Science and Religion in the Anglo-American Periodical Press, 1860–1900: A Failed Reconciliation

Abstract

Historians of science and religion usually trace the origins of the “conflict thesis,” the notion that science and religion have been in perennial “conflict” or “warfare,” to the historical narratives of John William Draper (1811–1882) and Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918). While Draper and White have been designated cofounders of the conflict thesis, there has been little research on how contemporaries responded to their narratives. This paper examines the early reception of these narratives by considering the extensive commentary they received in British and American periodicals from 1856 to 1900. Sampling a selection of this material suggests that while many rejected Draper and White's interpretation of the past, many others agreed with them in affirming that theological dogmatism came into conflict with the advance of human knowledge. This essay also suggests that Draper and White may have had a more nuanced position about the history of science and religion than has been contended by modern scholars. Whatever their intentions, however, their historical narratives had the unintended consequence of creating in the minds of their contemporaries and later generations the belief that science and religion have been and are at war.

Draper, the “Conflict Thesis” and Secularising Politics in Late Nineteenth‐Century Argentina

“…On the one side, liberal Protestants recognised in these works their own inclination to the separation of theology from religion, on the other side orthodox Protestants and some secularist unbelievers ironically converged on a rejection of the books, although for different motives. 127 This scenario is different from the case under consideration, in which Draper's Conflict was uniformly used either as a tool of the legitimisation of secularising positions by liberals and radicals, or abused as an enemy of religion by advanced and conservative Catholics alike. In Spain, the reception of Draper took place in the context of the opposition between liberal Krausists and conservative Catholics, in the years that marked the passage from monarchy to republic and back to monarchy; much of its import concerned freedom of teaching, the rising of secular educational of higher learning, and the so-called "polemics on Spanish science."…”