GENS4010 Week 3

The history of the relationship between science and religion isn't something that I'm too familar with. So below in an account of the clashes and conflicts between the two disciplines:

Before the scientific revolution took place, much thought was based on Christian & Greek philsophy thinking, e.g. The Celestial Spheres.

1543 - Nicolaus Copernicus challenged this notion by publishing a celestial sphere diagram that is based more on observation and less on philosophy:

1600 - William Gilbert discovers magnetism on both humans and the earth.

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Late 1500s to Early 1600s - Sir Francis Bacon conducted research based on inductive reasoning, including observations and experimentations. This was a huge step forward in the realm of science.

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1637 - Rene Descartes created deductive reasoning.

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1698 - Galileo Galilei made various astronomical observations through telescope.

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Early 1700s - Sir Isaac Newton studied gravity on earth.

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The Church's position at that time has always been critical to many of these scientific discovers because they challenged the religious theories and philosophies, such as Copernicus's celestial spheres that doesn't have Earth at the centre. It's probably this long history of rivalry between science and religious that makes the debate very popular even nowadays.

Despite what the Church has done against science (e.g. persecuting Newton for discovering gravity), I can't really say I blame its position. Among other things, the church was trying to protect its power from disolving through all these scientific discoveries. I'm not saying that it did the right thing, of course, but hypothetically, if I was placed in the same situation (e.g. a powerful priest of the Catholic Church during the age of scientific revolution), then I probably would've made similar decisions (persecute the scientists) to protect the Church's power.