Tuesday’s lecture by Matt Goldish focused on the ties between religion and science. Goldish began the lecture by mentioning the author Dan Brown and his book, Angels and Demons. One of the quotes Goldish provided talked about how religion has always had it out for science dating back to Galileo. However, as Goldish argues, the fabrication of this war of religion and science has been concocted since the 19th century by writers and the like. Goldish supported his argument by providing details about Nicolaus Copernicus and his discoveries in the field of astronomy. Copernicus was a priest in the church who was enlisted by the Pope to figure out a new calendar system that would correct issues associated with the Julian calendar. While Copernicus’s work was considered the first event of the scientific revolution, there were still holes into the explanation of why the planets moved the way Copernicus proposed. This ideology is due to the ideology of trying to save the phenomenon as mentioned in Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which talks heavily about paradigm shifts in the scientific community.
Goldish also mentioned the work of Johannes Kepler and how he was involved with religion and science. Kepler was a Lutheran who was the first person to discover mathematical facts that were always correct in relation to astronomy. Kepler talked heavily about how God had given him the tools and is revealing the truth to him. However, Kepler also had issues giving up the ideology that the world was surrounded by spheres and explaining retrograde motion of the planets. He decided that the path must be elliptical, not spherical and that the relationship is between the geometric solids. Goldish continued his lecture with examples from Galileo and Newton that show that they too were deeply religious scientists.
Overall, it is clear, based on Goldish’s lecture that religion and science are indeed not at war. Many of the great scientific names we all know were involved with the church in one form or another. It would be absurd to say that the church was not the center of scientific knowledge and achievement in the early years.
Yes, Amanda, it is interesting to think about how the church was the center of the scientific world (and general knowledge) in the West at a point in history. We definitely see the two worlds very different in this country. I wonder if it can be explained in part because the US is so young and most of its history is after the start of the 19 century. When you go to England and France, for instance, you see scientific figures and religious figures side by side in burials, with statues, etc.