“Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion” by Nicholas Spence
This book is intriguing right from the beginning. It started off with a story about 3 pivotal events in history with regards of what appear to be religion vs. science: the abjuration of Galileo, in Rome 22 June 1633; the Huxley vs. Wilberforce debate, in Oxford 30 June 1860; and the Scopes “monkey” trial in Dayton, Tennessee, 20 July 1925 where this time around it was religion that is in the hot seat being humiliated.
The author, Nicholas Spencer, then remarks that “there are stories behind and within the story of each of these famed battles. The single, coherent narrative we have been sold fragments, on closer inspection, into a mess of variously connected tales. There is no such thing as a -still less the – history of science and religion.”
I’m sorry, what?
As Spencer explains, “the science of Christendom was considerably more sophisticated than most people give it credit for; medieval science is not a contradiction in terms after all. Nicolaus Copernicus never imagined that his theory was a threat to his religion. Senior Church figures were initially positive about heliocentrism. Almost nobody thought the Copernican decentring of the earth demoted or degraded humans, as Freud later claimed. Giordano Bruno was not made a martyr on account of his science. Galileo’s trial was as much about Aristotle, the Protestant threat and his soured friendship with Pope Urban as it was about heliocentrism. Catholic science did not disappear after Galileo.”
Indeed, as Spencer further elaborate, the early scientific societies like the Royal Society were not anti-religion (as portrayed in the brilliant book The Clockwork Universe). In fact, Isaac Newton wrote extensively more about theology than science, and his science did not discredit God from the universe. Moreover, the Enlightenment was actually a period of closest harmony between science and religion, much of the early research of geology was done by clergymen, while even Charles Darwin did not lose faith after discovering evolution and instead until his end of life he denied that evolution was incompatible with theism.
So, naturally, the question would be, what the hell happened between science and religion?
This book is what it says on the tin, a very diligent take on the entangled histories of science AND religion. It provides so many intriguing stories that serve to be the myth-busters of science vs. religion. The book is incredibly well researched, with Spencer often demonstrate his in-depth knowledge on the subject and appears to have read every single books or documents ever produced since the dawn of time.
It is a shame, therefore, that the same strong point of the book can also be the weakness. Because the sheer abundance of characters, stories, quotes, the portrayal of many different eras, and the many debates can be overwhelming at times due to the unclear narrative that dwell too long in the intricate details, making it an unnecessarily difficult book to read.
But it was never intended to be a light reading, especially for a book with a topic as big as science and religion. And if we can digest it, or rely less on the often distracted narrative, the insights from the book can indeed be mind-altering.
The book takes us into an incredible journey through time, with part 1 started from the classical world to 1600 (a period when everyone worshipped God), moving to Islamic Baghdad and Spain, to North Africa and medieval European Judaism, to Christendom, to the spread of Copernicanism through the 16th century, and then to Western Europe where science as we know it now emerged.
Moreover, part 2 of the book takes us through the period when modern science was developed in the 17th and 18th centuries while religion helped to conceive, nurture, and develop it. Part 3 takes us to 19th century where science started to drift apart from religion, where conflicts emerged between science and religion, for better and for worse. And finally part 4, where the story took us from 1900 to present day where all of the authority disputes had been settled, and both science and religion are having the “inconclusive, sometimes beneficial, sometimes fractious, conversations.”
It is so fascinating to see that science and religion now seems to be the absolute nemesis while few hundred years ago they were very much compatible and inseparable. And reading this book is crucial to fully understand what science (and religion, for that matter) is really about.
THE CHAOS THEORY 