Science and Protestantism

Religion in America

Science: a Religious Activity

Galileo and the Protestants

Puritans as scientists

Cotton Mather member of Royal Society

Jonathan Edwards’s studies of spiders

Scottish Common Sense Realism, 1700s

Reason, nature, Scriptural revelation

Evangelical response to Deism

Spreads from Presbyterians through colleges

Baconian empiricism: anti-theoretical

Bishop William Paley, Natural Theology, 1802

Bridgewater Treatises, 1833–40

Science Moves Beyond the Bible

Geology without Genesis

James Hutton, Theory of the Earth, 1785

Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1829

Problem of archeology

Rosetta Stone, 1822: hieroglyphs & Bible conflict

“Higher criticism” from Germany

The Bible as a product of human hands

Fossils and extinctions: Flood(s)? Evolution?

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1859

Reconciling science & belief

Benjamin Silliman, Yale, 1829: “long day”

The “gap” theory

William H. Green, 1863, expands Biblical time

Louis Agassiz, Harvard: creation in geologic time

Asa Gray, Harvard: divine purpose in Origin of Species

Liberals, conservatives abandon natural theology

Liberals: nothing to do with being religious

Popularity of theistic evolution: immanence in creation

Conservatives: science might confirm students’ doubts

Popularity of “gap” & “day-age” theories until 1960s

Creationism

Adventist “flood geology”

George McCready Price, The New Geology, 1923

Evangelicals get on board

“Creationism” reborn: The Genesis Flood, 1961

“Creation science”

Creation Science Research Center, San Diego, 1970

1990s: the “intelligent design” debate

Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, 1996

Schools & courts: evolving strategies

Scopes trial, Dayton, Tennessee, 1925

The Cold War: the Sputnik crisis, 1957

Are American kids falling behind in science?

Epperson v. Arkansas, 1968

No ban on evolution

Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987

No creation science

Kitzmiller v. Dover, 2005

No intelligent design

New strategy: teach “weaknesses”