(3089/898) Gould on science and religion

332) In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils to both religion and to science, and invariably; on the other hand, all untrammeled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to religion some of its stages may have seemed to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good both of religion and of science.

Andrew Dickson White
A History of the Warfare of Science
with Theology in Christendom (1896)
quoted by Stephen Jay Gould in
"The Persistently Flat Earth" in
Natural History magazine (3/94)

333) [T]he myth of a war between science and religion remains all too current and continues to impede a proper bonding between these two utterly different and powerfully important institutions of human life. How can a war exists between two vital subjects with such different appropriate turfs - science as an enterprise dedicated to discovering and explaining the factual basis of the empirical world, and religion as an examination of ethics and values?

I do understand, of course, that this territorial separation is a modern decision - and that differing past divisions did entail conflict in subsequent adjustment of boundaries. After all, when science was weak to nonexistent, religion's umbrella did cover regions now properly viewed as domains of natural knowledge. But shall we blame religion for these overextensions? As thinking beings, we have no option not to ponder the great issues of human origins and our relationship with the earth and other creatures. If science once had no clue about these subjects, then they fell, albeit uncomfortably and inappropriately, into the domain of religion by default. No one gives up turf voluntarily, and the later expansion of science into rightful territory temporarily occupied by religion did evoke some lively skirmishes and portentous battles.

Stephen Jay Gould
"The Persistently Flat Earth" in
Natural History magazine (3/94)

Note: "3089/898" is the designation I've given to the project of posting all my collected quotes, excerpts and ideas (3089 of them) in the remaining days of the Bush administration (of which there were 898 left when I began).

As of today, there are 773 days remaining in the administration of the worst President ever.