Of Popes & Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World

OF POPES & UNICORNS: Science, Christianity, and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World by David Hutchings and James C. Ungureanu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 263 pages. Hardcover; $39.95. ISBN: 9780190053093. *Readers of PSCF are familiar with the "warfare thesis" for the history of science and religion. This interpretation, framed as a historical analysis that stretches from the ancient Greeks to the modern period, explains the way in which science and religion have always been in conflict with each other. At the center of this interpretation are John William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Since the publication of these books, numerous professional historians as well as the general public have accepted and perpetuated many of the claims made within them. The problem with this line of interpretation, however, is that Draper and White were often wrong. For instance, Christopher Columbus (and people in the medieval period) did not think the earth was flat. Christians did not oppose anesthesia. There was no Dark Ages. Christians did not believe in unicorns. Premodern medical diagnosis did not merely appeal to supernatural causation. And the list could continue. *Instead, as Hutchings and Ungureanu explain over the course of their nine chapters, Christianity--and especially medieval Christianity--was hyper-rational and actively engaged in scientific thought. So, despite the continued influence of Draper and White since the nineteenth century, Hutchings and Ungureanu successfully demonstrate many errors with the historiographical tradition of the warfare thesis. In fact, as the authors argue, there were ways in which science borrowed from theology. This is most noticeable in the utilization of theology to explain science in the period known as the Scientific Revolution, which the authors address in chapter eight, "Old Dogma, New Tricks." Another helpful chapter pertains to the way the ideas of Draper and White resonated with others in the nineteenth century, thereby demonstrating how these two well-known intellectuals were not mere "lone voices." This latter point is a particularly helpful contribution to the topic's historiography, as this type of contextualization is oftentimes forgotten when considering Draper, White, and the warfare thesis. *It is for these reasons and others that many will find this book