Christian Scientists of the past

Radrook said:

Wrong in what specific way?

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Although LoudMouth has been helping out, I will add my own measure to this response. And by the way, LoudMouth is correct in every way.

What you don't (perhaps can't?) understand is what the overwhelming belief was prior to the Scientific method. To quote Sagan, it was a "Demon Haunted World". Before science, everything was caused by spirits, demons, gods, devils. I don't think you can imagine to what degree this occurred. Every sickness, every birth (including animals), every season, every storm, every chemical reaction, every bit of good or bad fortune (and on and on and on) was a result of spirits interfering with the world. Humans were mere puppets in a world where sprits controlled almost everything. And supplicating to those spirits in the form of incantations, spells, or prayers (there is no difference) was the standard method to attempt some sort of control over these imagined and poorly understood phenomena.

As LoudMouth has attempted to explain to your dull intellect, Christianity does not at all suggest that the world is any different. Whether it is mana from heaven, diseases that are caused by spirits or the wrath of god, or bad fortune caused by the devil. Christianity agreed with this demon haunted world in every way. The "ordered world" this moron Loren Eiseley tries to con us into was invented by christians after the renaissance had already begun. It was christianity desperately trying to find relevance in a new world of reason. It was post facto.

Science could only progress when superstitions were rolled back. Why study disease when it is caused by capricious, arbitrary spirits whose goals and plans are a mystery? For more than a thousand years christianity had the power to begin this investigation... why didn't it? Because christianity was every bit the same as the superstitions that came before it. People had to begin to see that these superstitions were not there, that god didn't have his finger in every pickle jar. People had to become more deistic to make progress. And that was what the renaissance was all about.

So you are wrong. Christianity does not help in any way with Scientific progress or discovery. It remains the antithesis of Science. Christianity says "you need faith" and Science says "you need evidence and reason"... never the twain shall meet.

So again, christians can be Scientists, but only if they shed or compartmentalize their beliefs while doing Scientific work. And great Scientists of the past were NOT great because they were christians, they were great in spite of being christians.

And lastly, don't let me hear you using this line of reasoning again. Learn and move forward, if you can.

Radrook said:

Dr. Loren Eiseley (1907-1977), a Professor of anthropology, a science history writer and evolutionist, concluded that the birth of modern science was mainly due to the creationist convictions of its founders. "It is the CHRISTIAN world which finally gave birth in a clear articulated fashion to the experimental method of science itself ... It began its discoveries and made use of its method in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a Creator who did not act upon whim nor inference with the forces He had set in operation. The experimental method succeeded beyond man's wildest dreams but the faith that brought it into being owes something to the Christian conception of the nature of God. It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption." [Loren Eiseley, Darwin's Centenary: Evolution and the Men who Discovered it, Doubleday: New York, 1961 p:62]

Gee! I wonder how they are going to attack that.

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Attack? not at all - it's a heart-warming affirmation that, even under the influence of irrational belief systems, men have sufficient curiosity and drive to seek rational truths that they can devise a rational methodology that provides a counterpoint to those irrational beliefs.

Naturally, humans being irrational, loss-averse creatures, most found ways of accommodating the rational methodology while keeping the irrational beliefs...

I see a lot of assertions being tossed around here about Christianity and the rise of modern science. Not to put too fine a point on it, does anyone involved actually know anything about the subject? There is an extensive literature on the origins of science and its connection to medieval and early modern thought, but I don't see any sign that anyone here is familiar with it.

sfs said:

I see a lot of assertions being tossed around here about Christianity and the rise of modern science. Not to put too fine a point on it, does anyone involved actually know anything about the subject? There is an extensive literature on the origins of science and its connection to medieval and early modern thought, but I don't see any sign that anyone here is familiar with it.

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I do.

And-U-Say said:

I do.

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Great. Could you provide some references for your assertions?

KCfromNC said:

So the laws are perfectly reliable - except when a mysterious invisible magical being changes them on a whim.

If you consider that reliable I'd hate to see what you'd think an unreliable set of natural laws would be.

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LOL!

a recent discussion on The Atheist Experience pops into mind where a theist called in to defend his beliefs, claiming that Faith was "a reliable pathway to truth** 100% of the time, sometimes"... (?!) Matt had him dancing around it in a very, very entertaining fashion.

** as in not "Truth", but truth.

sfs said:

Great. Could you provide some references for your assertions?

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sfs; this is completely not related to the thread (nor this page) but i have been web-jumping and found this page Index of /sfs Sounds familiar? Its a bit old but i just wanted to let you know that anyone can see a lot of private pictures and (in case you ever put a password there) people could track it down.
(Btw im telling you this here because its the only place were i found a photo correlation from that page and this one)
Unless its your goal to have those files in public, i recommend you erasing them from the webpage

Radrook said:

Dr. Loren Eiseley (1907-1977), a Professor of anthropology, a science history writer and evolutionist, concluded that the birth of modern science was mainly due to the creationist convictions of its founders. "It is the CHRISTIAN world which finally gave birth in a clear articulated fashion to the experimental method of science itself ... It began its discoveries and made use of its method in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a Creator who did not act upon whim nor inference with the forces He had set in operation. The experimental method succeeded beyond man's wildest dreams but the faith that brought it into being owes something to the Christian conception of the nature of God. It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption." [Loren Eiseley, Darwin's Centenary: Evolution and the Men who Discovered it, Doubleday: New York, 1961 p:62]

Gee! I wonder how they are going to attack that.

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The presence of the non-word "evolutionists" tells me this is from an uncited Creationist website.

sfs said:

I see a lot of assertions being tossed around here about Christianity and the rise of modern science. Not to put too fine a point on it, does anyone involved actually know anything about the subject? There is an extensive literature on the origins of science and its connection to medieval and early modern thought, but I don't see any sign that anyone here is familiar with it.

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The extent of my knowledge is that a Christian worldview - that the Universe was ordered and that our perceptions are reality (not an illusion as some Eastern religions hold) - played a role in the development of modern science and the scientific method.

sfs said:

Great. Could you provide some references for your assertions?

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Yes. I am the reference. When I took Chemistry classes in high school and then later Chemistry and Chemical Engineering classes in college and graduate school, we learned the history of the phenomena we were studying. We learned about alchemy and what it entailed, how incantations were a huge part of alchemy and how these same incantations held back progress because it hid the real reason why chemical reactions were not working out the way they wanted. They focussed on how and what to say their incantations instead of looking at the purity of reagents or the temperature of the reaction. The professors would put copies of ancient tests up on the screen with the latin incantations for certain actions right there.

I also studied Greek and Roman civilizations as part of my electives and superstitions were a big part of our studies. Do you recall the Oracle at Delphi? There were a lot of Oracles around the ancient world and they were very busy. Reading tea leaves and entrails is not some joke, it was the way things were done to try to discern the will of the gods as to what kind of decision to make. Did you want to buy land? Take a trip? Plant the crops? Make a deal? Stay healthy? Superstitions played heavily in all of those activities.

Indeed... do you want a reference? I give you the bible. Filled to the brim with an unordered world which supplicates to the will of spirits. The old and new testaments contain innumerable examples of pleas to spirits for healing or calming storms or victory over enemies or whatever. Look around the very religion of christianity. Even today it is filled with supplications to change the course of events. Prayers before meals, before travel, before bedtime, before tests, before decisions. Christians today, as we discourse, want and expect an unordered world in which the supernatural will change the course of events for them if only they say the right words with the right amount of faith.

Are you really this obtuse? Is it really that hard to see this?

And-U-Say said:

Yes. I am the reference. When I took Chemistry classes in high school and then later Chemistry and Chemical Engineering classes in college and graduate school, we learned the history of the phenomena we were studying.

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Oh, for goodness sake. There is a real scholarly literature -- an entire field of study -- on the history of science and the history of thought. That is the relevant expertise that is required here. Whatever snippets of the history of science you picked up from science classes doesn't fit the bill. Scientists are in fact quite an unreliable source of information about their own history.

I've got a PhD in the physical sciences, a long-standing interest in medieval thought (with a graduate degree to go with it), and have made an effort to read some of the academic work on the history of science -- and I consider myself completely unqualified to offer an opinion on this subject. I do understand enough to know that the question is complex and doesn't have a trivial answer. You seem both to know a good deal less about the subject and to feel more qualified offer an opinion on the subject than I do. One of us is confused here, and I don't think it's me.

And-U-Say said:

Are you really this obtuse? Is it really that hard to see this?

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I am sometimes quite obtuse, but you might not want to bet on it in any given instance.

And you're not giving an inch to Creationists by recognizing Christian influence on the development of Western science. Don't fall for their bait-and-switch game.

sfs said:

Oh, for goodness sake. There is a real scholarly literature -- an entire field of study -- on the history of science and the history of thought. That is the relevant expertise that is required here. Whatever snippets of the history of science you picked up from science classes doesn't fit the bill. Scientists are in fact quite an unreliable source of information about their own history.

I've got a PhD in the physical sciences, a long-standing interest in medieval thought (with a graduate degree to go with it), and have made an effort to read some of the academic work on the history of science -- and I consider myself completely unqualified to offer an opinion on this subject. I do understand enough to know that the question is complex and doesn't have a trivial answer. You seem both to know a good deal less about the subject and to feel more qualified offer an opinion on the subject than I do. One of us is confused here, and I don't think it's me.


I am sometimes quite obtuse, but you might not want to bet on it in any given instance.

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Yet with all that, you have a hard time seeing this? What is your position anyway? No, I don't think I have every detail down, but I don't need to. What kind of idiocy is it to imply that everything needs to be know before anything can be said? You are being ridiculous here.

javier_is_life said:

sfs; this is completely not related to the thread (nor this page) but i have been web-jumping and found this page Index of /sfs Sounds familiar? Its a bit old but i just wanted to let you know that anyone can see a lot of private pictures and (in case you ever put a password there) people could track it down.
(Btw im telling you this here because its the only place were i found a photo correlation from that page and this one)
Unless its your goal to have those files in public, i recommend you erasing them from the webpage

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Thanks, but I'm fine with having them be public. They're all thing I shared with someone or linked to at some point. (Mostly a long time ago, but I don't see any reason to take them down.)

And-U-Say said:

Yet with all that, you have a hard time seeing this?

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Seeing what? Your string of assertions that sound like they come straight out of the nineteenth century and the "warfare of science and Christianity" school of scholarship? (Or maybe "scholarship" would be more appropriate.)

And-U-Say said:

What is your position anyway?

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As I already told you, I don't know enough to have a position on the question. (Remember, the question is whether Christianity was more conducive to the development of science than other worldviews.) I do know some things. I know that early modern science was firmly rooted in medieval science, both Christian and Islamic. I know that the early natural philosophers were overwhelmingly devout Christians. I know that early modern science is widely thought to be associated with particular strands of Christian thought, specifically voluntarism and nominalism, although the association has been disputed (see here for a good discussion from one point of view). Whether that association is causal or not I don't know; perhaps their belief in voluntarism encouraged the early scientists to adopt empiricism, but perhaps they simply picked the philosophical position that supported what they were going to be doing anyway.

I don't know whether the intellectual climate actually contributed to the birth of science, nor is it obvious to me how one could determine that. What I really don't know is how the climate in Western Christianity compares to that in lots of other pre-scientific cultures, and whether they could have provided equally fertile ground had history played out a little differently.

Radrook said:

The Bible doesn't attribute it to magic-you do. The Bible describes it as an act from the ID who provided the manna. The thin-air part is also your idea. You see, the ID isn't obligated to produce anything out of thin air. There are other ways that manna could have been produced.

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And those other ways would be . . . ?

No, it doesn't justify assuming an unreliability of universal laws. It merely demonstrates that the ID can supersede the laws he himself established or temporarily cancel or modify them at will.

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Notice how the first sentence is completely contradicted by the second sentence?

sfs said:

Seeing what? Your string of assertions that sound like they come straight out of the nineteenth century and the "warfare of science and Christianity" school of scholarship? (Or maybe "scholarship" would be more appropriate.)

As I already told you, I don't know enough to have a position on the question. (Remember, the question is whether Christianity was more conducive to the development of science than other worldviews.) I do know some things. I know that early modern science was firmly rooted in medieval science, both Christian and Islamic. I know that the early natural philosophers were overwhelmingly devout Christians. I know that early modern science is widely thought to be associated with particular strands of Christian thought, specifically voluntarism and nominalism, although the association has been disputed (see here for a good discussion from one point of view). Whether that association is causal or not I don't know; perhaps their belief in voluntarism encouraged the early scientists to adopt empiricism, but perhaps they simply picked the philosophical position that supported what they were going to be doing anyway.

I don't know whether the intellectual climate actually contributed to the birth of science, nor is it obvious to me how one could determine that. What I really don't know is how the climate in Western Christianity compares to that in lots of other pre-scientific cultures, and whether they could have provided equally fertile ground had history played out a little differently.

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We have seen science and philosophy flourish at many times in history. We could look at the Greeks, Romans, Muslims, and Christians. It could be argued that the most recent Christian led revolution is just an extension of the Greek and Roman scientific revolutions.

What all of these have in common, IMHO, is the ability for scientists to even exist. You can't have scientists and philosophers unless you have a culture and economy capable of supporting them. A culture of hunter gatherers needs everyone hunting and gathering.

Christians were quite well poised to bring us into the modern scientific era. Jared Diamond's work is always of great interest:

Guns, Germs, and Steel - Wikipedia

Having access to the best food and materials certainly put them ahead of the curve. This allowed for a philosopher class that rediscovered the Greek and Roman classics (aka the Renaissance), and then built on their knowledge and traditions.

sfs said:

I see a lot of assertions being tossed around here about Christianity and the rise of modern science. Not to put too fine a point on it, does anyone involved actually know anything about the subject? There is an extensive literature on the origins of science and its connection to medieval and early modern thought, but I don't see any sign that anyone here is familiar with it.

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I won't claim to be an expert, but some Western Civ and European history classes from 20 years ago give me just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Radrook said:

Manipulation of the Laws of nature isn't magic.

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Violations of the laws of nature is the very definition of magic.

That's like saying that the invention of a warp drive is magic.

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That would be fiction. It seems that you continually mix up reality with fiction.

There is no contradiction since, as I clearly said, the laws remain trustworthy.

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You said that the laws could be violated and changed at any moment due to the whims of a deity. That's the very definition of laws that are untrustworthy.