21 APR 2014 by ideonexus

 Science was Inconvenient for Religion

Science’s contributions to the spread of disbelief is the least controversial segment of the virtuous cycle for which I am arguing in seventeenth-century Europe. For science’s methods are clearly troublesome for religion. The devout, to begin with, are not wont to view their precepts merely as propositions to be controverted or confirmed. The orthodox, as a rule, are used to arguments being settled by authority, not experiment. The hope belief offers does not always stand up well to obser...
Folksonomies: science religion
Folksonomies: science religion
  1  notes

As scientific knowledge grew it revealed knowledge that conflicted with scripture.

15 DEC 2011 by ideonexus

 The Benefit of a Fearless Mother

I have from my childhood, in conformity with the precepts of a mother void of all imaginary fear, been in the constant habit of taking toads in my hand, and applying them to my nose and face as it may happen. My motive for doing this very frequently is to inculcate the opinion I have held, since I was told by my mother, that the toad is actually a harmless animal; and to whose manner of life man is certainly under some obligation as its food is chiefly those insects which devour his crops and...
  1  notes

Joseph Banks' mother would put toads in his hand and apply them to his face to dismiss the superstition that they cause warts and argue that they are actually quite useful in keeping down pests.