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    Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion
    Unavailable
    Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion
    Unavailable
    Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion
    Ebook359 pages5 hours

    Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion

    By Michael Newton Keas

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Unbelievable explodes seven of the most popular and pernicious myths about science and religion. Michael Newton Keas, a historian of science, lays out the facts to show how far the conventional wisdom departs from reality. He also shows how these myths have proliferated over the past four centuries and exert so much influence today, infiltrating science textbooks and popular culture.

    The seven myths, Keas shows, amount to little more than religion bashing—especially Christianity bashing.

    Unbelievable reveals:

    · Why the “Dark Ages” never happened
    · Why we didn’t need Christopher Columbus to prove the earth was round
    · Why Copernicus would be shocked to learn that he supposedly demoted humans from the center of the universe
    · What everyone gets wrong about Galileo’s clash with the Church, and why it matters today
    · Why the vastness of the universe does not deal a blow to religious belief in human significance
    · How the popular account of Giordano Bruno as a “martyr for science” ignores the fact that he was executed for theological reasons, not scientific ones
    · How a new myth is being positioned to replace religion—a futuristic myth that sounds scientific but isn’t

    In debunking these myths, Keas shows that the real history is much more interesting than the common narrative of religion at war with science.

    This accessible and entertaining book offers an invaluable resource to students, scholars, teachers, homeschoolers, and religious believers tired of being portrayed as anti-intellectual and anti-science.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJan 8, 2019
    ISBN9781504057721
    Unavailable
    Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion

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    Reviews for Unbelievable

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    • 3/5
      Using well-documented examples from astronomy and the history of science, Michael Newton Keas deflates the various myths (as in false stories) that some scientists use to ridicule religion--especially Christianity. A good introduction to the debate on the supposed war between science and religion.
    • 4/5
      As the FIresign Theater used to say, "everything you know is wrong." In this case the subject is mysths about the interaction of science and religion--everyone knows that the Christian Dark Ages were a time in which the rule of the Church prevented any progress in science; everyone knows that Galileo was silenced for agreeing with Copernicus and that the reason Copernicus was unacceptable to the Church was that taking the earth from the center of the solar system meant demoting humankind from the center of God's attention. Oh, almost forgot, the earth was flat and everyone thought Columbus would sail off the edge. Wrong on these and other counts, says Michael Newton Keas, a lecturer in the history and philosophy of science. In fact, he asserts, any Medieval university student worth his salt could present the proofs that the earth was a sphere--and advanced scholars were very close in estimates of its size. Columbus had it wrong, and if not for the convenient existence of the Western Hemisphere he would not have sailed off the edge, but would have perished of starvation or thirst in the middle of the ocean. Similarly, Galileo was silenced because he argued beyond his actual evidence. He wrote a book in which the conventional view, that supported by the Pope, was put into the mouth of a character named Simplicio. Not the smoothest political move. He supported the theory that the earth moved by the evidence of tides, likening them to water sloshing in a moving container. Unfortunately for this theory, it only accounted for one tide per day, not the two that actually exist. The author gives other examples and claims that the myth of religion vs. science is a relatively recent one originating partially in anti-Catholic prejudice but extending to Christianity in general. He traces the increased use of the trope in popular science talks, such as Sagan and Tyson, and in science textbooks. Interesting read,in particular when he writes about the influence of science fiction on the vision of humanity meeting ET.