The Authority of Science: The Misuse of “Science” to Support Totalitarianism

• Post by: Thomas S. Buchanan
• October 13, 2023

The goal of this paper is to address the authority of science, but before I do, first I would like to reflect on the conflict between science and religion. I hear about this all of the time and am often invited to give talks on college campuses to address the topic “How can one be a Christian and a scientist?” Let’s begin with some historical background.   The Conflict between Science and Religion In the late 19th century, in some circles it was commonplace to say that science was the new religion and that Christianity had been replaced.  John William Draper described how Christians, especially Catholics, were standing in the way of science when he published his book in 1874 entitled History of The Conflict between Religion and Science. Draper was a reputable scientist: founder of NYU School of Medicine and President of the American Chemical Society. Speaking of the great advancements of science in the 1800s, he warned that people of faith were calling for a return to the “semi-barbarian ignorance and superstition of the middle-ages.” He concluded, Religion must relinquish that imperious, that domineering position which she has so long maintained against Science. There must be absolute freedom for thought. The ecclesiastic must learn to keep himself within the domain he has chosen, and cease to tyrannize over the philosopher, who, conscious of his own strength and the purity of his motives, will bear such interference no longer.[1] Others wrote similar screeds. In 1896, Andrew Dickson White, President of Cornell, wrote the two-volume A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. Here he asserted what came to be known as the “conflict thesis” of science against the “dogmatic theology” of Christianity. In 1918, German sociologist Max Weber proclaimed the “disenchantment of the world.” He argued that scientific understanding is more highly valued than belief, and that the modern, Westernized secular world i