---
title: "Christianity and science"
chunk: 10/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:38:49.364601+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of Nobel prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference (427 prizes). Overall, Christians are considered a total of 72.5% in Chemistry between 1901 and 2000, 65.3% in Physics, 62% in Medicine, 54% in Economics. Between 1901 and 2000 it was revealed that among 654 Laureates 31.9% have identified as Protestant in its various forms (208 prize), 20.3% were Christians (no information about their denominations; 133 prize), 11.6% have identified as Catholic and 1.6% have identified as Eastern Orthodox. Although Christians make up over 33.2% of the world's population, they have won a total of 65.4% of all Nobel prizes between 1901 and 2000.
In an estimate by scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, between 1901 and 2001, about 57.1% of Nobel Prize winners were either Christians or with a Christian background. Between 1901 and 2001, about 56.5% of laureates in scientific fields were Christians. According to scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Protestants were overrepresented in scientific categories and Catholics were well-represented in the Literature and Peace categories.
In an estimate made by Weijia Zhang from Arizona State University and Robert G. Fuller from University of Nebraska–Lincoln, between 1901 and 1990, 60% of Physics Nobel prize winners had Christian backgrounds.
According of Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States by Harriet Zuckerman, a review of American Nobel prizes winners awarded between 1901 and 1972, 72% of American Nobel Prize Laureates, have identified from Protestant background. Overall, Americans of Protestant background have won a total of 84.2% of all awarded Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, 60% in Medicine, 58.6% in Physics, between 1901 and 1972.

=== Criticism ===
Events in Christian Europe, such as the Galileo affair, that were associated with the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment led scholars such as John William Draper to postulate a conflict thesis, holding that religion and science have been in conflict methodologically, factually and politically throughout history. This thesis is held by several scientists like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. While the conflict thesis remains popular in atheistic and antireligious circles, it has lost favor among most contemporary historians of science, and the majority of scientists in elite universities in the U.S. do not hold a conflict view.
More recently, Thomas E. Woods, Jr., asserts that, despite the widely held conception of the Catholic Church as being anti-science, this conventional wisdom has been the subject of "drastic revision" by historians of science over the last 50 years. Woods asserts that the mainstream view now is that the "Church [has] played a positive role in the development of science ... even if this new consensus has not yet managed to trickle down to the general public." Science historian Ronald L. Numbers corroborates this view, writing that "Historians of science have known for years that White's and Draper's accounts are more propaganda than history. ...Yet the message has rarely escaped the ivory tower."
While figures like John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White are frequently cited in historical literature as the primary architects of the conflict thesis, historian James C. Ungureanu demonstrates this attribution is fundamentally misleading. In his work, Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict (2019), Ungureanu reveals that Draper and White were not, in fact, original theorists but rather popularizers who synthesized and amplified pre-existing 19th-century Protestant, anti-Catholic polemic. Ungureanu argues that both authors extensively borrowed rhetorical frameworks and historical examples crafted by progressive liberal theologians engaged in intra-Protestant debates seeking to reform Christianity against perceived Catholic-like dogmatism. Their influential narratives, therefore, were less objective historical accounts and more theologically motivated constructs, shaped by specific religious controversies (particularly anti-Catholicism and liberal Protestant agendas), thus undercutting the thesis's claim to universal historical truth. Ungureanu's scholarship reframes the origins of the conflict narrative as a product of partisan religious discourse rather than a neutral reading of the past.

==== Trial of Galileo ====

In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), describing observations made with his new telescope. These and other discoveries exposed difficulties with the understanding of the heavens that was common at the time. Scientists, along with the Catholic Church, had adopted Aristotle's view of the Earth as fixed in place, since Aristotle's rediscovery 300 years prior. Jeffrey Foss writes that, by Galileo's time, the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of the universe had become "fully integrated with Catholic theology".
Scientists of the day largely rejected Galileo's assertions, since most had no telescope, and Galileo had no physical theory to explain how planets could orbit the Sun which, according to Aristotelian physics, was impossible. (That would not be resolved for another hundred years.) Galileo's peers alerted religious authorities to his "errors" and asked them to intervene. In response, the church forbade Galileo from teaching it, though it did not forbid discussing it, so long as it was clear it was merely a hypothesis. Galileo published books and asserted scientific superiority. He was summoned before the Roman Inquisition twice. First warned, he was next sentenced  to house arrest on a charge of "grave suspicion of heresy".
The Galileo affair has been considered by many to be a defining moment in the history of the relationship between religion and science. Since the creation of the Conflict thesis by Andrew Dickson White and John William Draper in the late nineteenth century, religion has been depicted as oppressive and oppositional to science. Edward Daub explains that, while "twentieth century historians of science dismantled White and Draper's claims, it is still popular in public perception". Casting Galileo's story as a contest between science and religion is an oversimplification, writes Jeffrey Foss. Galileo was heir to a long scientific tradition with deep medieval Christian roots.

== See also ==

== Notes ==