Religious belief as a predicate to scientific investigation

From a book review in the London Review of Books. Sharks’ Teeth by Steven Mithen. An interesting observation which is likely true but often unremarked.

Rudwick emphasises the positive, or at least unobstructive, role of religion since Ussher, correcting the received idea that the 19th century in particular saw a great ideological clash between science and religion. The Bible was not a barrier to scientific thought: instead, Rudwick argues, the coherent sequence of events described in Genesis pre-adapted European culture to think about Earth and life on Earth in a similar historical way. As early as the 17th century it was recognised that each ‘day’ in the Creation story might represent something far longer, preparing the way for the notion of geological epochs. Many scholars were aware of the difficulties of interpreting texts written in ancient languages. Rather than seeking to demonstrate the literal truth of Genesis, geology would amplify or clarify the biblical account. In this way, one could be both a devout Christian and a scientist, as William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick, the two leading British geologists of the 19th century, were. Of course, biblical literalism resurged periodically, notably in the US. But the majority of scientists just got on with their geology, leaving others to worry about its implications for religion. What they were revealing about the sheer scale and unanticipated strangeness of the Earth’s long history was often treated as welcome new evidence for God’s Creation.