"An ounce of scientific knowledge could be more effective in controlling the forces of nature than any amount of supplication."
"The popular antithesis between science, conceived as a body of unassailable facts, and religion, conceived as a set of unverifiable beliefs, is assuredly simplistic."
"Sprat suggested that, of all pursuits, the study of experimental philosophy was most likely to engender a spirit of piety, perseverance, and humility - the hallmarks of Christian virtue." (Author's commentary on T. Sprat "History of the Royal Society", 1667)
"Certainly the Catholic Church had a vested interest in Aristotelian philosophy, but in much of the conflict ostensibly between science and religion turns out to have been between new science and the sanctified science of the previous generation."
"The fundamental weakness of the conflict thesis is its tendency to portray science and religion as hypostatized forces, as entities in themselves"
"Apologists wishing to stress the harmony between science and religion may gloss over those facets of Christianity as it was that distinguished it from Christianity as they now wish it to be."
"For the cynic will always say that the scientist of the past simply feigned their belief in order to escape persecution."
"The purpose of this chapter has been to establish three propositions: that religious beliefs have penetrated scientific discussion on many levels, that to reduce the relationship between science and religion to one of conflict is therefore inadequate, but to construct a revisionist history for apologetic purposes would be just as problematic."
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