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How does one measure such things?? – quant_dev Dec 3 '11 at 9:14
up vote 22 down vote accepted











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It's a good read and will make the case very persuasively.



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this answer makes some pretty interesting claims, specifically the idea that personal property rights was borne out of the church. I'd love to see that argued, as I know our western tradition of property rights has a very strong Lockean foundation. I will check out Rodney Stark's works, but from his background it seems like he has quite the agenda. Also I'd love to see some sources showing that Gibbon's work is not real history. – ihtkwot May 6 '12 at 16:24



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Let's look at some of the scientists banned by the Index:

  • Pascal
  • Bacon
  • Copernicus
  • Galileo
  • Hume


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The Catholic Church, especially in the High Middle ages, was a great aid to science. The Church even founded the modern university system.

Physicists of the High Middle ages had such a profound affect on the intellectual atmosphere of Galileo, Newton, et al. that they took their discoveries as common knowledge. Some of the most famous of the pre-Galilean physicists were:

  • The French bishop, physicist, and economist Nicole Oresme, who determined the mean speed theorem of uniformly accelerated bodies: vavg = vf / 2.

  • Bishop Oresme posed the famous Gedankenexperiment:

    I posit that the Earth is pierced clear through and that we can see through a great hole farther and farther right up to the other end where the antipodes [poles] would be if the whole of this Earth were inhabited; I say, first of all, that if we dropped a stone through this hole, it would fall and pass beyond the center of the earth, going straight on toward the other side for a certain limited distance, and that then it would turn back going beyond the center on this side of the Earth; afterward, it would fall back again, going beyond the center but not so far as before; it would go and come this way several times with a reduction of its reflex motions until finally it would come to rest as the center of the Earth....

    {Quoted by K. V. Magruder from Le Livre du Ciel et due Monde (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), translated by D. Menut, pg. 573.}

  • Bishop Oresme wrote (before Galilean relativity): “If air were enclosed in a moving ship, it would seem to the person situated in this air that it was not moved.” Book of the Heavens, Book II chapter 25, from Grant, A Source Book of Medieval Science, pg. 505, Harvard, 1974

  • Jean Buridan (d. ca. 1359) invented/discovered the concept of momentum and the equation p = m × v.

  • Thomas of Bradwardine (c. 1295-1349) distinguished mean and instantaneous velocity.

  • Bradwardine determined in 1300 that for uniformly accelerated objects, $d = \frac{1}{2} a t^2$, which De Soto, O.P., (b. ca. 1494) applied to free-falling objects; Bradwardine thus wrote the first physics equation.

  • Jordanus de Nemore and Torricelli influenced Galileo's treatment of inclined planes.

Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253) did experiments (not yet of course with modern rigor) and was keen on using mathematics; he is known for his work on understanding the rainbow. Thomas of Bradwardine (c. 1295-1349) at Merton College Oxford introduced the distinction between mean velocity (x/t) and instantaneous velocity (dx/dt) [and he was the first to write a physics equation]. Bradwardine had an enthusiasm for empiriometric physics that started a whole school called the Merton school (his successors include: William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, and John Dumbleton) that was extremely influential throughout Europe. Among other things, they were known for the Merton mean speed theorem, by which they proved the correct formula for free fall distance was given by s = ½ a t². Interestingly, both Bradwardine and Grosseteste at some point in their lives were Archbishops of Canterbury. Nicole Oresme (<1348-1382) and Giovanni di Casali (c. 1350) independently developed use of 2-D graphs [long before Descartes (1596-1650)]. Oresme described all change using these graphs in particular local motion, including calculating area (integrating) under velocity curves to get distance. Oresme's arguments for the sun-centered and moving earth were widely known: he said, for example, that "...not only is the earth so moved diurnally, but with it the water and the air, as was said, in such a way that the water and the lower air are moved differently than they are by winds and other causes. It is like this situation If air were enclosed in a moving ship, it would seem to the person situated in this air that it was not moved." (p. 133, Dales.)

—A. Rizzi's Science Before Science pgs. 199-200

Even further back, Philoponus (late 5th, 2nd ½ of 6th century A.D.; also called "The Grammarian" or "The Christian") is impressive:

He argued that the sun is fire and of terrestrial-like, corruptible matter. He devised a precursor to the notion of impetus which Buridan later developed, that which keeps moving bodies in motion even after the mover ceases being in contact with them; air does not keep projectiles in motion. He discovered that light rays travel the same both backwards and forwards. He invented functions of variables and their "courses" (what we'd call "first derivatives" in modern calculus). He discovered the law of inertia, that bodies in motion remain in motion unless something impedes their movement, literally a thousand years before Galileo, Newton, et al.!

He's certainly one of the "grands génies de l'Antiquité" ("great geniuses of Antiquity") and "principaux précurseurs de la Science moderne" ("principle precursers to modern Science"), as Pierre Duhem wrote in his magisterial, 10 volume work in the history of medieval physics:

Partially translated in:

cf. also:

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Christianity was very nearly universal in Europe during the Middle Ages, so I don't see how "most if the scientists were Christian" leads to "Christianity supported scientific development." The question is about the institutions of religion; did they help or hinder? – Jon of All Trades Jan 25 at 13:04
@JonofAllTrades All the research I mentioned above was done under the support of the Catholic universities (were these not "institutions of religion," even if they were funded by the Church itself?), which where themselves under the jurisdiction of their local bishop. – Geremia Jan 25 at 17:49
Indeed, and those Christian universities were in Christian kingdoms. Christianity was omnipresent, but that doesn't mean that everything that happened was either the church's fault or credit. – Jon of All Trades Jan 25 at 18:32

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