Myths about science and religion: A little research saves a lot of apology

(This is my most recently published ChristianWeek column, focusing on stuff that religious people supposedly used to believe that no one ever believed (except maybe some gullible materialists). )

The ignorance and opposition to science of religious folk has been staple of antireligious tracts for centuries. Often, the tales remind me of bogus miracle stories - so good they can’t be false. Two recent examples are worth noting:

Religious folk, we have been told, opposed anesthesia in childbirth because women should suffer the Biblical curse of Eve (Gen 3:16). Medical historian A. D. Farr actually went to the trouble of methodically searching the literature from Britain in the 1840s and 1850s, when modern anesthesia during childbirth was first introduced. He found that religious opposition was a figment of later propaganda.

How did the idea get started, despite a lack of evidence? Well, now, that’s a story ....

Most clergy, theologians, and religious physicians approved the painkiller pioneered by Edinburgh professor of midwifery James Young Simpson in 1847. A few clergy feared that Satan was behind pain relief, but a key theologian (Chalmers) dubbed these dissenters as “small theologians” and advised ignoring them. Religious objections seldom turned up anywhere in Farr’s systematic search of the literature of the day.

Actually, lay women were more likely than clergymen to oppose anesthetics. Some unhappy women saw labor as the price girls ought to pay for the “joys of marriage.” But when Queen Victoria—the legendary soul of propriety—accepted anesthesia for the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853, such objections came to sound unfashionable, and perhaps uncouth. Farr also suggests that the pioneer anesthetists unintentionally created the impression of a religious debate by writing tracts supporting anesthesia—though few actually opposed it.

How then did the idea that religious objections hindered the spread of anesthesia in childbirth become so widely believed that it became a staple of twentieth century accounts of the history of obstetrics? Mainly through unsupported statements.

First, a Simpson biographer referenced “religious objections” in 1873, without quoting evidence. Twenty-three years later, Simpson's daughter Eve made the same claim, but she did not cite any new evidence. In fact, as Farr notes, she was only 14 when her father died. Thus she was unlikely to be his confidante, hearing sensitive information that he withheld from others.

In 1896 American diplomat A.D. White claimed in History of the Warfare of Science with Theology and Christendom: “From pulpit after pulpit Simpson's use of chloroform was denounced as impious and contrary to Holy Writ; texts were cited abdundantly [sic], the ordinary declaration being that to use chloroform was ‘to avoid one part of the primeval curse on woman.’”

Of course, these events had not occurred. But in the right environment, unsupported statements mushroomed into indisputable factoids.

An antireligious factoid of more recent vintage held that the turn of the year 1000 A.D. was “a time of apocalyptic panic, fevered preaching, penitential excesses and, for the Christian faithful, ominous signs and wonders. Daily work was set aside and property, even family, abandoned as Christian Europe waited on both dread and hope for the end of the world and the Last Judgment. Call it the Y1K problem.”

Really? As Peter Steinfels—whose mocking purple prose is quoted in the preceding paragraph— reports (July 17, 1999, New York Times), there was no universal calendar back then, hence no general agreement about when midnight 1000 A.D. would occur. Many cultures did not begin their day at midnight. In any event, many parts of Eastern Europe were not Christian yet. No mass panic was even possible, let alone documented. The mass panic thesis entered popular imagination via anti-religious literature of the 19th century, written by people who probably knew little and cared less about the history of our current calendar, which dates only from 1582 and was not universally accepted until the 18th century.

Why raise these matters? Because I sometimes hear well-meaning Christians make excuses for “the ignorance of the Christian past” when in fact, the main problem is the ignorance of the Christian present So many of the anti-religious claims turn out to be myth that it is wise to disbelieve them all, until independently verified. Knowing the facts is always empowering, and it can even be reassuring.

*Farr, Senior Chief Scientific Officer for the North East of Scotland Blood Transfusion Service in Aberdeen, Scotland, published his paper in Annals of Science, 40 (1983), 159-177).

History of science and popular culture: Isaac Newton and the end of the world

An exhibition at Jerusalem's Hebrew University of a 1704 letter written by Isaac Newton shows that he believed, based on his reading of the Book of Daniel in the Bible, that the world would end in 2060.

His famously analytical mind worked out the laws of gravity and unravelled the motion of the planets. And when it came to predicting the end of the world, Sir Isaac Newton was just as precise.

He believed the Apocalypse would come in 2060 – exactly 1,260 years after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, according to a recently published letter.

Thus, Newton, long regarded as an icon of materialist science, would be right at home with today's fundamentalists, who pushed the Left Behind series into bestseller status.

Except for one thing: Newton apparently didn't feel the need to heed Jesus' warning , following his own apocalyptic predictions,

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. NIV

Newton writes as though he thinks that such strictures apply mainly to others:

"This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."

Curator Yemima Ben-Menahem, comments diplomatically, "These documents show a scientist guided by religious fervour, by a desire to see God's actions in the world."

Here are some thoughtful reflections on Newton's actual views vs. his public persona by Stephen D. Snobelan:

Why did Newton's prediction for 2060 become such a big news story?

One reason why Newton's heresy, apocalyptic thought and prediction about the 2060 date became news in February 2003 is because most members of the media and the public had no idea that Newton was anything other than a "scientist". For many, the revelation that Newton was a passionate believer who took biblical prophecy seriously came as something of a shock. It seems that both the media and the general public have a notion of Newton as a "rational" scientist that makes it difficult to absorb the knowledge that Newton was practising both alchemy and prophetic exegesis—studies many see as antithetical to the enterprise of science. The media has perpetuated a myth that science and religion are inherently in conflict (the fact is, sometimes they are; but religion has also often stimulated the development of science). The story about Newton predicting the Apocalypse in 2060 is the sort of thing that one would expect to see on the covers of the tabloids. In this case, however, the story is true. Ironically, the tabloids did not cover the story (perhaps because this story, although counter-intuitive to many people, is authentic).

In other words, the public perceptions are based on scientism, not reality.

Where have all the Christians gone ... from science?

(Note: This is my most recent ChristianWeek column, in which I address the reason for the current preponderance of materialist atheists in some fields of science.)

When I first started researching the intelligent design controversy, I often heard from Christian notables in science that there was no conflict between faith and science. I didn't suppose that there was a conflict, actually, but I soon came to realize that there is an inevitable conflict between strong Darwinian evolutionists and Christianity. A recent study of the views of key Darwinian evolutionists confirms my best guess - and raises some interesting questions about the Christian community in North America.

In "Evolution, Religion and Free Will" (American Scientist, Volume 95, 294ff) , Gregory W. Graffin and William B. Provine found that, of 149 eminent evolutionists polled, 78% were pure naturalists (no God) and only two were clearly theists (traditional idea of God). Some were in between these poles. The authors describe most of them as deists (some sort of divinity might have got things rolling but it is not God in any sense that Christians understand).

The authors note that the level of advocacy of any degree of theism among evolutionary biologists is the lowest measured so far in any poll of biologists' beliefs. They described the vast majority of their respondents as "metaphysical naturalists", "materialists", and "monists". In other words, these are people who are serious about their materialism and atheism.

These evolutionary biologists generally view religion as a product or byproduct of human evolution so that "... evolution is the means to understanding religion, whereas religion as a 'way of knowing' has nothing to teach us about evolution." The authors make quite clear that "Seeing religion as a sociobiological feature of human evolution, while a plausible hypothesis, denies all worth to religious truths."

So these are the people who are in charge of interpreting biology to your children. Mainstream media, covering the intelligent design (ID) controversy, warn you that most ID advocates are Christians or other theists. But how many have told you what I just did - that most of the people who strongly promote a no-design universe and no-design life forms are atheists? This has been true, by the way, for the better part of a century, ever since James Leuba started his surveys in 1914.

If the design advocates' views are coloured by theism, how is it that the no-design views of the atheists are not coloured by atheism? In adopting this perspective, mainstream media tacitly assume that atheism is the correct view, however one arrives at it. And your tax dollars are commanded in support of that view, as propounded at universities and, increasingly, in public high schools.

It seems to me that there are only two realistic ways to see this: Either atheism is correct, and therefore the reasonable point of view for scientists to have. Or there is some other reason that atheism predominates among biologists.

Here is one reason things have got to this pass: What do non-religious people suggest that their talented children should do? Go into business or science. What do religious people suggest that their talented children should do? Go into the clergy, ministry, or missionary work.
The result? Over time, the upper echelons of science have been dominated by atheists and agnostics. They increasingly dominate public policy too, while Christians praise Jesus irrelevantly in comfy tabernacles where no one but Jesus hears us.

Yet atheism is not evidence derived from science; it is merely a presumption by which many scientists interpret what they see. And the presumption is certainly not shared by all who have experience of the wonders of the natural world. While I was at Write! Canada 2007, I ran into a hand surgeon (now professor emeritus) who told me that he had checked out of believing in a non-design explanation for the human hand as a result of his own best efforts at mending broken hands.

I went away from the conversation with him reflecting on the fact that I may well be the only journalist in Canada who is simultaneously a member of The Word Guild, a confessional Christian writers' association, and the Canadian Science Writers' Association. I will be glad when the day comes that I am merely one of hundreds.

(Note for the record: "Evolutionists" here means scientists who believe that gradual Darwinian processes completely account for every aspect of life and that no design whatever is required. It does not mean scientists who merely accept that evolution occurs or that Earth is billions of years old.)

What happens when science disowns religion?: It discovers politics ...

Here's an intersting essay at The American Thinker on the perils of scientism:

When science lost its moral foundation through hostility to religion, it became preyed upon by another corrupting influence: politics. And once infected thus, science slowly transmogrified into scientism, or the religious advocacy (by elites within the scientific, academic, journalistic, and government communities) of consensus-based theories whereby a majority-rule mentality takes the place of the traditional scientific method. Under this system theories need not be proven, only agreed upon, and once agreed upon, these dogmatic beliefs become the stuff of enforced orthodoxy and woe to anyone who dissents from the majority.

Also,

... dubious scientific claims are made to oppose such things as over-population, man-made climate change, the use of bio-engineered foods, and nuclear power. These are clearly political movements dressed up as science and have had some truly bizarre results. For example, some proponents of secular scientism are in the weird position of rejecting the consumption by humans of bio-engineered foods whil supporting efforts (through cloning, selective abortion, euthanasia, DNA manipulation, embryonic stem-cell cultivation, etc.) to bio-engineer human beings themselves! They then propose to mitigate the unproven harmful effects of the consumption of bio-engineered foods by increasing the malnutrition and starvation which inevitably result from its ban.

These kinds of causes tend to become religions, over time, and I think it is better to leave religion to the experts in that kind of thing. By the way, don't miss Victor Davis Hanson's witty analysis of how the environment movement has rediscovered medieval penance, in the form of buying carbon offsets.