Is there a conflict between religion and science?

Richard Dawkins for one would have us think so; but apart from his specious polemic anyone with an open mind and a few minutes to conduct some basic research can see that the supposed conflict is imaginary. In fact, not only is relgion not at war with science, the two have often facilitated one another.

While Galileo Galilei is the poster boy of those who like to insist on the perceived conflict, his dispute with Churchmen was not a battle of enlightned science trying to free itself from the superstitious minds of religious folk. It is true that overzelous clergy tended to meddle in worldly affairs, but the reality of the situation points to the fact that Copernican astronomy was encouraged and facilitated by the Church. During the so-called 'Dark Ages', it was in fact the monasteries of Europe which preserved and persued philosophy and science.

The long list of religious scientists gives us some prima facie evidence to the partnership: Robert Grosseteste (who introduced scientific thought to Oxford Unversity) Nicolaus Copernicus (who discovered heliocentric cosmology), Gregor Mendel (who is considered father of modern genetics) and Georges Henri Lemaitre (who proposed the 'hypothesis of the primeval atom', which later became known as Big Bang theory) to name just a few--were all Roman Catholic clergy.

And we should not imagine that their scientific skill was in spite of their religious convictions; in fact, the scientific method itself was born out of a true appreciation for philosophy and theology. Grosseteste, the thirteenth century Bishop of Lincoln, insisted on the need to conduct physical experiements to verify hypotheses in natural sciences, which was then a division of philosophy. St Albert the Great, teacher of St Thomas Aquinas, taught that the scientist of nature was compelled not simply to affirm what he had heard or been told, but to seek first hand the causes of physical phenomena. These approaches to the natural sciences sought to train the mind to distinguish between what is known inductively, and what is known of faith.

And the religious catalysts of science were not limited to the West; the period of 750AD - 1050AD is often considered the Golden Age of Islamic scholarship, with tremendous and often astonishing advances being made in the fields of medicine, mathematics and astronomy by scholars intent on understanding the Divine Creation: "He who pursues the road of knowledge Allah will direct to the road of Paradise... The brightness of a learned man compared to that of a mere worshiper is like that of a the full moon compared to all the stars...." (Hadith [saying] of the Prophet Mohammed).

It is true that ancient and medieval scientists made numerous errors in fact, but these errors were not on account of any superstition but rather due to the nature of scientific study itself: it is a process of trial and error, and our accomplishements in the sciences today are built on the foundations laid by many a religiously motivated scholar. In fact, science and religion are indistinguishable for much of our history.