THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE WESTERN TRADITION: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA
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loginAndrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfareof Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) waspublished just over a century ago. In it White argued that Christianity had a long history of opposingscientific progress in the interest of dogmatic theology. White’s thesis, supported by John William Draper inhis History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), struck a responsive chord in Americanthought, which was, at the turn of the twentieth century, increasingly committed to a secular outlook and torecognizing the central role that science played in modern society. The Draper-White thesis, as it has cometo be known, was enormously influential among academics. During much of the twentieth century, it hasdominated the historical interpretation of the relationship of science and religion. It wedded a triumphalistview of science with a dismissive view of religion. Science was seen to be progressing continually,overcoming the inveterate hostility of Christianity, which invariably retreated before its awesome advance.Popular misconceptions doubtless underlay the widespread presumption that religion was, by its very nature,opposed to science. Based on faith, religion seemed bound to suffer when confronted by science, which was,of course, based on fact.
