Does religious debate hinder scientific progress?

I did not blame atheists, nor anti-Christians. The theological division arose between higher criticism and the more conservative Princeton school of theology.

Within the theological debate you so aptly describe is exactly where a great deal of the ridicule comes from. Higher criticism began in England, and many of the Americans who were quick to pick up on this trend were not exactly very nice towards those Americans who maintained serious doubts about the project.



Sure, but the division pre-dates Darwin. By that time, the opposing camps were pretty well established.

It doesn't matter to me whether you were ascribing blame. Your description of an anti-Christian cause to fundamentalism was misleading.


Fundamentalism (the rise of) was an American affair. Yes, there was influence from England, and indeed Europe as a whole, but the actual cause is the reactions of contrarily-minded American Christians.

I'd also like to point out here that the negative connotations of fundamentalism are rather more recent. In the 20's and 30's, fundamentalism was not a bad word.

Except that I did not provide an anti-Christian cause to fundamentalism.

Recall, I said "religious people who were just beginning to think about higher criticism and the cutting edge scientific discoveries" not simply "religious people".

The extremists were not extreme in their ideas by today's standards, they were extreme in their methods of criticizing the ideas of others: using vicious ad-hominem and so forth.



Right. The European influence was primarily their beginning the study of higher criticism, which is the application of literary criticism to the Bible. Once this crossed the pond, the divisions among American Christian began to solidify.

I think I've lost the thread of your point in here somewhere Didymos, but you did say it was pro-evolution extremists who directed hate speech at the religious (who were just beginning to think about higher criticism and the cutting edge scientific discoveries) - and it did seem to me that you were trying to ascribe the sad beginnings of this history of contention to hateful and hurtful remarks from said extremists.

This does seem a rather bias view. I admit that my own bias is the other way - but I would be willing to concede that there has always been tension between certain zealous types from both sides of the arguement about whether or not god is required in a model of life, the universe and everything.

To recontextualise - the OP asked whether or not scientific progress is hindered by religious debate. He also seems to me to pretty squarely blame Dawkins and his ilk on the recent tensions.

LIES!
I personally think Dawkins is motivated by various factors (including money and fame), and that some of his stunts are a bit naive. However, I do understand how angry he gets due to the fact the certain religious figures get away with lying about science, and indeed succeed in convincing many of their followers of the same lies.

Now when I say lies I don't mean the many apt criticisms of certain scientific theories that people have raised. Challenging theory is the only way to test whether or not it is sound. There are many anti-evolution pundits who limit themselves to attacking loose ends or weak links in the theory. Whilst I think they are missing the wood for the trees myself I actually think they provide a service and attack it in the only really adult fashion.

I think those who lie about it or, even worse, attempt to twist it to suit scripture, end up debasing both religion or science. In lying they decieve their followers and deny genuine discoverers due credit - which seems to me to undermine religion's claim to be an agent of moral tutelage (which I think is false anyway - but to so blatantly prove me right is clearly counter-productive).

UNECESSARY BELLIGERANCE!
On the other hand I have seen plenty of evolutionary pundits berate people for "just not getting" an admittedly complex theory about which there is a deal of controversy even amongst those who support it (cf - arguements between Dawkins and Gould on punctuated equilibrium, arguments about whether there is a tree of life or a web, arguements about how the components of cells came together, and so on).

Perhaps an illustration of this comes from Christopher Hitchens' position "who could look at the view through the Hubble telescope and still be impressed by the Burning Bush?"

Well, me for one - because I like folklore and mythology and don't much care for cosmology. I just find it a bit dull. That's just me. So what?

So I do see how pundits from one side can be just as off-putting as those from another.

The mutual threat is the real issue.

IN THE RED CORNER
Those who believe that the power of the bible comes from whether or not it is the literal word of god will obviously want to see scientific theories to the contrary discredited.

They are of course allied with those who make money from religion, who have a business interest in:

* Formenting discord.
* Giving their followers an enemy.
* Making converts.
* Having issues they can become dramatic about (moderation does not make for good copy).
* Giving people who are not able to take comfort from complicated godless answers a simple godly answer.

IN THE BLUE CORNER
Pundits for evolution are frightened of having the most sound of scientific theories taught alongside creationist theories, which - frankly - belong solely in RE classes.

There are of course, those who profit from the teaching of evolution, and they would be just as motivated by greed and the need for converts and a certain level of hysteria as business minded anti-evolutionists.

IT'S THE FAULT OF THE MEDIA ANYWAY
And, as always, the media gives voice to the extremes of the debate (moderation does not make good copy - given a choice between a fight and near consensus most people will want to watch the former).

Then I'm confused. Who are the bombastical, hateful arrogant extremists in this picture? Are they the fundamentalists then?

DT, I thought that modern Christian fundamentalism was mainly a response to modern social morality, not to evolution (which may contradict Genesis but it's neutral on morality). Issues like abortion and women's liberation were far more polarizing to fundamentalists, who were never a major group anyway until the 1960s and later. And earlier fundamentalist groups were theological and not social in origin anyway.

I never used the term "pro-evolution", though the higher critics were fans of Dawrin's work.

And yes, the inconsiderate methods by which some thinkers pushed for higher criticism and some of this science was such that many people reacted negatively toward those ideas.

As for the identity of these inconsiderate interlocutors: see the response to the book Essays and Reviews. It's publication was followed by several years of heated debate, a back and forth of pamphlets and articles, not all of which were exactly kind. I suppose that both sides of the issue were not always as considerate as they should have been.



I have not even mentioned evolution until this post: where are you guys getting this stuff?

Issues like abortion and women's rights were most certainly powerful debates. But the idea that fundamentalists were not a major group until the 1960's does not seem accurate. We could go as far back as the Puritans if we want to look at the earliest sparks of fundamentalism, go through the Great Awakenings and Burned Over Districts. But those are seeds.

The term itself is derived from the text:
The Fundamentals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the few decades prior to this volume's publication, we can see thinkers beginning to write on the same topics with essentially the same convictions. I think we can comfortably call Moody's movement fundamentalist, so we're going back to the mid 1800's. Moody attracted crowds of thousands - as many as could be crammed into the auditoriums in which he preached. His was not merely a theological movement, but a social movement, attracting the common man rather than academic scholars.

To loop back to fundamentalism as a significant movement, we might quibble over "major group." But instead, let's consider the significance of fundamentalism prior to the 60's. Whether we look at the thousands of people who gathered in the US and England to hear fundamentalism preachers, or the Scopes Trial, fundamentalism was far from insignificant. Fundamentalism certainly had a major impact on American society prior to the 60's, even if the resurgence of fundamentalism in the 60's was to have a greater impact.

Let's not downplay the significance of evolution, though. The Scopes Trial was no minor event; it certainly motivated Mr. Bryan.

As for evolution vs. social morality, I think that many fundamentalist see them as the same matter, or at least inextricably connected. Both evolution and abortion are a product of an immoral modern society that does not respect the Word of God, that sort of thinking.

Edit: To correct an earlier mistake: Darwin's book arrived as fundamentalism was just beginning, not after the divisions were well established.

Fundamentalism since the 1960s can be argued as an independent movement or perhaps a revival and refocus of the earlier movements.

Yes, this is certainly true. I think the argument for an independent movement is weaker than the revival and refocus, which is impenetrable: that's what happened.

It is as if, as Karen Armstrong argues, fundamentalism was for the most part driven underground, pushed to the fringes of society, only to resurface in the 60's in response to the on going sexual revolution, dope scene and various other counter-cultural elements that scared the piss out of fundamentalists.

The reason the independent movement argument is the weaker one is that fundamentalism never ended in the period between it's birth and rebirth (heh) in the 60's. The 60's rebirth was a fundamentalist movement that looked a lot different than the earlier incarnation, but then again, the fundamentalist's perceived adversaries were also of a radically different breed. Instead of western science and a modern Christian theology, these new heretics championed eastern thought, sexuality, and quite often intense drug use, not to mention the fact that they gravitate by the millions toward loud, raucous rock 'n roll. It seems to me that the time and shifting societal conditions account for the difference in the fundamentalist movement.