Rocks of Ages by Stephen Jay Gould

severe clashes between institutions representing science and religion on many specific issues, even though abstract logic and ordinary goodwill should inspire tolerance under NOMA. And if we recognize the intensity of some contests between particular religious leaders and certain scientific conclusions (the case of Galileo, or our modern battles with creationists), just consider the even greater (and often literal) wars of some religious leaders with contrary political forces—all over turf or power, even if publicly defended in terms of doctrine.
    To cite just one obvious example, Draper and White—the originators of the standard model of warfare between science and religion—wrote their books with one of the great dramas of nineteenth-century European history firmly in mind: the long conflict between the founders of the state of Italy and one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures of his time—the originally liberal, but increasingly embittered and reactionary Pope Pio Nono (Pius IX), who still holds the record for papal longevity (reigning from 1846 until his death in 1878).
    Early in his regime, and as a consequence of therevolutions of 1848, Pio Nono had been forced into exile at Gaeta in the kingdom of Naples (the nation of Italy did not yet exist). He returned to power in 1850, and pursued an ever more conservative and confrontational agenda against surrounding political realities for the rest of his pontificate—culminating in the infamous Syllabus of 1864, listing the eighty “principal errors of our times,” and effectively declaring war on modern society, especially on science and the concept of religious tolerance. Pio Nono convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, where he maneuvered an overwhelming vote to affirm the doctrine of papal infallibility (John XXIII’s Second Vatican Council, opened in 1962, pursued a starkly different nonconfrontational agenda).
    The modern nation of Italy had been proclaimed in 1861, and control of Rome and surrounding areas—where the Pope ruled as a secular “king” of real territory as well as a spiritual prince—became an issue that could not be avoided for long. On September 20, 1870, Italian troops entered Rome after symbolic resistance from the papal armed guard. Pio Nono remained in the Vatican (which Italy left under papal control, a situation that still continues) for the rest of his life, bitterly protesting his loss of power, and proclaiming himself a prisoner.
    Now, should this history be interpreted as an episode in the warfare between religion and the modernstate? Such a reading would make a mockery of history’s complexity. First of all, no monolith called “religion” exists. The major struggle in this story occurred
within
the Catholic church, as Pio Nono defeated and purged his own liberal wing. Second, why should we read these events as a tale of religion versus the modern secular state rather than a clash between two political powers, each using the rhetorical tools at its command? So, if a genuine battle, over real territory, between a major religion and a new nation can’t be viewed as a war of inherently opposing institutions, why should we accept such a model for the more diffuse, less clearly definable, and generally less contentious dialogues of science and religion? Liberal clergymen of all major faiths have always welcomed and respected science, while many leading scientists remain conventionally devout in their religious beliefs.
    3. When scientific conclusions have been denied on grounds explicitly identified as religious by supporters of a contrary view, the subjects involved almost always cut closest to the psychological bone of our deepest hopes and fears—to such questions as “what is man [meaning all of us, despite the language of the King James Bible] that thou art mindful of him?”
    To be sure, scientific facts relevant to certain aspects of this question cannot resolve issues about spiritual valuesor ultimate