Slaying the Dragons: Destroying Myths in the History of Science and Faith

Are science and faith, particularly Christianity, inevitably in conflict, as the New Atheists proclaim? Have they not always been so? Weren't early scientists hounded for their discoveries until Darwin burst on the scene and sent faith packing? Not if you look at the facts, says Dr Allan Chapman, who teaches the History of Science at the University of Oxford. History shows us that Galileo was not the victim of Church persecution - nor did Huxley "win" the debate with Wilberforce. Drawing on contemporary sources, Dr Chapman proves that the history of science and of faith always have been closely intertwined. From the leading scientists of medieval times, many in Holy Orders, to the seventeenth-century Popes who maintained an astronomical observatory in the Vatican, to the Christian people of science today, science and faith have grown up together. Review "A pleasant tour through some of the episodes in the dialog between faith and science; excellent for seminaries and individual readers." -Library Journal About the Author Dr Allan Chapman is a historian of science at Oxford University, with special interests in the history of astronomy and of medicine and the relationship between science and Christianity. As well as University teaching, he lectures widely, has written a dozen books and numerous academic articles, and written and presented two TV series, Gods in the Sky and Great Scientists, besides taking part in many other history of science TV documentaries and in The Sky at Night with Sir Patrick Moore. He has received honorary doctorates and awards from the Universities of Central Lancashire, Salford, and Lancaster, and in 2015 was presented with the Jackson-Gwilt Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society. Among his books are Slaying the Dragons. Destroying Myths in the History of Science and Faith (Lion Hudson, 2013), Stargazers: Copernicus, Galileo, the Telescope, and the Church. The Astronomical Renaissance, 1500-1700 (Lion, 2014), and Physicians, Plagues, and Progress. The History of Western Medicine from Antiquity to Antibiotics (Lion, 2016). He is also the author of the scientific biographies England's Leonardo. Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-Century Scientific Revolution (Institute of Physics, 2005), Mary Somerville and the World of Science (Canopus, 2004; Springer, 2015), and The Victorian Amateur Astronomer. Independent Astronomical Research in Britain, 1820-1920 (Wiley-Praxis, 1998; revised edn. Gracewing, 2017).