"I purpose to present an outline of the great, sacred struggle for the liberty of science — a struggle which has lasted for so many centuries, and which yet continues. A hard contest it has been; a war waged longer, with battles fiercer, with sieges more persistent, with strategy more shrewd than in any of the comparatively petty warfares of Cæsar or Napoleon or Moltke.I shall ask you to go with me through some of the most protracted sieges, and over some of the hardest-fought battle-fields of this war. We will look well at the combatants; we will listen to the battle-cries; we will note the strategy of leaders, the cut and thrust of champions, the weight of missiles, the temper of weapons."

The battle between science and religion in American popular life is as old as America itself. By the late 19th century, it had reached a fever pitch, culminating in the two-volume 1896 work A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. The result of thirty years of research by historian and educator ANDREW DICKSON WHITE (1832-1918), a founder of Cornell University, this is White's attack on intellectually stifling religious dogma and his explication of the "conflict thesis" of outright warfare between science and religion. While scholars today generally see the situation as more nuanced, the conflict thesis remains a popular metaphor in the mind of the general public, and White's work continues to speak to us today. H.L. Mencken called this "one of the noblest monuments of American scholarship," and it will fascinate anyone who is troubled by the ongoing influence by religious authorities into secular science.

The Warfare of Science By Andrew Dickson White

"History of the Warfare of Science", by Andrew Dickson White. Andrew Dickson White was a diplomat, historian and educator, who was the co-founder of Cornell University (1832-1918).