History of the Conflict Between Religion Science

History of the Conflict Between Religion Science

by John William Draper

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For a socio-historical theory with a similar name, see Conflict theory.

Conflict: Galileo before the Holy Office, by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, a 19th century depiction of the Galileo Affair, religion suppressing heliocentric science.

The conflict thesis proposes an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science. The original historical usage of the term denoted that the historical record indicates religion’s perpetual opposition to science. Later uses of the term denote religion’s epistemological opposition to science. Also denominated as the Draper–White Thesis, the Warfare Thesis, and the Warfare Model, the conflict thesis interprets the relationship between religion and science as inevitably leading to public hostility, when religion aggressively challenges new scientific ideas — as in the Galileo Affair (1614–15).

The historical conflict thesis was a popular historiographical approach in the history of science during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but in its early form is mostly discarded. Despite that, Conflict Theory remains a popular view among the general public and has been recently publicized by the success of books such as Professor Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion.