Everyone knows that Columbus proved that the earth was not flat, as the church held.
Everyone knows that Copernicus was persecuted for theorizing that the earth revolves around the Sun, contrary to the Bible.
Everyone knows that Galileo valiantly defended scientific truth against the oppressive obscurantism of a despotic Catholic Church.
Everyone knows that Darwin’s theory of evolution was condemned by Christians, who fought it tooth and nail.
Right?
Wrong.
In an important new book, Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes: The Strange Tale of How the Conflict Between Science and Christianity Was Written into History (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021; xii-359pp), Derrick Peterson demythologizes the “warfare” between science and religion that supposedly exists (and certainly sells popular books!), as a story that never happened. He relies on massive efforts by historians of science over the past half-century, as well as his own research, to tell a radically different story:
“While deconstructing many of the historical misunderstand[ings] that have gone into the thesis and continue to linger in our consciousness does not solve all our problems, or prove Christianity true, or that God is real, it does help us precisely by clearing the decks…
