Hi, I’m not sure the exact wording, but I watched the Catholics Come Home video and they said the Church has made contributions in science, including the laws of evidence. Could someone let me know exactly what is said? I’m trying to figure out the specifics.
Hi.
Many famous scientific discoveries were formed using what is now known as the
scientific method, evidence that supports a theory or hypothesis (although it may never be able to fully prove the conclusions).
Many critics and enemies of the Catholic Church today are convinced (mostly by popular wisdom, not fact) that the Church has been anti-science, when in fact it
has always appreciated and encouraged scientific study to give glory to God’s creation. What the oppositions don’t understand is that the Church is very much against *bad *science–that is, conclusions that aren’t supported by the scientific method and tools available at the time.
To take one example, Galileo’s famous case was not a problem of heresy, but because Galileo wanted to push his initial conclusions as fact without conclusive proof of the heliocentric system at the time. (The Church apologized centuries later, not for prosecuting Galileo but for the house arrest over what would later proven as correct; it was a personality conflict between Galileo and the pope at the time.)
Scientific studies often were done by monks, especially in the Middle Ages, whose lifestyle and devotion to God allowed greater time for introspection as well as perspective. As the Middle Ages ended and technology improved, others in the world were able to continue their studies in the same fashion. Remember that, with the fall of the Roman Empire, there really wasn’t much of anything organized in Europe, save the Church. The continuous study of monks led to the tenets that formed what we now call universities.
Oxford and Cambridge universities were formerly monasteries.
Many, many scientists of note were Catholic, long before the Renaissance and the Reformation or even the industrial revolution. The scientific method was perfected by men such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Louis Pasteur (immunization and sterilization methods), Galileo, Gregor Mendel (father of genetics), Darwin, Copernicus, Tycho…it goes on and on.
I’d recommend Thomas Wood’s
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization for more detail. Wikipedia’s article seem to give a balanced view on the sources of the scientific method, too. Be wary of many other search results which refute the Church’s claims falsely, not by citing history but
ad hominem attacks on the Church itself.
