Topp ti ting du ikke visste om tro og vitenskap

En av mine favorittbloggere, Bede, har i dag et interessant innlegg om hvilke myter om tro og vitenskap som er de mest vanlige. Her er hans topp ti, lettere forkortet:

1) In the Middle Ages, Christian universities laid down the foundations of modern science .

2) The Jesuits published over 6,000 scientific papers and texts between 1600 and 1773 including a third of those on electricity. They were by far the largest scientific organisation in the world.

3) Copernicus’s book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, was never banned by the church.

4) During the Middle Ages, hardly anyone thought the Earth was flat.

5) No one has ever been burnt at the stake for scientific ideas. The only great scientist to have been executed was the chemist Antione Lavoisier. ‘Freethinking’ anti-clerical French revolutionaries guillotined him in 1794, although for political reasons.

6) Calvin never said “Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit.

7) Even by the standards of their time, Sir Isaac Newton, Johann Kepler and Michael Faraday were devoutly religious. During the Enlightenment, when scepticism about religion became acceptable, scientists almost always remained committed Christians.

8) Christians did not try and destroy pagan Greek scientific ideas. Instead, they laboriously hand copied millions of words of Greek science and medicine thus ensuring they were preserved.

9) The church never tried to ban zero, lightning conductors or human dissection.

10) The concept of a good creator god who laid down the laws of nature at the beginning of time was an essential metaphysical foundation for modern science.

Vil du se mer om dette, anbefales en kikk på en bok som kom ut i fjor (se også her og ikke minst her) med bl. a. undertegnedes fokus på 33 slike myter. Eller vente på at Bede's bok finner en utgiver.