4 ms·
I don't believe it's as organic as all that. There were a couple of very important figures in setting up the idea that there was any conflict at all between fai
by adamsb6 3y ago
I don't believe it's as organic as all that. There were a couple of very important figures in setting up the idea that there was any conflict at all between faith and science. John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
They also promulgated plenty of verifiably false information. The popular misconception that pre-Columbian Europeans thought the world to be flat is attributable to these two. They also spread ahistorical claims that the Catholic Church was broadly opposed to science and forbade human dissection.
White was Cornell's first president, and his book, "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom," was influential among the public and academics. Much of it had been serialized earlier as articles in Popular Science Monthly, now the magazine known as Popular Science.
In addition to popularizing the idea of an inherent conflict between faith and science, Draper had theories on the causes of the American Civil War. He attributed it to climate and its influence on the personalities of the people who reside in those climates. He proposed building more north-south railroads as a preventative measure.