I Liked the Old Atheists Better

Stephen Prothero, a scholar of religion at BU, recently wrote a book titled God Is Not One. It is mostly an interesting read and is essentially a brief tour of major world religions with the intent of highlighting their differences. He includes a chapter on atheism which, while not a religion, is nonetheless an important and influential worldview (some contemporary forms of atheism, however, do seem very much like a religion).

Atheism is not new. It has been a significant intellectual viewpoint since at least the ancient Greeks, though atheists have always been in the minority. Prothero points out that some of greatest intellectuals (e.g. Nietzsche, Marx, Sartre) as well as some of the worst dictators (Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot) have been atheists. The so called "New Atheists" (e.g. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris) have given a new public face to atheism and have written some of the best-selling books of the past decade. Prothero observes that this particular group of atheists seems to be very religious, holding their beliefs "with the conviction of zealots and evangelizing with verve." Chris Hedges, a former writer for the New York Times, sees the New Atheists as a "secular version of the Religious Right." These self-proclaimed freethinkers end up being just as hate-filled, bigoted, and dogmatic as the religious fundamentalists they usually take aim at.

Prothero writes, "One of history's most dangerous games begins with dividing the world into the good guys and the bad guys and ends with using any means necessary to take the villains out. New Atheists play this game with brio, demonizing Muslims, denouncing Christians and Jews as dupes, and baptizing their fellow "brights" into their own communion of smarter-than-thou saints. Like fundamentalists and cowboys, they live in a Manichean world in which the forces of light are engaged in a great apocalyptic battle against the forces of darkness. They, too, are dogmatic and uncurious and every bit as useful to neoconservative policymakers as right wing televangelists."

Prothero asks why we can't recognize that we can just as easily kill in the name of progress (the French Revolution and the brutal dictatorships of Stalin and Lenin come to mind) as in the name of God. Sam Harris actually writes, "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." The problem here is the strange but seemingly attractive notion that it is OK to be ultra-dogmatic and aggressive as long as you are "right." To me, the Spanish Inquisition would still not be acceptable even if the Roman Catholic Church's dogma was correct and the heretics indeed held false beliefs.

Prothero also mentions an interesting tidbit about the French New Atheist Michel Onfray. Onfray accuses fellow atheists like Dawkins and Dennett of being "Christian atheists." In other words, these atheists embrace Western moral values (which are predominantly Judeo-Christian) while rejecting Christianity and Judaism. Onfray, to my mind, is a bit more honest when he follows Nietzsche and insists that if atheism is true then there is no need for man to follow conventional morality. Onfray too recognizes the religiosity of many of today's atheists, writing (quoted by Prothero):

"The tactics of some secular figures seem contaminated by the enemy's ideology: many militants in the secular cause look astonishingly like clergy. Worse: like caricatures of clergy. Unfortunately, contemporary freethinking often carries a waft of incense; it sprinkles itself shamelessly with holy water."

Prothero doesn't only discuss St. Dawkins and St. Hitchens, though. He also tells the story of Amanda Gulledge, an "Alabama mom" and an atheist whose children have been shunned by other neighborhood children because they "haven't accepted Jesus as their Savior." Gulledge spoke at an atheist conference Prothero attended, and he noted the sharp contrast between the apparent goals of the more public New Atheists and "normal" atheists like her. One group wants to eradicate religion from the planet and the other wants atheism to be considered a valid viewpoint "deserving of a fair hearing." Prothero further contrasts the two different approaches in terms of the gay rights movement: "One is like trying to turn everyone gay and the other is like trying to secure equal rights for homosexuals."

I appreciate Amanda Gulledge's story, and I am ashamed that Christians would treat children like they have treated Amanda's children. I find it much harder to appreciate what the New Atheists seem to bring to the table: angry, overblown rhetoric and an astonishing level of close-minded, self-righteous hubris. I like how Prothero closes his chapter:

"I wouldn't walk around the block to hear Christopher Hitchens take cheap shots at Christians. But I'd get on the subway, and maybe even a plane, to hear Amanda Gulledge tell me why her kids are good people too."
  

The Limits of Science

The success of science is indisputable. One only needs to look at modern medicine and technology for convincing evidence that science works. In the approximately 400 years since the birth of what we might recognize as modern science we have undoubtedly gained considerable knowledge of the natural world and its inner workings. In that time science has become a central part of our culture and, in many ways, has replaced religion as a major source of authority.

Since the Enlightenment there has been a steady trend of secularization in public life. Where once the Church wielded tremendous social and political power to uphold their own dogmas (e.g. the flat earth; just kidding, they actually never said that), some critics allege that the scientific establishment has in some ways taken the Church's place, forming a kind of scientific priesthood.

In fact, one famous proponent of science in the Victorian age and one of the first professional scientists, Thomas Huxley, had exactly that in mind. To Huxley and his supporters, science needed to replace religion as the supreme source of cultural authority. Historian Peter Bowler observes that the great museums of natural history built in Britain and America during the 1800s are rather cathedral-like (see the London museum above), and that this "helped confirm the role that science had usurped as the source of moral authority in the modern world."

Leaving aside the problem of "science" being a source of moral authority, what does this mean for us? One thing it means is that science's dominant position in our culture can cause people to accept pronouncements or conclusions uncritically. No doubt it was common in earlier centuries for people to uncritically accept what religious authorities told them, and we can have the same problem with scientific authorities now. In fact, in some ways it is probably worse today because science has become so specialized that it is sometimes hard for other scientists, nevermind lay people, to make sense of theories and concepts outside of their own fields.

As a former science educator, I am interested in helping people achieve science literacy, part of which includes being able to critically evaluate scientific claims and evidence as well as being aware of the nature and history of science. Over the next few weeks I intend to write further on these topics because while science is clearly an important source of knowledge, science (and especially scientists) are hardly infallible. Let's not accord to scientific theories the same blind faith and adherence to dogma that rationalists are so quick to criticize in our religious forebears.

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #4

Galileo’s Trial

Seven years later Galileo’s old friend and admirer Cardinal Barberini became Pope Urban VIII. Urban VIII and his leading academic officials thought very highly of Galileo’s books, and promptly invited Galileo to come visit. During the visit Galileo brought up the idea of his being able to continue writing about cosmology and the question of Copernicanism. Urban VIII, having studied astronomy himself, appreciated the mathematical prowess of Copernicus. Urban did not think Copernicus’ theory to be true, but considered it a useful contribution to astronomy nonetheless. He told Galileo he could resume his writing, provided that he treated Copernicus’ theory as an unproven hypothesis (which, we must remember, it was).

Galileo immediately set to work revising parts of old manuscripts to create a new book on the arrangement of the universe. He wrote the book as a dialogue between three men in which they discuss the merits of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. Framing the content in this way, Galileo hoped the discussion could stay at the needed theoretical level, avoiding any direct claims of the truth of Copernicus’ theory. Galileo worked on this book for many years, during which Pope Urban VIII decided to grant Galileo a yearly pension from the Church, merely for being such a valued intellect.

When the book was finally finished in 1630, Galileo sought permission to publish the book and submitted it to the relevant church authorities. It passed inspection with only a few minor changes needed, but due to the plague and other complications the book did not end up being published for another two years. When it was finally published, it became an instant success, selling out wherever it was printed. Cardinals, bishops, and Jesuit academics from all over wrote to Galileo of their praise and awe for his masterpiece, The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.

Unfortunately for Galileo, the publication of the Dialogue would also result in a trial in front of the Inquisition and being sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Historians suggest that things would have been very different had Galileo or Copernicus lived one hundred years earlier or later. As it happened, several factors came together in precisely the wrong way for Galileo.

First, it was clear to readers of Galileo’s Dialogue who the victor was in the conversations and arguments concerning geo- and heliocentrism. The person arguing for geocentrism was named Simplicio and was clearly on the losing end of the argument. Galileo’s enemies within the church suggested to the Pope that Galileo was mocking the Church and him personally. While it is doubtful that this was the case (plenty of Church academics greatly enjoyed the book), these insinuations came to Pope Urban VIII at exactly the wrong time.

Urban VIII was a different person than he had been at the beginning of his office. He had made many political enemies around Europe, was involved in several wars, and feared attacks from Spanish assassins, among other concerns. Urban VIII also faced harsh criticism from Rome itself, accusing him of not taking a strong enough stance in defending the Catholic faith in the international arena. His paranoia and concern for his image resulted in determined anger and outrage, “especially if one is opposing, threatening, or defying him,” wrote a friend of Galileo’s who was close to the Pope. When Urban VIII heard remarks “insisting Galileo had played him for a fool by allowing Simplicio to espouse Urban’s philosophy,” he ordered an investigation into Galileo’s most recent work. The three person team told Urban VIII that, in their opinion, Galileo’s work was in fact an argument for the truth of Copernicanism. Urban was furious and summoned Galileo to stand trial before the Inquisition.

Galileo, almost 70 years old at this point, dutifully travelled to Rome to stand trial in 1633. Despite the portrayal of Galileo’s trial one sees in paintings, he stood before only two officials and a secretary. A full record of the transcript still exists (one can find them reproduced in Dava Sobel’s excellent Galileo’s Daughter), and the text is largely concerned not with “science” versus “religion” but with whether Galileo violated the earlier command from 1616 to not teach or write about Copernicanism except as a hypothesis.

But there was a problem: the official records of the Church concerning the incident in 1616 used stronger language then what Galileo had understood from Bellarmino. Galileo was under the impression that he was not to teach or write about Copernicanism as if it were literally true; according to the official records, he had been told not to teach or write about it at all. This came as a surprise to Galileo (and to Urban himself), and is still something of a mystery for historians today. It is possible that Galileo misremembered the original event, or that there was a miscommunication between the Inquisition and Bellarmino about the verbal injunction that had been served to Galileo (some have suggested that the Inquisition forged the document, but contemporary historians consider this unlikely). In any event, the Inquisition considered their own official records to take precedence over Galileo’s memory and letter from Bellarmino and found Galileo “vehemently suspected of heresy” and condemned to “formal imprisonment.” His Dialogue was also added to the Index of Prohibited Books, where it remained until 1835.

Later accounts would say that Galileo was jailed and even tortured, but in fact, after being forced to renounce his belief in Copernicanism, he was “imprisoned” in a sympathetic Cardinal’s palace for 5 months, and then allowed to return home to his villa near Florence. He lived out the rest of his life there, under what we would now call house arrest, with limited visitors and even more limited mobility for Galileo himself. He was crushed by the verdict and sentence, but, in a testament to his resilience, still produced and published (outside of Rome) what is probably his most important book, Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences. This book is considered foundational to modern physics and set the stage for the great scientists of the Enlightenment. Galileo died in 1642 at home, one of the most important intellectuals in history and a figure that still dominates discussion of science and religion today.

Conclusion

While this episode is unquestionably and unequivocally an embarrassment for the Catholic Church, it is also just as clearly not a simple case of science and religion coming into conflict. As we have seen, geocentrism was entrenched in the academy as well as within the Church and there was no clear evidence at the time to support heliocentrism over geocentrism. The main issues seemed to be Church politics (e.g. the Counter-Reformation) and scriptural interpretation rather than scientific progress. The Church was essentially acting as a political body, concerned with its own authority and power. We also must remember that Church is hardly alone historically in initially resisting new ideas. In addition, Galileo did have plenty of supporters within the church, including high ranking Cardinals, priests, and Church academics who clearly saw no conflict between religious faith and scientific discovery. Galileo himself was a devout Catholic who, along with almost every other major scientist in history, including Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, and Linnaeus, to name a few, saw the universe as being the handiwork of God and saw no conflict between their faith and scientific discovery (indeed, scientists like Kepler saw their scientific work as part of their worship and praise for God and his creation).

It is simply not the case that “religion” has any in-principal conflict with “science.” Have religious claims and scientific claims at times clashed? Absolutely. Have political/religious institutions hampered the publication of scientific work? Yes, they have. Is this the whole story? Not even close. The interactions of science and religion are many and complex, but one thing is for sure: the simplistic “warfare thesis” we have inherited from Huxley, Draper, and White must be discarded. Using their writings and revisionist history, one could argue that science and history are in conflict…


Previous Posts in the Series: Post #1, Post #2, Post #3

For further reading:

Science & Religion, edited by Gary B. Ferngren, John Hopkins University Press, 2002

Galileo’s Daughter, by Dava Sobel, Penguin Books, 2000

Making Modern Science: a historical survey, Bowler & Morus, University of Chicago Press, 2005

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #3

So we have seen in posts one and two some corrections to a few common myths surrounding the Copernican Revolution. Geocentrism, for example, was not a Christian idea but a Greek one adopted by the church. Also, the contrast between geocentrism and heliocentrism, which was proposed by Copernicus, a devout Catholic, cannot be seen as a contrast between science and religion because Copernicus did not have any scientific evidence for his views.

Now we come to the main event: the trial of Galileo. This episode has come to symbolize the conflict between science and religion, specifically between the Christian church and Western science. My intent in this post is not to defend the medieval Christian church or its behavior. There are dark spots in the church’s history, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise. Rather, I intend to show what contemporary historians have discovered upon a closer look at the trial of Galileo: that it was a complicated affair that cannot be reduced to a battle between science and religion.

Galileo

Galileo Galilei was an Italian philosopher and mathematician who was born in 1564 and passed away in 1642 at the age of 78. A full history of his life and interactions with the church is impossible in a blog post, but I wish to focus on a few important points.

First, Galileo was a brilliant philosopher and scientist, as well as a devout Catholic. He is rightly regarded as the father of experimental science, being among the first to insist on empirical work in scientific investigation rather than reasoning from first principles as was standard in universities at the time. Galileo’s brilliance and willingness to question accepted wisdom brought him both international acclaim and some enemies in the academic and religious establishments.

Galileo first garnered international acclaim through the publication, in 1610, of his book The Starry Messenger, which contained the newfound astronomical knowledge he gained through use of telescopes he designed himself. This new knowledge included the discovery of the four moons around Jupiter, new stars, and the fact that our Moon had craters and valleys. This last bit was interesting because within Aristotelian natural philosophy, then dominant, everything in the heavens was perfectly spherical and smooth. Galileo did not hesitate to proclaim these new discoveries, but some devoted Aristotelian academics refused to acknowledge his work (some even claimed that the images seen in Galileo’s telescopes were illusions or tricks).

Contrary to the impression one might get from the standard story, Galileo gathered many friends and admirers within the church. He was befriended by Father Clavius, a leading Jesuit astronomer and the chief mathematician of the Collego Romano, a church institution which endorsed Galileo’s work and joined him in studying the heavens. Even Pope Paul V and Cardinal Barberini (the future pope Urban VIII) became fans, and Barberini a personal friend, saying to Galileo, “I pray the Lord God to preserve you, because men of great value like you deserve to live a long time to the benefit of the public.”

It is worth noting here that there were many university academics who objected to Galileo’s work and many within the church who embraced it. There is more to the story here, but in short Galileo’s disregard for academic tradition (i.e. Aristotelianism) earned him some enemies within the academy and, eventually, in the church as well.

Science and Scripture

Copernicus’ book which proposed the heliocentric (sun-centered) theory, De Revolutionibus, had been published in 1543, some 60 years before Galileo’s Starry Messenger. The heliocentric theory had never caused an uproar; many academics and theologians thought it interesting, a few embraced it as literally true, and others ignored it. Part of the reason for this was that at the time mathematics and astronomy were considered to be concerned with “appearances.” For example, as long as an astronomical theory could, say, accurately predict the motions of stars and be useful to navigators, it did not matter whether the theory was physically true. Part of Galileo’s legacy would be to elevate mathematics and astronomy out of the realm of “appearances” and into natural philosophy proper. This change, however, was difficult for his contemporaries to accept.

Galileo had embraced the heliocentric theory by at least 1597, but it was after he became famous in 1610 that his views on the matter became more widely known. In both public dialogue and a few published letters, Galileo made clear his preference for Copernicus’ heliocentric theory over Ptolemy’s geocentric one. This became one point among many for sharp disagreement between Galileo and other prominent university academics. Galileo appears to have had a gift for making enemies, for he applied his brilliance not only to academic topics but also to decimating and humiliating those who publicly disagreed with him. Within the church, also, there began to emerge some people who thought Galileo to be a problem, a mathematician encroaching too far into the domain of the philosophers. A priest friend alerted Galileo that a “certain crowd…put their heads together in a mad quest for any means by which they could damage you.” For those within the church who disliked Galileo, his heliocentric leanings provided a good target for them to attack.

As we have seen, geocentrism was the dominant cosmology and had been for centuries. While there were exceptions, most people at this time thought that both natural philosophy (science) and scripture supported an earth-centered universe. Scriptural passages such as Psalm 19:4-6 and Joshua 10:12, where Joshua commands the Sun to hold still, were seen to support a stationary Earth. This idea, that Holy Scripture supports the Ptolemaic geocentric universe, would prove to be central in the trial of Galileo.

The Catholic Church at this time was recovering from the sudden loss of power and authority caused by the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1517. In 1545 the Council of Trent had declared, among other things, that only popes and bishops were allowed to interpret Scripture. Galileo’s enemies, then, could cast his espousing the heliocentric theory as being against Holy Scripture. They did exactly that, and attracted the attention of the Pope, who ordered Cardinal Bellarmino, an important Jesuit intellectual, to look into whether Copernicanism might be heretical. Bellarmino was an admirer of Galileo’s work, but was skeptical of heliocentrism and believed that it did contradict scripture. The Catholic Church had a long history of distinguishing between literal and figurative language in the Bible, but, due to the Reformation and the Council of Trent, Bellarmino was obliged to defend the current interpretation of the church fathers. The Catholic Church was in an extraordinarily defensive frame of mind, and in the words of historian Richard Blackwell, “[I]t was in no mood to adopt a new and revolutionary model of the heavens.”

This was especially true since neither Copernicus nor Galileo had offered clear evidence for their views. Galileo went to Rome to argue his case, but his main piece of evidence was an erroneous theory of his about the cause of the tides. His other astronomical observations cast doubt on some of Aristotle’s claims about the heavens (e.g. their immutability) but failed to comment on the truth of the heliocentric versus geocentric theories. Since both natural philosophy and scripture appeared to support geocentrism, Bellarmino sided with tradition, seeing no good reason to do otherwise. In March of 1616 a formal proclamation was issued, declaring the Copernican position to be “false and contrary to Holy Scripture” and De Revolutionibus was ordered to have a few passages “corrected.” Bellarmino had a private meeting with Galileo to give him a warning to only treat Copernicanism as a hypothesis, but did not put any restrictions on his published works.

Gossip and rumors spread by Galileo’s enemies suggested that Galileo had been denounced and forced to repent, but Cardinal Bellarmino wrote a public letter declaring otherwise, and the Pope even met with Galileo to assure him that he had their full support against his slanderers. Even so, Galileo took the warning seriously (as the Church had meant it seriously) and was quiet for many years in his public affairs concerning the arrangement of the universe.

Next Post: Galileo's Trial

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #2

The Copernican Revolution

In the first post in this series, we covered the standard story of the Galileo Affair and discussed one of its flaws. In this second post we will look at a few more.

In 1543 a specialist in Catholic law who dabbled in astronomy on the side published a book called De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). Nicolas Copernicus had been working on his book for several decades, and in it he laid out a new cosmology. The standard cosmology, as we have seen, was geocentric or earth-centered. Copernicus departed from this and instead proposed a sun-centered (or heliocentric) universe where the planets revolved around the sun. Though it was slow to start, the publication of De Revolutionibus would lead to a paradigm shift in cosmology known as the Copernican Revolution.

In the standard story, it is common for the Copernican Revolution to be cast as a battle between science and the Church or between reason and dogma. Copernicus was the brave rational soul who dared to defy those stuffy Christians and their religious dogma.

In fact, as we have already noted, Copernicus himself was a Catholic who specialized in canon law. The very source of the Copernican Revolution was a Christian who believed the universe was the handiwork of God. Copernicus also appears to have had some strong Neo-Platonic sensibilities. He had an almost mystical reverence for the Sun, and his motivation for proposing the heliocentric theory appears to have largely been due to his philosophical preference for simplicity and mathematical harmony. Ptolemy’s geocentric theory, while elegant, was extremely complicated. A common myth is that as time had elapsed since Ptolemy’s day astronomers had needed to add more and more epicycles (a feature of his model) in order to make sure Ptolemy’s model matched up with astronomical observations. The myth continues that Copernicus, realizing the evidentiary problems with the Ptolemaic model, took the needed theoretical leap to a new model. In fact, no new epicycles had been added, as Ptolemy’s theory was not easily modified. Indeed, Copernicus actually did not have any evidence, astronomical or otherwise, to support his model over Ptolemy’s. The heliocentric model, as proposed by Copernicus, was not any more accurate than Ptolemy’s (a testament to Ptolemy’s genius). Instead, it satisfied Copernicus’ devotion to mathematical harmony.

Copernicus’ theory did not stem from scientific observations but from his philosophical (and even mystical) preferences. We have already seen that geocentrism was not a product of religious dogma, but of Greek philosophy. Therefore the idea that the Copernican Revolution was a story of reason versus dogma or science versus religion is false.

But did Copernicus have to battle the Christian Church? Let us look at how the Church responded to these ideas.

First, we need to realize that there was no monolithic Christian response. It was certainly not the case that Christians in general rejected Copernicus’ ideas. In fact, several bishops of the Catholic church had written to Copernicus to encourage him to publish his work (this is before De Revolutionibus was published), thinking he would make a valuable contribution to astronomy. On the Protestant side, Lutheran scholars were responsible for finally convincing Copernicus to publish his book, helping him to do so. Afterward, Lutheran universities became the central institutions teaching heliocentrism.

Copernicus himself died within a few weeks of his book being published, and contrary to what one sometimes reads, was never persecuted by anyone. The initial response overall was rather muted, with many scholars, both Catholic and Protestant, thinking that the heliocentric theory was interesting but not clearly superior to Ptolemy’s model. A few key thinkers, Kepler and Galileo among them, did embrace the heliocentric theory wholeheartedly, eventually leading the latter into conflict with the Catholic Church.

It would be almost one hundred years, though, from the publication of Copernicus’ book in 1543 before the Catholic Church would add De Revolutionibus to its index of prohibited books. At first, some thinkers within the Church embraced the book’s ideas and others ignored it, but some within the Church began to build a resistance to the heliocentric theory that would culminate with the trial of Galileo. This is a complicated episode in the history of science which we will attend to in later posts. To close this post, though, let us compare how new theories have usually been received throughout the history of science. A major component of the standard story is the suggestion that religious belief is an especially potent force against new scientific theories. No doubt religious belief did play some role in the Church’s official rejection of heliocentrism (more on this later), but just how well do new theories usually do?

In 1915 Alfred Wegener proposed his new theory of continental drift. Did the scientific community welcome him and his new knowledge? Wegener was ridiculed (viciously) by the geological community, despite having some notable evidence for his views. As we have seen, Copernicus didn’t have any new evidence. Wegener’s theory was only accepted some 20 years after he died. This was in the 20th century and did not involve the church.

Einstein’s work on special relativity was largely ignored for several years. It was only when Max Planck, a giant in the field, started paying attention to Einstein’s papers that his theory got any traction. The theory was revolutionary, and therefore a tough sell for most scientists.

The big bang theory, now the standard model, was rejected or ignored for decades by the scientific community (in fact, some of the more zealous secular astronomers rejected it as being religiously motivated, but that is a story for another post).

Alexander Fleming made advances in proper medical treatment of deep wounds having to do with a correct understanding of the role of bacteria. The scientific medical community rejected his work, and many World War I soldiers died needlessly.

Thomas Kuhn’s work on paradigm shifts within science is well known. A dominant paradigm in science is difficult to overturn. A prominent scientist (I cannot recall who) was once asked how it is that new theories become accepted. The answer was something along the lines of: the old scientists die out and the new ones grow up to be more accepting of it.

Rejecting or resisting new theories is clearly not unique to the church.

Next post: Galileo’s Trial

Galileo's Trial: a battle between science and religion?

Post #1

The Standard Story

One of the most famous episodes in the history of science and religion is the Copernican Revolution, which began with the publication of Copernicus’s book in 1543 and culminated with the trial and conviction of Galileo in 1633. It did not end there, but that is as far as we will go in this series.

The standard story goes something like this: medieval Church doctrine held that the Earth was at the center of the universe, as it should be, since this is the most privileged location in the universe and Earth, being the home to mankind, is the most important planet. Copernicus and other scientists like Bruno and Galileo challenged this doctrine with scientific evidence showing that in fact the Sun was in the center. The Church, furious that scientific progress was being made (progress which challenged its own doctrines), persecuted these brave souls who dared give voice to reason and evidence. In short, this episode is an archetypal example of the conflict between science and religion.

I cannot recall how many PBS or Nova TV specials have been aired on the trial of Galileo, pitting Galileo the brave scientist against the oppressive anti-science Church. This version of the story is simply assumed by a great many people. For example, in an article for Slate magazine, Nathan Myhrvold wrote:

“Ptolemy (second century) was the first and boldest in a long succession of spin doctors for the primacy of human beings. The whole universe, he postulated, rotated around us, with the Earth sitting at the center of heaven itself. Any marketing consultant will tell you that positioning is everything, and center-of-the-universe is hard to beat. A Polish astronomer named Copernicus (1473-1543) rudely pointed out: Sorry earthlings, we spin around the sun, not vice versa…Bruno's crime, like Galileo's, was to undermine the uniqueness of our planet, and by doing so, to threaten the intellectual security of the religious dictatorships of his time. People get cranky when you burst their bubble. Over time, advances in astronomy have relentlessly reinforced the utter insignificance of Earth on a celestial scale. Fortunately, political and religious leaders stopped barbecuing astronomers for saying so…”

Slate magazine, a well-respected publication, is part of the Washington Post and has associations with National Public Radio. The standard story, however, as well as Mr. Myhrvold’s particular version of it, contains serious historical errors. Historian Richard J. Blackwell writes, “An oversimplified and false view is that Galileo became a martyr of science because of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to science, but it is now commonly agreed that the facts are quite otherwise.”

This will be the first in a series of posts intended to correct this common, but false, view of the Copernican Revolution.

Geocentrism and Greek Philosophy

The first myth we will tackle is the idea that geocentrism (the belief that Earth was at the center of the universe and everything revolved around it) was a Christian doctrine that entailed believing the Earth was special. In fact, geocentrism was an idea from Greek philosophy, not the Church. The Greeks devoted a lot of time to pondering the nature and structure of the universe, or cosmology. The geocentric theory was developed according to reason, evidence, and philosophical principles, not religious dogma or a special view of humanity. The geocentric model of the universe inherited by the medieval Church was the culmination of careful Greek thought, with Aristotle supplying the metaphysics and Ptolemy the mathematics. Ptolemy’s geocentric model was a masterpiece that matched up very well with astronomical observations. This model was adopted by Church scholars as well as by practically all the natural philosophers (i.e. scientists) of the time.

The geocentric view did not entail thinking the Earth was special. When Mr. Myhrvold, quoted above, asserted that the Earth was thought to be “at the center of heaven itself,” he could not have been more wrong (though at least he acknowledged the Greek origins of geocentrism). Within Aristotelian cosmology, Earth was thought of as corrupt and base, while the heavens were perfect and, well, heavenly. A more accurate description of Earth’s status at the time is that it was seen as the garbage dump at the bottom of the universe. Things were thought to fall to Earth because they were “heavy” and corrupt, and the Earth was the designated place for such unworthy things to fall. Indeed, Galileo saw his own work as elevating the status of Earth, not demoting it, writing:

“For I will prove that the earth does have motion, that it surpasses the moon in brightness, and that it is not the sump where the universe’s filth and ephemera collect.”

Next post: The Copernican Revolution

The Big Bang Theory and Christianity

In my astronomy class we will be discussing the origin of the universe soon; this of course includes discussion of the currently accepted theory of cosmological origins, the big bang theory. Just in mentioning some upcoming topics, I've already had one student (a Christian) raise her hand and protest. I cringe when this sort of thing happens, for two reasons. One, I don't believe Christians should be in the business of not allowing the current theories to be taught, and Two, Christians are often very misinformed about the big bang theory.

Christians often associate the big bang theory with an atheistic explanation of the universe (atheistic in the sense that the explanation does not require invoking a creator; the universe, in other words, has a naturalistic explanation). In fact, one of the big bang theory's original formulators and proponents was a Belgian priest by the name of George Lemaitre. While he based his theory on science, not his religious beliefs, there was a clear consistency between the traditional Christian view of the origin of the universe and the big bang theory. The establishment view of the time was a static, eternal universe; this preference can be traced back to the Greeks and was often considered the more appropriate, secular way of viewing the universe. Several decades after Lemaitre's initial proposal, some other astronomers had gathered some observational and mathematical support for the big bang theory. While the evidence was not conclusive, it certainly was worth paying attention to. However, this scientific work was largely ignored and ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Some scientists ridiculed the big bang as being a thinly disguised attempt to bring religion into the fold by characterizing God's initial creation event in scientific terms. The Pope also noticed the congruence between Christianity's creation event and the big bang, formally declaring that science had vindicated Christianity's long standing belief that the universe had a beginning. This of course further enraged the more zealous of the secular astronomers and probably further delayed acceptance of the theory.

So, in contrast to what people often seem to believe, the big bang theory actually can quite easily be seen to support (or at least be compatible with) the initial creation event of Christianity. In fact, there is more tension between an atheistic worldview and the big bang than there is between Christianity and the big bang (a side note: I do not consider it wise for Christianity to ally itself too closely with any specific theory). After all, an eternal universe does not require a starting point, and therefore, no creator. The big bang theory posits that the universe itself (including space, time, and all known laws of physics) originated during this singular event. The implication is that something outside of space, time, and the known laws of physics must be responsible for the initiation of this event. This has not gone unnoticed by secular astronomers, hence the efforts by scientists such as Stephen Hawking to escape the conclusions of their own work by mathematically wriggling their way out of a universe with a beginning (Hawking uses imaginary time to circumvent an actual beginning, preferring instead a self-contained universe with no possibility of a creator).

To sum up, Christians need not fear the big bang theory (or embrace it too closely). Rather, we can observe the shared characteristics that it has with Christian beliefs and watch where the science leads.

Kepler Is My Hero

Johannes Kepler, the German mathematician who formulated the three laws of planetary motion (a foundation for Newton's ideas later on), is my hero. I am in the middle of a biography on him, and though I don't think it is particularly well-written, I am enjoying it nonetheless because Kepler is an interesting character. What impresses me the most is not his genius but the way in which he approached thinking. Whether it was a theological, scientific, or philosophical issue, he approached it with an open mind and a keen sense of truth.

He was a devout Lutheran, and attended seminary to become a preacher and theologian. But he never just towed the party line. He was critical of both Catholics and Protestants on various issues, pointing out where each had gotten something wrong. Most of his close friends and colleagues would reject any view or opinion from a Catholic, but Kepler would aggravate them to no end by highlighting parts of the Catholic position that he thought were true. This kind of talk, as well as criticism of certain doctrines of Lutherans, resulted in Kepler being excommunicated from his own religious group. Later, in the midst of the counter-reformation, despite intense pressure (and danger) Kepler refused to abandon his core Lutheran beliefs to appease the angry Catholic authorities. His nuanced view of truth and theology was a rarity in the 16th century. Kepler was a non-partisan voice in the midst of the crazy religious wars of his time.

Kepler's Lutheran approach to science may have also helped him break from long-held assumptions about the universe. Theologically, Luther suggested stripping away centuries old dogma and established interpretation to allow the individual to read the Bible for themselves and form their own interpretation. In science, Aristotelianism had long dominated how the world worked and how the heavens were arranged. Kepler, though, didn't just accept this dogma and work within its framework; he approached the heavens too with an open mind. He was a Copernican (Copernicus was the canon law priest in the Catholic church who suggested the planets revolved around the Sun rather than the Earth) when few were, and went on to formulate cosmological laws which went against the received Greek wisdom. Kepler's willingness to seek truth whether or not it went "against the grain" led to scientific work that became a huge stepping stone to modern cosmology.

Kepler was also a neo-platonist, obsessed with mathematical beauty and harmony (so was Copernicus). Kepler thought that he could discover God's laws and the underlying harmony of the universe; this, and his exceptional mathematical gifts, are part of the reason why he ultimately pursued science instead of theology. Kepler saw his science as a branch of theology; the study of the order God had put in his creation. Kepler's story runs straight against our own received wisdom that science and theology are opposed and that religious belief is incompatible with science or scientific discovery. On the contrary, religious convictions were a primary motivation for men like Kepler (and Newton) to study the universe. Both saw themselves as uncovering the mathematical secrets God had used to make the universe run.

Kepler's intellectual approach to difficult or contentious issues is one I hope to emulate. Rarely is one person or one person's viewpoint entirely correct (including our own); we would be better off if we could admit this and, like Kepler, keep an open mind while searching for truth.

Battle of the Blogs

Unwisely, I commented on someone's blog and ended up probably wasting way too much time in an exchange of comments concerning science and religion. That person's view is typical of the so called "new" atheists like Richard Dawkins. If you're interested, our exchange can be seen here.

The Mythical Monkey Trial

The Scopes trial, or “Monkey” trial in the early 20^th century is one of the most famous modern clashes between science and religion. Specifically, it was a clash between progressive, educated liberals and a bunch of religious ignoramuses over whether evolution should be taught in public schools. At least that’s the usual story, most famously portrayed in a play (and movie) called “Inherit the Wind.” In this version of the trial of John Scopes, in trouble for teaching evolution, we witness a brilliant agnostic lawyer take on a foolish religious bigot, John Scopes sent to jail, and mobs of angry Christian folk antagonizing anyone who disagrees with them. If one wishes to discover the real story, Edward Larson’s Pulitzer prize (in history) winning book Summer for the Gods is there to help.

In the 1920’s there was indeed a push (misguided, in my opinion) by religious fundamentalists to pass laws that would ban the teaching of evolution. The reasons for the stronger negative reaction from religious folk are complex, but included a growing scientific acceptance of Darwin’s particular naturalistic mechanism of evolution, natural selection (which had been almost universally rejected by scientists throughout the 19^th century), the perception that naturalistic evolution would lead young folk astray by convincing them that the human soul and morality are illusions, and a growing discomfort with the teachings of eugenicists. This latter reason was one of the most important to William Jennings Bryan, the politician who famously represented the prosecution in the Scopes trial, defending the Bible and Christianity from the perceived evils of evolution and dying a few days after the trial ended. He is generally portrayed as an ignorant religious bigot and fundamentalist, but this is hardly an accurate description. He was of course a Christian, and he was not exactly a sophisticated intellectual, but he was a champion of the common people (his nickname was “the Commoner”), an advocate of women’s rights, an advocate for peace, an anti-imperialist, and he frequently railed against what he saw as the growing, rampant greed of capitalist corporations in America. In fact, his most famous moment was a speech delivered to the Democratic National Convention in the late 1800’s where he argued against policies that would only help larger businesses to the detriment of the average businessman. But of course you’d never know any of that from his portrayal in “Inherit the Wind.”

Bryan saw evolution (specifically the evolution of mankind) as an idea that undermined morality. He was particularly opposed to eugenics (sometimes called “social Darwinism), that idea that it would be wise for humans to exterminate the “inferior” members of their species while encouraging the reproduction of intellectuals and other “more fit” members in order to further the evolution of mankind. Bryan saw this as morally despicable; the rest of the world came to agree with him after the atrocities of Nazi Germany. He therefore became involved in the movement to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools.

What most people don’t realize about the Scopes trial is that it was in fact simply a publicity stunt. Organizers in the little town of Dayton, Tennessee were looking for a way to increase business and publicity for their town. A law banning evolution had been passed but had not really been enforced. They contacted the ACLU to set up a test case. John Scopes, who was not actually a science teacher but a substitute teacher and coach, volunteered to be the defendant despite not even being sure he had actually taught evolution. So, far from being an example of religion persecuting science, it was actually an example of a small town purposely stirring up controversy for its own benefit. John Scopes ended up convicted of breaking the law and was fined $100. Whoop-de-do. Bryan even offered to pay the fine himself. While I can appreciate people being opposed to the ban on evolution in the first place, this episode is hardly the clash of science and religion that it is commonly assumed to be, and the play and movie “Inherit the Wind” is quite simply a deceptive piece of propaganda (regardless of the original intent of the film's creators) that Draper and White would be proud of (see earlier post on the flat earth). This film is still shown on college campuses, and I'm guessing most people in the audience have no clue just how much artistic license was taken by its creators.

The Flat Earth Myth

One of the great modern day myths surrounding science and religion involves Christopher Columbus and a flat Earth. Most of us were taught in school that Columbus wanted to travel the world despite all the dire warnings about falling off the edge of a flat Earth. He bravely set sail anyway and changed the world through his discoveries, or so the story goes. Many of us were taught in school that throughout the early and late Middle Ages most people thought that the world was flat. In addition, we are told that this state of affairs was the result of the oppressive religious authorities of the time. 

The truth, however, is that the West has known the Earth was a sphere since at least the 4^th century B.C., when Greek philosophers like Pythagoras followed by Aristotle and Ptolemy all laid out arguments for a spherical Earth (a few, like Eratosthenes, even took a shot at calculating its circumference). This knowledge survived into the Middle Ages, and virtually all educated people and scholars still affirmed a round Earth. Columbus and company all believed the Earth was round; no one warned him about falling off any edge. He was warned about his faulty calculations, which led him to believe that the Earth was much smaller, and India much closer, than it really was. As we all know, he ended up in North America instead.

So how did we end up believing this fable about Columbus and the rest of Medieval Europe? Historians have traced this flat Earth myth to the 19^th century. One of the first appearances was in the early 19^th century in Washington Irving’s fictional account of the Columbus story, and sometimes Irving is given most of the credit for the flat Earth myth. However, recent scholarship shows that the myth became a staple in textbooks in the late 19^th century after the publication of two books by John Draper and Andrew White. These men were overzealous secularists who wrote distorted (but highly influential) histories of science. Their intent was to provide a narrative involving science and religion where science is struggling for truth and progress and religion is doing its best to hamper scientific advances. The flat Earth myth was one pillar in their overall thesis: religious superstition is always trying to snuff out scientific progress. 

How exactly did Draper and White convince us that Medieval peoples believed in a flat Earth? They found two minor figures (no others have been found), Lactantius (245-325 A.D.),  a North African writer, and Cosmas Indicopleustes (fl. 540 A.D.), a Christian merchant from Europe, that wrote in support of a flat Earth and made this minority opinion appear to be the norm from the Dark Ages and onward. In fact, from the patristic period to the late Middle Ages (i.e. whenever you look), all church scholars, ranging from the Venerable Bede to Augustine to Aquinas, affirmed a spherical Earth.

Historians of science have dismissed Draper and White’s books as sloppy, selective scholarship that ignores the bulk of the historical data. Unfortunately, the myth persists. When I was teaching, I would ask my students each year if they had been taught the Columbus myth, and each year at least half of the hands were raised (I suspect most of the rest had also been taught it, but had forgotten). This is kind of sad. Here we are in the 21^st century believing that people in the Dark and Middle Ages were fooled by religious authorities into believing in a flat Earth, when in fact we are the ones clinging to a discredited myth.

Further Reading: 

Stephen J. Gould's essays Dinosaur in a Haystack 

Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction

Inventing the Flat Earth