Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion

by
Edition: Reprint
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2010-11-08
Publisher(s): Harvard Univ Pr
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Summary

If we want nonscientists and opinion-makers in the press, the lab, and the pulpit to take a fresh look at the relationship between science and religion, Ronald Numbers suggests that we must first dispense with the hoary myths that have masqueraded too long as historical truths.Until about the 1970s, the dominant narrative in the history of science had long been that of science triumphant, and science at war with religion. But a new generation of historians both of science and of the church began to examine episodes in the history of science and religion through the values and knowledge of the actors themselves. Now Ronald Numbers has recruited the leading scholars in this new history of science to shy;puncture the myths, from Galileors"s incarceration to Darwinrs"s deathbed conversion to Einsteinrs"s belief in a personal God who "didnrs"t play dice with the universe." The picture of science and religion at each otherrs"s throats persists in mainstream media and scholarly journals, but each chapter in Galileo Goes to Jail shows how much we have to gain by seeing beyond the myths.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
That the Rise of Christianity Was Responsible for the Demise of Ancient Science
That the Medieval Christian Church Suppressed the Growth of Science
That Medieval Christians Taught That the Earth Was Flat
That Medieval Islamic Culture Was Inhospitable to Science
That the Medieval Church Prohibited Human Dissection
That the Copernican System Demoted Humans from the Center of the Cosmos
That Giordano Bruno Was the First Martyr of Modern Science
That Galileo Was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicanism
That Christianity Gave Birth to Modern Science
That the Scientific Revolution Liberated Science from Religion
That Catholics Did Not Contribute to the Scientific Revolution
That René Descartes Originated the Mind-Body Distinction
That Isaac Newton's Mechanistic Cosmology Eliminated the Need for God
That the Church Denounced Anesthesia in Childbirth on Biblical Grounds
That the Theory of Organic Evolution Is Based on Circular Reasoning
That Evolution Destroyed Charles Darwin's Faith in Christianity-until He Reconverted on His Deathbed
That Huxley Defeated Wilberforce in Their Debate over Evolution and Religion
That Darwin Destroyed Natural Theology
That Darwin and Haeckel Were Complicit in Nazi Biology
That the Scopes Trial Ended in Defeat for Antievolutionism
That Einstein Believed in a Personal God
That Quantum Physics Demonstrated the Doctrine of Free Will
That "Intelligent Design" Represents a Scientific Challenge to Evolution
That Creationism Is a Uniquely American Phenomenon
That Modern Science Has Secularized Western Culture
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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