The Mythical conflict between science and Religion 科学与宗教间莫须有的冲突 作者：James Hannam @ 2009-10-17

译者：22（@ 22）     校对：白猫D（@白猫D）

来源：Medieval Science and Philosophy, http://jameshannam.com/conflict.htm Introduction 简介 Newspaper articles thrive on cliché. These are not so much hackneyed phrases but rather the useful shorthand for nuggets of popular perception that allow the journalist to immediately tune his readers to the right wavelength. Yesterday’s clichés are, of course, today’s stereotypes as any perusal of earlier writing will show. The conflict between science and religion is an acceptable cliché that crops up all over the place.

报纸文章充斥着陈词滥调。这些陈词滥调倒不是简单的陈腐语句，而是一个流行见解百宝箱，让记者可以方便趁手地用来将读者调到正确的认知波段上。当然，阅读任何早期文字都将发现，正是昨日的陈词滥调成就了今日的刻板印象。科学与宗教之间的矛盾冲突，便是一个到处都普遍为人所接受的陈词滥调。

In the episode of The Simpsons in which the late Stephen J. Gould was a guest voice, Lisa found a fossil angel and events led to a court order being placed on religion to keep a safe distance from science. Articles in magazines and on the internet all assume that a state of conflict exists between science and religion, always has existed and that science has been winning.

比如在《辛普森一家》Stephen J. Gould客串配音的那一集中，Lisa发现了一具天使化石，这一事件导致法院判令宗教要与科学保持一定的安全距离。杂志、网络文章也都假定宗教和科学间的冲突是存在的，并将一直存在着，而科学总会是获胜的一方。

Most popular histories of science view all the evidence through this lens without ever stopping to think that there might be another side to the story. But let us turn from popular culture to the academy where we find a rather different picture.

大多数通俗科学史将所有证据置于有色棱镜下观看，却从未停下思考过故事是否有另一面。那么，让我们从坊间传闻走向学院考据，或许在那里，我们可以看到另一幅历史景象。

Let’ s have a look at the comments of a few leading historians of science: 让我们来看几位主流科学史家的评论吧： John Hedley Brooke was the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He is a leading historian of science in England and the author of Science and Religion - Some Historical Perspectives (1991). In this book, he writes of the conflict hypothesis “In its traditional forms, the thesis has been largely discredited”.

John Hedley Brooke是牛津大学科学与宗教学Andreas Idreos讲席教授。他是英国科学史的领军人物，著有《科学与宗教：历史学观点》（1991)。在该书中，他谈及冲突假说“以其一直以来的形式而言，是不足信的”。

David Lindberg is Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He is the author of many books on medieval science and also on religion. With Ronald Numbers, the current Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the same university, he writes “Despite a developing consensus among scholars that science and Christianity have not been at war, the notion of conflict has refused to die”.

David Lindberg是威斯康辛大学麦迪逊分校科学史Hilldale讲席荣休教授，撰写了多本关于中世纪科学和宗教的著作。他和同校的Ronald Numbers，现任科学和医学史Hilldale & William Coleman讲席教授，都认为，“尽管学者已就科学和基督教间并未水火不容这点达成共识，但有关两者冲突的观念仍未消失”。

Steven Shapin is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He writes "In the late Victorian period it was common to write about the "warfare between science and religion" and to presume that the two bodies of culture must always have been in conflict. However, it is a very long time since these attitudes have been held by historians of science."

Steven Shapin是加州大学圣地亚哥分校的社会学教授，他认为，“‘科学与宗教间的战争’是维多利亚时代晚期被反复书写的一个话题，大众也因而假定这两个文化团体一直以来都处于冲突之中”。

Finally, we come to the dean of medieval science, Edward Grant, Professor Emeritus of the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University who writes of that most slandered of periods, the Middle Ages, when faith was supposed to have snuffed out all forms of reason “If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason [the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities”.

最后，让我们听听印第安纳大学中世纪科学系主任、历史与科学哲学荣休教授Edward Grant是如何评价这个一直被严重抹黑的、据认为在此期间信仰抹杀了所有形式理性的中世纪。Grant教授指出，“革命性的理性思想之所以能出现在理性时代（18世纪），正是因为在中世纪建立起来的运用理性作为人类最重要活动的悠久传统”。

So, as a theory believed by working historians, the conflict hypothesis is dead. In this article, I want to examine two questions that follow from this. Firstly, if the conflict hypothesis has been rejected by practically every scholar in the field, why is there such a rift between academic opinion and popular perception? And secondly, what has been the real relationship between science and religion?

因此，“冲突假设已经过时了”——这是一个被当今历史学家普遍接受的观点。在本文中，我将检验由此引出的两个问题。第一，如果冲突假说实际上真的被每一个业内学者抛弃，那么学院派观点和大众认知见的巨大分歧又是从何而来的？第二，科学与宗教间的真实关系到底是怎样的？ The conflict hypothesis 冲突假说 Science is the triumph of Western civilisation which has made all its other achievements possible. The enormity of this triumph has very often been reflected onto the historiography of science to produce a story akin to a triumphal progress. From Copernicus onwards, we are told, each generation built on the discoveries of their forerunners to produce a parade of successes with barely a backwards step.

科学是西方文明的胜利，它使得一切其他成就变为可能。这项胜利如此巨大，以至于反映到科学编史学中，就被谱成了一曲不断进步最终迈向胜利的凯旋之歌。我们被告知，从哥白尼开始，每一代人都在前人发现的基础上不断成功前进而少有退步。

This history has been built on two assumptions: that there is something epistemologically unique about science and that reason and rationality are what causes progress in science. Scientists themselves have generally been keen on these ideas and been happy to promote them.

这样的历史描述基于两点假设。第一，科学在认识论上有独一无二的优势；第二，理性与理性能力促进了科学的进步。科学家普遍热心于这些想法，也乐于传播它们。

Such has been status of science in modern society that this self description, promulgated by writers like Carl Sagan and Jacob Bronowski, has generally been respected by the general public who have been less interested in the more nuanced views historians.

这一对科学在现代社会中所居地位的自我描述，经由像卡尔·萨根（Carl Sagan）和雅各布·布朗劳斯基（Jacob Bronowski）这样的作家传播，逐渐为一般大众所接受，而这些大众却往往对历史学家们更细致入微的观点缺少兴趣。

The myth of conflict first really got going during the Enlightenment (itself a description intended to derogate earlier eras) with the fiercely anti-clerical French philosophes. In his Discours Preliminaire, Jean d’Alembert paints a picture of men of the Renaissance finally throwing off the shackles of church domination so that rational enquiry can at last begin. This idea was carried through the nineteenth century with historians like John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White.

这个冲突虚构的最初流行肇始于启蒙运动（这个词本身就是对先前时代的贬低）时期的一位激进反教权法国哲学家朗达贝尔（Jean d’Alembert）。在他的《百科全书序论》中，他将文艺复兴时期描绘为人们最终挣脱教会统治的枷锁，并开始理性思考的一个时代。这个想法持续到了19世纪被威廉·H·德雷珀（John William Draper）和安德鲁·D·怀特（Andrew Dickson White）等历史学家继承。

White was the most famous and successful exponent of the conflict hypothesis. He is commonly quoted at the start of modern books on science and religion as representing the soon-to-be-debunked traditional view. It is worth briefly examining whether White was being entirely honest in his work as no one doubts that Draper was engaged in nothing more that polemic.

怀特是冲突假说最著名、也是最成功的鼓吹者。他通常在有关科学与宗教的现代书籍中开篇即被援引，作为即将被我们揭穿的传统观点之代表而出现。我们有必要简要检验一下，怀特在捍卫其观点时是否完全诚实，因为没有人会怀疑德雷珀对这场论战的投入只有简单的争吵。

Neither of them were professional historians and both did seem to sincerely believe in the warfare theory they were expounding. Unfortunately, this meant that they set out to prove what they already believed rather than take their conclusions from the facts. White is quite explicit about this when he writes how he felt before he began his research, “I saw... the conflict between two epochs in the evolution of human thought - the theological and the scientific.”

他们两人都不是专业历史学家，但都坚信着他们提出的冲突理论。不幸的是，这意味着他们要去证明他们已经相信的观点，而不是从事实中提取结论。怀特对他在研究之前是如何想的这一点非常坦诚：“我先看到了人类思想发展中两个时代间的冲突——神学时代的和科学时代的”。

Any such statement should immediately set off alarm bells which grow louder as we look at his work The Warfare of Science with Theology. His usual tactics are to scour the sources for some stick-in-the-mud reactionary and claim this represents the consensus of religious opinion and then find another thinker (who is usually just as faithful a Christian as the reactionary) who turned out to be right, and claim that they represent reason.

任何此类的论述都应立即敲响我们的警钟。当我们读他的《科学与神学的战争》时，更要提高警惕。怀特惯用的手法是搜罗一些极端保守人士的观点，并声称这些人的观点代表了宗教人士的共识；接着又找到另一位思想家（通常是和那位极端保守分子一样也是忠实基督徒）证明他的观点是对的，并声称他们代表了理性。

Hence using anachronism and claiming obscure figures were in fact influential, he is able to manufacture a conflict where none exists. A detailed critique of his work from Lindberg and Numbers can be read here but I would like to point out a few errors in the specific area of religious persecution of scientists.

因此，利用这种时代错位、吹嘘一些名不见经传人士的重要性，怀特成功捏造了一个其实不曾存在的冲突。Lindberg和Numbers对他作品的更多详细批评可以在这里读到，但是我更想先澄清有关宗教迫害科学家这件事情的一些误解。

White's examples of actual prosecution are few and far between which is not very surprising as the only scientist the Christian Church ever prosecuted for scientific ideas per se was Galileo and even here historians doubt that was the major reason he got into trouble.

怀特提及迫害的例子屈指可数且多远离事实。这并不出人意料，因为唯一一个因为科学观点而被教会迫害的科学家便是伽利略，而历史学家甚至怀疑这并不是他惹上麻烦的真正原因。

This is an embarrassment for White as he thought that in the Middle Ages especially, the Church was burning freethinkers left, right and centre. The lack of any examples of this at all is a serious problem so he is forced to draft in non-scientists or else to claim that prosecutions on non-scientific matters were scientific persecutions after all. Here are some examples:

这一情形对怀特来说很尴尬，因为他认为教会，特别是中世纪教会，会烧死左、中、右派的所有自由思想家。缺乏证据对他来说是个大问题，因此他被迫加入一些非科学家的例子来证明针对非科学事物的迫害归根到底也是针对科学的迫害。这里有一些例子：

Roger Bacon has been a popular martyr for science since the nineteenth century. He was a scholastic theologian who was keen to claim Aristotle for the Christian faith. He was not a scientist in any way we would recognise and his ideas are not nearly so revolutionary as they are often painted.

罗杰·培根 （Roger Bacon）从19世纪以来就是一个被人熟知的科学殉道者。他其实是一个热衷于宣传亚里士多德拥有基督教信仰的经院哲学家。他从任何一方面来说都不是科学家，他的想法也不像宣传的那样具有革命性。

In chapter 12 of his book, White writes of Roger “the charges on which St. Bonaventura silenced him, and Jerome of Ascoli imprisoned him, and successive popes kept him in prison for fourteen years, were "dangerous novelties" and suspected sorcery.”

怀特在他的书的第十二章中这样描写Roger，“圣波纳文图拉迫使他噤声，阿斯克利的杰罗姆监禁了他，继任的教皇们又关了他十四年，所有这些指控都是因为他‘危险的创新’和可疑的巫术。”

This is untrue. As Lindberg says “his imprisonment, if it occurred at all (which I doubt) probably resulted with his sympathies for the radical “poverty” wing of the Franciscans (a wholly theological matter) rather than from any scientific novelties which he may have proposed.”

这不是真的。正如Lindberg所说，“他的监禁，如果是真的话（我很怀疑），很可能是因为他对于主张苦修的方济各会的同情（完全是神学原因），而不是因为他提倡的一些科学新思想”。

In chapter 2, White informs us “In 1327 Cecco d’Ascoli, noted as an astronomer, was for this [the doctrine of antipodes] and other results of thought, which brought him under suspicion of sorcery, driven from his professorship at Bologna and burned alive at Florence.”

在第二章里，怀特告诉我们，“在1327年，天文学家切科·达斯克利由于‘对跖点’学说和一些其他思想，被怀疑为行使巫术。他因此被剥夺了在博洛尼亚大学的教职，并在佛罗伦萨被活活烧死。”

Cecco D’Ascoli was indeed burnt at the stake in 1327 in Florence. He is the only natural philosopher in the entire Middle Ages to pay this penalty and was executed for breaking parole after a previous trial when he had been convicted of heresy for, apparently, claiming Jesus Christ was subject to the stars.

切科·达斯克利确实在1327年被烧死在佛罗伦萨的木桩上。他是整个中世纪时期里唯一一个死于火刑的自然哲学家：而他被判死刑是因为，在他因为宣称耶稣基督受控于他的星座命宫而被判异端的假释期间，违反了假释条例。

This is not enough for White who claims, entirely without foundation, that Cecco met his fate partly for the scientific view that the antipodes were inhabited as well as dishonestly calling him an ‘astronomer’ rather than an ‘astrologer’ to strengthen his scientific credentials.

这显然不足以让怀特声称（完全是毫无根据），他的死部分是因为他“对跖点适宜居住”的科学观点。更不必说怀特不诚实将达斯克利称为“天文学家”而不是“占星家”来增强他的科学可信度了。

In the same chapter White claims “In 1316 Peter of Abano, famous as a physician, having promulgated this [the habitation of the antipodes] with other obnoxious doctrines in science, only escaped the Inquisition by death.” We have no good evidence that d’Abano was under investigation from the inquisition at his death.

在同一章里，怀特声称“在1316年，外科医生达巴诺的彼得因传播对跖点和其他有害的科学学说而受到审判，但在审判结束之前意外死亡”。我们没有明确的证据可以表明达巴诺死于审判期间。

However, he did gain a posthumous reputation as a sorcerer when spurious works were attributed to him. This may have led to the reports of his bones being dug up and burnt after his death. There is again, no evidence whatsoever that the antipodes debate or science had anything to do with the matter.

然后，他确实在死后由于一些归于其名下的伪造作品而得到了巫师的名声。这可能也导致了他死后骨头被挖出焚烧的传闻。但是，我们要再一次声明，没有任何证据可以表明对于科学或“对跖点”的争论和他的死有关系。

It is hard to confirm some of White’s victims existed at all. “The chemist John Barrillon was thrown into prison,” he says in chapter 12 “and it was only by the greatest effort that his life was saved.” The great historian of science, George Sarton, with a better knowledge of the sources of anyone before or since, says this episode is ‘completely unknown’ to him. Needless to say, White gives no reference.

我们很难确定怀特所说的一些受害者是否存在。他在第十二章里谈到，“化学家John Barrillon被投入狱，任何努力都救不了他”。而掌握史料前无古人后无来者的杰出历史学家乔治·萨顿（George Sarton）对这件事的回应是，“从未听说过”。不用说，怀特没有给出任何出处。

Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy, is also held up as a martyr to science. White explains in chapter 13 “Vesalius was charged with dissecting a living man, and, either from direct persecution, as the great majority of authors assert, or from indirect influences, as the recent apologists for Philip II admit, he became a wanderer: on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, apparently undertaken to atone for his sin, he was shipwrecked, and in the prime of his life and strength he was lost to the world…. His death was hastened, if not caused, by men who conscientiously supposed that he was injuring religion.”

现代解剖学的奠基人维萨里（Vesalius）也常常被认为是科学殉道者。怀特在第十三章中解释道，“维萨里被指控解剖活人。无论是因为绝大多数学者确信的直接迫害，还是因为最近西班牙的腓力二世的辩护者承认的间接迫害，他实际上成了一个要被流放到圣地为自己赎罪的流浪汉。最终正值壮年的他在一次船难中去世。如果说他不是被那些认为他危害宗教的人害死的，也至少是因为他们而少活了很多年。”

The trouble is that hardly a word of this has any basis in historical fact. Vesalius did go on a pilgrimage and was drowned on the way back. But there is no hint he was ever prosecuted and the idea his death was hastened by those who supposed he was injuring religion is simply wrong.

这段话的问题在于，没有哪一处是基于历史事实的。维萨里确实去朝圣了，并且在归途中溺水身亡，但是没有任何证据证明他是被害死的。那些认为他的英年早逝是由于他危害宗教的观点是错误的。

Discussing the heliocentric system, White goes on “Many minds had received it [the doctrine of Copernicus], but within the hearing of the papacy only one tongue appears to have dared to utter it clearly. This new warrior was that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. He was hunted from land to land, until at last he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives. For this he was entrapped at Venice, imprisoned during six years in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome, then burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds.”

当讨论到日心说时，怀特接着说，“虽然当时很多人接受了哥白尼的学说，但在教皇的威严下，只有一个人敢于发出自己的声音。这位新勇士是一个奇怪的凡人——乔尔丹诺·布鲁诺（Giordano Bruno），他在各地都被追捕，直到最后，他向对自己恶言相向的追捕者发出还击。为此，他在威尼斯被诱捕入狱，随后被囚禁在罗马地牢里，在审讯中度过了六年。最后他遭受火刑而死，他的骨灰散落在空中。 ”

In fact, we do not know the exact reasons Bruno was prosecuted but modern scholars like Frances Yates suggest it was because he was a magus who was trying to start a new neo-Platonic religion. He did believe the earth revolved around the sun but this was purely for religious reasons as he effectively worshipped it. In any case, it was incidental to his fate as were his other pseudo-scientific ideas.

事实上，我们现在仍然不清楚布鲁诺被迫害的具体原因。现代学者如弗朗西斯·耶茨（Frances Yates）认为，那是因为他是一位尝试建立一个新柏拉图主义宗教的术士。他确实相信地球绕着太阳转，但那纯粹是因为他自身的宗教信仰让他相信的。无论如何，日心说跟他的其他伪科学想法一样，都不对他的命运负主要责任。

One would like to take the charitable view that White really believed his theory and was not making up evidence to support a position he knew to be false. Instead, he skews the evidence by accepting that which agrees with his hypothesis while being sceptical of what does not. This means that he has included falsehoods that he would have noticed if he had taken a properly objective attitude towards all his evidence.

我们应该采取一个比较宽厚的看法，相信怀特确实笃信自己的理论，而不是为了维护自己明知错误的立场刻意编造证据。然而，他歪曲了证据，仅接受那些符合他假说的，而质疑那些不符合的。这意味着，如果他以客观的态度对待所有证据，那他就可以避免引入那些他本可发现的错误。

The points given above together with Numbers and Lindberg’s criticisms noted in their article are sufficient, however, to prove White’s work as utterly worthless as history.

以上几点，连同Lindberg和Numbers的批评，已足以证明怀特的作品和普通历史一样是没有价值的。

Draper, with no footnotes or references cannot even claim to give an illusion of scholarship. Colin Russell, in a recent summary of the historiography of the alleged warfare, sums up the views of modern scholarship, saying “Draper takes such liberty with history, perpetuating legends as fact that he is rightly avoided today in serious historical study. The same is nearly as true of White, though his prominent apparatus of prolific footnotes may create a misleading impression of meticulous scholarship”.

至于Drape，他的作品根本没有脚注或者引用来源，我们很难称他是一个学者。Colin Russell在最近一份关于科学与宗教莫须有战争的历史编纂学综述中，总结了现代学者的观点，他说，“Drape解读历史的随意性很大，常常将传说当作史实。这也是他被当今严肃史学研究忽略的原因。White也同样很难被称作是一个合格的学者，尽管他通过丰富的脚注让我们产生了一种严谨学术的错觉”。

But even today, historians who should know better, like Daniel Boorstin, Charles Freeman and William Manchester, have produced popular books that wheel out all the old misconceptions and prejudices.

但即使在今天，像Daniel Boorstin，Charles Freeman还有William Manchester这些本应对此了解更多的历史学家，却还是将老旧的误解和偏见带进自己的通俗作品中。

Another reason for the myth of conflict continuing is because at the moment there is undoubtedly a conflict between one wing of Christianity and modern science. This is the battle over evolution. Although the Catholic Church and mainline protestants long ago reconciled themselves to Darwin’s theory and modified their theology accordingly, many conservative Christians remain deeply suspicious about evolution and its alleged metaphysical implications.

冲突假说持续流行的另一个原因是，当时确实有一支基督教信仰与现代科学产生了一场激烈冲突——关于演化论的争斗。虽然天主教会与主流新教徒在很久之前就调解了神学与达尔文理论之间的矛盾，但很多保守的基督徒仍对演化论及其背后的形而上学暗示表示深深的怀疑。

Unfortunately, many who are defending evolution try to widen the gap between religion and science and use it to push non-scientific but anti-religious philosophical agendas. This can be seen clearly in the work of Richard Dawkins and many writers on the internet.

不幸的是，很多为演化论辩护的人扩大了宗教与科学之间的分歧，并利用它推进了非科学但却反宗教的议程。这可以很明显地在网上从理查德·道金斯（Richard Dawkins）和其他作家的作品中看到。

Some observers would claim that now science holds the whip hand it is being no less intolerant of dissent as the church supposedly once was. This would not be an accurate view as instead the argument over evolution is carried on vehemently by a small number of extremists on both sides while the rest of the community looks on rather bemused.

一些观察者声称，如今处于支配地位的科学执鞭于手、厉对异己的不宽容做派，和人们设想中教会的表现相比，毫不逊色。这当然不是一个准确的看法，因为关于演化论的激烈争论仅仅在一些科学与宗教的极端群体中进行，而大众对于这些讨论则是相当茫然的。

Occasionally, it spills over in a public arena such as when pressure groups gain control of previously obscure bodies that set school curricula, but in general it does not have the slightest effect. Most of the occasions when there have been conflicts between science and religion were caused by someone seeking publicity and fame when the problem could much more easily be sorted by patient discussion.

偶尔，当某个压力集团控制了以前不起眼的学校机构并开始设置课程时，争论会溢出到公共领域，但在一般情况下，这些争论不会对公众有丝毫影响。很多情况下，那些本可通过耐心讨论解决的冲突是由那些寻求名气与曝光度的人引起的。

This is the case both of Galileo publishing his inflammatory popular tracts that provoked the church and John Scopes volunteering to be charged with teaching evolution. Even so, Galileo himself blamed jealous scientific rivals and professional spite for his predicament.

伽利略散发他煽动性的流行小册子从而激怒教会，约翰·斯科普斯（John Scopes）故意去违反法规教授演化论，都是这种情况。即使如此，伽利略仍将自己的困境归咎于那些嫉妒他的科学对手和来自同行的怨恨。

The reasons for the continuing popular belief in the historical conflict can probably be summed up as follows:

有关历史上宗教与科学间冲突的流行信念长盛不衰的原因，大概可以总结如下： The writings of an earlier generation of historians have yet to be eclipsed by modern scholarship; 早期历史学家的著作，其光芒仍未被现代学者掩盖； Some popular writers of today continue to recycle the old myths rather than using up to date research; 当今部分通俗作家不断重复过去的传说而没有采用最新的研究成果； A few famous events have given a misleading impression to people unfamiliar with their context; 一些著名的历史事件给不熟悉历史背景的大众产生了误导； The idea of a conflict makes for a better story than more multi-faceted truth. 冲突观念比多面相的事实更适合写成动听故事。 The real historical relationship between science and religion 历史上科学与宗教间的真实关系 Through out history the real situation has been complicated and changeable. It has not proven possible, and nor is it ever likely to, for a single theory to explain the interaction of all forms of science and all forms of religion. It is certainly true that certain science (say, neo-Darwinist theory) is in conflict with certain kinds of religion (say, literalist Christianity) but even in an environment where both are present the effect is pretty negligible.

纵观历史，真正的局面是复杂且多变的，用某种单一理论来解释所有形式的科学与宗教之间的互动，从未被证明是可能的，或貌似可能的。确实，某些科学分支（比如新达尔文主义理论）与某些宗教派别（比如基督教经律主义）是有冲突的。但即使在它们两者都在场的情况下，这种冲突的影响也是微乎其微的。

For all the sound and fury over the teaching of evolution it is difficult to make any sort of case that science in the US has been adversely effected by creationism. If it means that scientists need to explain the theory of evolution better to suspicious laymen (which is something they are usually poor at doing), creationism could even serve an occasionally useful purpose.

面对演化论教学的喧哗与骚动，神创论很难以任何方式对美国的科学产生不利的影响。甚至有时候神创论可以让科学家们更好地向有疑虑的外行人解释演化论（这件事他们常常做得很差）。

Conversely, cosmology has found itself agreeing with religion rather more than some anti-religious thinkers would like. A hundred years ago nearly all non-religious thinkers took it for granted that the universe had always existed and always would. Despite the opposition of theologians claiming a real infinite in time was logically impossible (sometime called the Kalam cosmological argument), atheists seemed quite happy with an uncreated, eternal universe.

相反，不像某些反宗教思想家所认为的那样，宇宙学则与宗教远更相容。一百年前，几乎所有的非宗教思想家都将宇宙一直存在并且会一直存在下去视作理所当然。尽管持相反意见的神学家声称，真正无限的时间在逻辑上是不可能的（有时被称为卡拉姆宇宙论），无神论者似乎更乐于见到一个非创生的、永恒的宇宙。

When the Big Bang model was first suggested by the Jesuit priest Georges Le Maître, it was greeted with a certain amount of scepticism and the atheist Fred Hoyle coined the phrase ‘Big Bang’ intending it to be derogatory.

当大爆炸模型首次被耶稣会教士勒梅特（Georges Le Maître）提出时，受到了很多质疑，无神论者费雷德·霍伊尔（Fred Hoyle）杜撰“大爆炸”（Big Bang）一词来贬低这个发现。

His atheism also blinded him to the inadequacies of his steady state theory which one suspects he only came up with to avoid the uncomfortable metaphysical implications of a universe with a beginning. Atheist scientists have now come to terms with the big bang and adjusted their metaphysics accordingly, much like most Christians, after some debate, accepted evolution and twiddled their theology.

霍伊尔的无神论思想也使他看不到自己稳恒状态理论（steady state theory）的不足之处。有人怀疑这仅是因为霍伊尔要避免宇宙存在一个开端所带来的令他不舒服的形而上学暗示。如今，无神论科学家已经接受了“大爆炸”这个词，并且相应地调整了他们的形而上学假设；这非常像很多基督徒在经过一番辩论后，接受了进化论并且调整了自己的神学。

However, it is interesting to hear today’s atheists declaring that God must have a creator when their predecessors were quite happy for the universe not to have one. All this seems to demonstrate that when it comes to science, both sides find things they do not like and both sides argue against them until the evidence becomes impossible to deny.

但有趣的是，现在我们听见无神论者声称上帝本身必须有一个创造者，而他们的前辈们却为宇宙没有创造者而感到庆幸。所有这些似乎都表明了当涉及到科学时，双方都找出并反对自己不喜欢的一面，直到证据确凿到实在难以否认为止。

Today popular histories do try and recognise this variety. The people we want to eulogise as the great heroes of science rarely had such clear cut views as was once thought. This has led to what I call the 'examination' school of historical writing that can sometimes read like a series of end of term report cards where the figures of the past are praised or scolded according to how much the modern writer thinks they got right.

今天，通俗史确实在尝试并认可这些多样性。许多为我们所赞扬的科学英雄，很少像人们曾经以为的那样，提出过清晰明确的观点。这就会导致我称之为“考试”学派的历史著述。这些著述有时读起来就像一叠期末汇报卡片，上面写着当今作者认为应该会做的题目，然后他们根据一位历史人物答对了多少，来决定赞美还是贬斥他。

A good example of this approach is John Gribbin’s recent Science: A History 1543 - 2001 (published as The Scientists in the US) which is really just an entertaining collection of anecdotes covered in a positivist gloss. But at least he largely avoids the conflict myth and admits that neither Giordano Bruno nor the anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus can be described as martyrs for science.

约翰·格里宾（John Gribbin）最近出版的《科学史：1543—2001》（美国版书名为《科学家》）就是一个很好的例子。该书披着实证主义的光彩外衣，其实只是本读起来令人愉悦的奇闻轶事集。但至少，格里宾也很大程度上避免了上述冲突神话，并且承认布鲁诺和反三位一体的米迦勒·塞尔维特（Michael Servetus）都很难称得上是科学殉道者。

Full-on confrontations between science and religion are reasonably rare. Even when such encounters occur, they are usually arguments between co-religionists with shared concerns about how new discoveries affect faith. We find this during the debate that followed the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species where Christians such as Asa Gray defended both the theory of evolution and Christianity’s accommodation with it.

科学与宗教间的全面冲突是相当罕见的。即使冲突发生了，往往也只是发生在拥有共同信仰的信徒中，他们对于这些新发现将如何影响信仰而展开争论。在达尔文的《物种起源》出版之后便产生了类似的讨论。基督徒阿萨·格雷（Asa Gray）便同时为基督教教义与演化论辩护，并努力使两者协调起来。

Another cause of confusion is when people seeking to attack religion seek to co-opt science onto their side. For instance, whether one is pro-life or not has nothing to do with science, but is often portrayed as such. Concerns about experiments on stem cells also arise from ethics.

混淆的另外一个原因是，当人们攻击宗教的时候，他们往往团结科学站到他们这一边。一个人支持堕胎与否无关科学，但往往就被描述为与科学相关。同样的例子还包括因为伦理道德而引发的对干细胞实验的忧虑。

This leads us straight to the real conflict which is between religion and naturalism. And here the warfare is real enough. Science is partly characterised by methodological naturalism which was used by natural philosophers of the Middle Ages and fully approved by the Church.

这把我们引向宗教与自然主义之间的真实冲突，这里才是交锋真正发生的地方。科学部分地带有方法论自然主义的色彩，这种方法论自然主义在中世纪时期被自然哲学家使用，并且得到了教会的支持。

They realised, as modern naturalists do not, that it is an error of logic to assume that because science assumes naturalism to simplify and explain, it follows that science shows naturalism is true.

当时他们认为（现代自然主义者没有意识到），仅仅因为科学假定自然主义解释简洁就得到“科学证明了自然主义是正确”的这个结论，逻辑上是不正确的。

It is not the purpose of this article to attack the naturalistic fallacy, merely to observe that many of the alleged battles between science and religion are actually being fought by proxy between naturalism and religion, with science as the weapon of both. And, as the defeats of naturalism over the big bang and spontaneous generation showed, the traffic is by no means all one way.

本文的目的不是要攻击自然主义谬误，而是想让人们看到，所谓的科学与宗教之间的冲突，其实是自然主义与宗教双方都利用科学而在他们之间进行的代理战争。而正如自然主义在大爆炸理论和自然发生学说上的失败所显示的，发展进程并非一条单向道。

Most academic historians, while rejecting outright conflict, would refuse to be drawn on whether or not the contribution of religion to science was broadly positive or negative citing the enormous amount of data that would have to be assimilated to give a sensible answer. Most are happy to say that the relationship has been positive in some ways and negative in others with an overall effect that is probably too subtle to be measured.

现在，大多数学院派历史学家并不认为科学与宗教完全站在对立面，也拒绝投身于这样一件事情：通过引证大量数据，从而给出一个敏感答案，并最终在宗教对科学的影响到底大致上是正面的还是负面的这个问题上站队表态。相反，他们会乐于承认两者的关系在某些方面是积极的，在另外一些方面是消极的；总体来说影响微妙，难以估算。

While I respect that cautious view, I believe it is wrong and that a very strong case can be made for the Christian religion be a specific factor in the rise of modern science in Western Europe. This is one of the ideas that I address in my new book God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science .

虽然我尊重这个审慎的观点，但我仍相信它是错误的，并认为，我们可以在很强的意义上说：基督教信仰是西欧现代科学兴起的一个重要因素。这也是我在新书《上帝的哲学家：中世纪世界是如何为现代科学奠定基础的》中要表达的一个观点。

（编辑：@whigzhou）

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