John Hedley Brooke on religion's role in the development of modern science

John Hedley Brooke, retired historian from Oxford, gave what I thought was a brilliant lecture on "The Historical Roots of Modern Science" at the Faraday Institute conference I am attending in Cambridge, England. He focused especially on the role religion played in both assisting and impeding the development of modern science.

Typical of a historian, Brooke’s presentation was very nuanced. It is simply wrong to say that religion stood in the way of the development of science or, conversely, that without Christianity—and especially Protestantism—it would never have happened. The story is much more complex than either of those narratives.

The origins of modern science are many and multicultural. We think of the Greeks as very advanced for their time in their understanding of the natural world. Yet the Greeks learned from the Arabs. (Pythagorus went to Egypt and Babylon.) Later, medieval Christians learned from the Muslims. Christians indeed did contribute to the study of science, because they were interested in what kind of creation the Creator created.