We are nearing the end of Tom Bethell’s “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science,” and with it we are chewing into some themes related to science and religion. Happily, Chapter 12 , entitled “The Abiding Myths: Flat Earth and Warfare Between Science and Religion” was well-written and (mostly) well-reasoned. That stands in contrast to the rather poor science journalism we’ve seen in the most recent chapters. Bethell’s Chapter 12 is really two separate lines of thought. The first regards the myth surrounding the idea that most medieval (thus Christian) thinkers thought the Earth was flat. Second, he tackles the idea that there has been a war between science and Christianity as far back as society can recall.
Summary of Bethell’s Points
Bethell cites sources including Stephen Jay Gould that all insist that most of the medieval thinkers and writers, including Saint Augustine, Venerable Bede, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon all thought the Earth was round. Apparently, according to Jeffrey Burton Russell (who wrote “Inventing the Flat Earth : Columbus and Modern Historians”, the first mention of the flat-Earth myth was Washington Irving in a “largely fictitious” History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Bethell cites other sources, mostly historians, that refer to Irving’s account as “pure moonshine,” but the myth has become pervasive in modern-day schooling. Then, Bethell makes an argument that the major promoters of the Christianity/flat-Earth linkage were a pair of writers popular science writers (Draper and White) in the late 19th century who focused on anti-religious themes. The success of both of these writers links is, in Bethell’s view, what largely contributed to the propagation of this myth.
Bethell then moves on to assert that the theme of Christian Dark Ages and Islamic Enlightenment is also a myth. He refers to this blossoming in Islamic scholarship as:
…a creative period following the initial Muslim conquest, during which scholars absorbed much of value from other cultures, Islamic law, government, and science fell into a prolonged and steady decline from white it shows no sign of recovering
Bethell argues that Copernicus was not persecuted, and that Galileo was really only persecuted because he so stubbornly insisted that his findings (and the Copernican sun-centered universe) were more than just theories. Bethell instead points to the fights between prominent Darwinian evolutionists and clergy in the late 19th century as the flash point in the otherwise mythological war between science and Christianity.
My Response
Bethell’s refutation of the flat-Earth myth is complete and well sourced (not a single one lacking that I noticed in this section). He posits a logical case on the origins of the myth, largely restating the ideas of Mr. Russell but bringing in Mr. Gould for support when necessary. The particular success of this portion of the chapter comes from the fact that he has used the writings of historians and science historians to support his views, rather than freelance journalists and partisan hacks, as in other chapters.
He falters a bit in his argument against the warfare between Christianity and religion. Additionally, he fails to make his case that the Dark Ages in science were not due to the rise and dominance of the Roman Catholic Church. His treatment of Galileo’s trial before the Inquisition and subsequent permanent house arrest was overly brief and completely unsourced. This attempt to portray Galileo’s persecution as something other than dogmatic faith silencing free inquiry fails largely due to the fact that Bethell has absolutely no credibility because of his previously demonstrated one-sided journalism and constant editorializing.
But, I won’t dwell on this too much more largely because it is uninteresting to my review of Bethell’s work as a work of science journalism. As Bethell points out, the whole warfare of science and religion thing is used mostly to belittle religious thinkers, and as that is not a tactic of reasonable discussion, it does not appear to me worthwhile to devote half of a chapter to unsuccessfully refuting it. This section seems inserted in order to give his target audience some more talking points with which to defend themselves in schoolyard debates.
Coming up next is a review of his chapters on Intelligent Design and the holes in Evolution, and then a few days later I’ll summarize his work in a final review.
