Brooke Week 1: Nothing is Simple

I am going to open this blog for comments and questions that you may have had for the sources that we are considering. In this case I would like to focus on the readings from Brooke for both the Introduction and Chapter 1.

As noted in class the danger with historical review is that for the most part we have to accept that the author is an authority so that assertions are from knowledge not bias. We also have to assume that the author is faithfully reporting the facts of history. Given those assumptions we consider Brooke.

Below the image you will find what I feel are some of the key quotes from the passage. I would also include the chapter summaries from the introduction. So, read the selected quotes and if you have questions you need to ask them now before we move on.

"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."

Now, if I were to ask questions on the final exam on this passage they would take two forms:
1) I would give you a quote from the source and ask you what it meant
2) I would ask you to compare what Brooke says to other sources in the course.

So pretty much what you have above are quotes that you should be able to place in context and you should be thinking as you read where other sources have discussed the same topics.