While they have unwittingly moved science (especially the study of beetles ) forward, science per se was not the express goal.

While I would definitlely concede that Christianity has not prevented science in total, and has to some extent promoted it, I think one of the point that some here are trying to make is that in the absence of religion altogther would science have progressed faster or slower?

I would posit that, freed from any superstitous beliefs, humans natural curiosity would have driven science foward faster. However, humans curiosity is what started religion in the first place.

We are where we are both because of and despite religion, so the point is kinda mute

Hugo Holbling

If that were so, you'd need to explain why science apparently arose in a specific region only and not among others, including the comparatively more advanced Chinese, for example. This difficult circumstance is one of the points made by those who posit Christianity as a motive force in the formation of science. You can find further scholarly consideration of the Merton and Duhem-Jaki theses here.

BioBeing

I'll look into your link when I have some time, but I have to say, I tend to doubt an unbiased, scholarly, approach from a site calling itself the "Revolution against Evolution: Answering Tough Questions Concerning Science and the Bible".

Celsus

While I certainly agree with Hugo and Bede in this thread with respect to Galileo, I don't think RAE is a reputable site, nor is (sorry Hugo) your extreme gaffe of posting a Christian apologetic (did you read the last sentence? "For, as Jaki observed, Jesus was the Savior of science--without His birth, life, and resurrection, it never would have existed in this world." *Cough*) as a "scholarly consideration." If you don't believe me, look at the author's other essay, which is a rehash of McDowellite apologetics. Now has anyone thought of looking up the Bible on all of this? Particularly Bede: What do you make of verses like 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (seems a huge methodological misstep if actually applied)?

Joel

Hugo Holbling

Yes, but thanks for asking again if i actually read the links i or others post. The Duhem-Jaki and Merton theses are scholarly approaches to this question and the link provides a layman's introduction to them; there's clearly little point in my offering substantial scholarly references and detailed arguments quoting or explicating therefrom, because none of the headbangers are interested. The author goes over the material in fair depth and the question of his own bias is utterly irrelevant to his balanced portrayal of Jaki, as you would know had you read the latter (i'm guessing only Bede will follow me here). I must say i'm surprised by your swift assumption that i "gaffed" here, Joel, not to mention your appeal to the Bible.

lpetrich

Hugo Holbling:
If that were so, you'd need to explain why science apparently arose in a specific region only and not among others, including the comparatively more advanced Chinese, for example.

Or the Byzantines. They continued on relatively intact after the western Roman Empire was overrun -- they even called themselves Romaioi. Or were they something other than Real Xtians?

And in western Europe, a favorite genre of literature among monastic copyists was biographies of saints -- biographies nowadays considered to be largely fictional. Super scientists those monks weren't.

Hugo Holbling

Is this a bad company call just for me? The author's approach is nice because he let's the texts speak for themselves. He may believe crazy things such as the superiority of Dutch penalty takers, but you might care to read Merton, Duhem or Jaki yourself before dismissing this introduction of their theses. In fact, why not compare your subsequent understanding of them with that on show in the linked essay and let me know if you can sustain your earlier opinion having followed these scholars (i'm assuming you aren't going to suggest that Merton or Jaki don't count as such). Moreover, you can then answer the difficulty i raised if you like. Alas, it simply doesn't follow that any argument made by someone on that site is flawed in its hermeneutic by virtue of it.

Is this a joke? I think you need to look into the philosophy of science, wherein the theory-ladenness of observation is pretty much orthodoxy. There is no epistemological or methodological approach free of bias.

To you perhaps. In fact the Merton thesis we've been discussing suggests that Christianity was at least a formative influence on science, while scholarly opinion is that the relationship between the two was symbiotic. If you care to explain the flaws in either idea your point may appear more logical than the non sequitur is looks like, as liv has so nicely observed.

Edit: For anyone intending to actually look into some scholarship, i'm intentionally not spelling out the difference in approach between Duhem-Jaki and Merton. If all i get in response is headbanging, i don't see why i should explain this excellent example of how complex the history of science and the relationship between it and Christianity are.

lpetrich

Hugo Holbling:
but you might care to read Merton, Duhem or Jaki yourself before dismissing this introduction of their theses. ...

... In fact the Merton thesis we've been discussing suggests that Christianity was at least a formative influence on science, while scholarly opinion is that the relationship between the two was symbiotic. ...

Except that this was far from all of Xtianity -- Merton was talking about how some sects encouraged an ethic that helped people become good scientists. If one makes workaholism a virtue, one is likely to get greater productivity.

However, Jaki's thesis is less logical. There is nothing in the proposition that the Universe had a creator(s)/designer(s) that implies that the Universe is knowable. In fact, if "a finite mind cannot understand the infinite", as some theologians tell us, one would expect the opposite.

And the idea of the Xtian God laying down some natural laws seems like either a copying or a reinvention of the Hellenic-pagan notion of an impersonal fate, which even the gods are subject to. That idea may have been popular among some philosophers, but not among many others. Saints were celebrated for their miracles, not for their understanding of natural law.

Also, I've read some of Jaki's other writings, and I'm NOT impressed. In "Brain, Mind, and Computers", one of his main arguments was that there are so many neurons in a human brain that it's impossible to make a computer with that many components. And in "Planets and Planetarians", he seemed to argue that life on other planets was a fundamentally flaky idea that is rejected by all Real Scientists.

Celsus

I'm sorry you feel that way Hugo. Reading that essay was like reading Huntingdon's Clash of Civilizations: Big on generalisations, short (or wrong) on details. I don't have the time to go into details, but if Merton's thesis is similar to Weber's Protestant Ethic as stated in the essay, I'm not getting my hopes up. However, it's interesting that in this case, you deny that an author's background, bias and motives influence the text itself. Are you sure?

An example of the author's bias in influencing the interpretation will have to suffice for now:

• Rather, Christian theology (by chance conflict, someone could argue) shot down the false, self-inhibiting ideas of pagan Greek science, absorbed much of its respect for reason from them, and then allowed science to blossom forth. However, since the God of the Bible operates in a much more rational manner than the stories of the pagan gods non-Christian cultures believed, Christianity helped promote rationality to a degree as well. (Doubters of this should carefully read Genesis 1-2, and then compare read the bloody battles among the gods involved in the creation of the world in the Babylonian myth Enuma elish, which is absurdly asserted to have influenced Moses/the writer(s) of Genesis). Christian theology removed the intrinsic stunting inhibitions of Greek science. It did not create science by itself mostly from scratch. However, neither could have the philosophy of the Greeks without the theology of Judeo-Christianity have created modern science by themselves either, for it took Christianity to remove various science-inhibiting false metaphysical concepts from the former's philosophy to have modern science born.

Here we see exactly what is the problem Bede demonstrates for me nicely below. (1) That the opposition to pagan beliefs is firstly not understood as an intolerant witchhunt that it really was, nor recognises that science was as much a casualty (it was the Arabs who preserved much of the Greek works for us), (2) that the parallels between the myths of the Bible and the very well-attested Babylonian/Sumerian myths are brushed aside (by coincidence, I just posted on this matter in the E/C forum prior to reading that essay) and that (3) the Judeo-Christian theology was responsible for all this.

The author cannot make this sort of nonsensical argument unless he believes that Judeo-Christian theology is unchanging (thus sneaking in an ahistorical approach as is all too common in apologetics), or he is hopelessly (about a century) out of date on Old Testament scholarship, or he is issuing a pisspoor apologetic and wilfully denying modern scholarship. So the fault of this either lies with Jaki (if the transmission is accurate), or the author. I leave that to you to decide.
Yes, I agree. The history of Christianity is the history of Biblical interpretation (brownie points if you know who said that, because I can't for the life of me find where that came from). That is to say, at certain points in its history, Christianity was remarkably intolerant, and anti-science. Presently, the diversity of Christianity means that while there are vast swathes of Christianity that are pro-science, there are also very anti-scientific threads. This whole idea that "Christianity" as a whole can be pinned down as pro- or anti-science isn't particularly useful: they are all historically specific incidents in the history of science and to generalise from that is to make the same sorts of mistakes as Shapin and Shaeffer.

Joel

Hugo Holbling

No, i didn't. Thanks for mischaracterising me. Had you read Jaki, you would appreciate that it would be difficult to make his case any more extreme (indeed, neither Bede nor i buy it), but that's beside the point: i didn't expect to see you throwing around bad company fallacies. I didn't say that motives don't bias a text, but clearly an argument isn't false because it's author is biased.

I leave the questions of biblical scholarship to Bede since i am not inclined to speculate here. Had you followed the thread fairly you would already know that i don't propose that Christianity was a necessary prerequisite for science, although i am still looking into the matter; instead, i've been trying to show the headbangers that the conflict hypothesis they cling to is hopelessly out-of-date. It's hard to find references on the internet as books and libraries are required, as you well know.

Here you are making the very same point Bill Sneddon and i did several pages ago. Wow. Still, i'll be interested to learn where you think Shapin went wrong.

I suppose i ought to thank you for ignoring the principle of charity in reading other's posts and for talking down to me throughout. I'll remember to bear this in mind in future.