---
title: "List of Christians in science and technology"
chunk: 3/17
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians_in_science_and_technology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:31:01.455026+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Joseph Priestley (1733–1804): Nontrinitarian clergyman who wrote the controversial work History of the Corruptions of Christianity. He is credited with discovering oxygen. Luigi Galvani (1737–1798): Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher who studied animal electricity. Jean-Louis-Marc Alibert said of Galvani that he never ended his lessons “without exhorting his hearers and leading them back to the idea of that eternal Providence, which develops, conserves, and circulates life among so many diverse beings.”
John Robison (1739–1805): Scottish physicist and mathematician, professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He was the first general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Robison invented the siren and also worked with James Watt on an early steam car. He was a devout Christian, and vehemently opposed radical secular currents in the Enlightenment as a threat to the moral fabric of society. John Playfair (1748–1819): Church of Scotland minister, scientist, mathematician, professor of natural philosophy. He was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and served as General Secretary to the society. Alessandro Volta (1745–1827): Italian physicist who invented the first electric battery. The unit Volt was named after him. Samuel Vince (1749–1821): Cambridge astronomer and clergyman. He wrote Observations on the Theory of the Motion and Resistance of Fluids and The credibility of Christianity vindicated, in answer to Mr. Hume's objections. He won the Copley Medal in 1780, before the period dealt with here ended. Isaac Milner (1750–1820): Lucasian Professor of Mathematics known for work on an important process to fabricate Nitrous acid. He was also an evangelical Anglican who co-wrote Ecclesiastical History of the Church of Christ with his brother and played a role in the religious awakening of William Wilberforce. He also led to William Frend being expelled from Cambridge for a purported attack by Frend on the liturgy of the Church of England. William Kirby (1759–1850): Parson-naturalist who wrote On the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God. As Manifested in the Creation of Animals and in Their History, Habits and Instincts and was a founding figure in British entomology. was an English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist. He was a Quaker Christian. John Dalton (1766–1844): an English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into colour blindness, sometimes referred to as Daltonism in his honour. Georges Cuvier (1769–1832): French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "father of paleontology". Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834): English cleric and scholar whose views on population caps were an influence on pioneers of evolutionary biology, including Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Andre Marie Ampere (1775–1836): one of the founders of classical electromagnetism. The unit for electric current, Ampere, is named after him. Olinthus Gregory (1774–1841): wrote Lessons Astronomical and Philosophical in 1793 and became mathematical master at the Royal Military Academy in 1802. An abridgment of his 1815 Letters on the Evidences of Christianity was done by the Religious Tract Society. John Abercrombie (1780–1844): Scottish physician and Christian philosopher who created the a textbook about neuropathology. Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789–1857): French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He was a committed Catholic and member of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Cauchy lent his prestige and knowledge to the École Normale Écclésiastique, a school in Paris run by Jesuits, for training teachers for their colleges. He also took part in the founding of the Institut Catholique de Paris. Cauchy had links to the Society of Jesus and defended them at the academy when it was politically unwise to do so. William Buckland (1784–1856): Anglican priest/geologist who wrote Vindiciae Geologiae; or the Connexion of Geology with Religion explained. He was born in 1784, but his scientific life did not begin before the period discussed herein. Mary Anning (1799–1847): paleontologist who became known for discoveries of certain fossils in Lyme Regis, Dorset. Anning was devoutly religious, and attended a Congregational, then Anglican church. Marshall Hall (1790–1857): notable English physiologist who contributed with anatomical understanding and proposed a number of techniques in medical science. A Christian, his religious thoughts were collected in the biographical book Memoirs of Marshall Hall, by his widow (1861). He was also an abolitionist who opposed slavery on religious grounds. He believed the institution of slavery was a sin against God and denial of the Christian faith. John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861): British priest, botanist and geologist who was Charles Darwin's tutor and enabled him to get a place on HMS Beagle. Lars Levi Læstadius (1800–1861): botanist who started a revival movement within Lutheranism called Laestadianism. This movement is among the strictest forms of Lutheranism. As a botanist he has the author citation Laest and discovered four species. Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864): geologist, paleontologist, and Congregationalist pastor. He worked on Natural theology and wrote on fossilized tracks. Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864): chemist and science educator at Yale; the first person to distill petroleum, and a founder of the American Journal of Science, the oldest scientific journal in the United States. An outspoken Christian, he was an old-earth creationist who openly rejected materialism. Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866): son of a pastor, he entered the University of Göttingen at the age of 19, originally to study philology and theology in order to become a pastor and help with his family's finances. Upon the suggestion of Gauss, he switched to mathematics. He made lasting contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, and differential geometry, some of them enabling the later development of general relativity. William Whewell (1794–1866): professor of mineralogy and moral philosophy. He wrote An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics in 1819 and Astronomy and General Physics considered with reference to Natural Theology in 1833. He is the wordsmith who coined the terms "scientist", "physicist", "anode", "cathode", "linguistics", "electrode", "ion" and many other commonly used scientific words. Michael Faraday (1791–1867): Glasite church elder for a time, he discussed the relationship of science to religion in a lecture opposing Spiritualism. He is known for his contributions in establishing electromagnetic theory and his work in chemistry such as establishing electrolysis. James David Forbes (1809–1868): physicist and glaciologist who worked extensively on the conduction of heat and seismology. He was a Christian as can be seen in the work "Life and Letters of James David Forbes" (1873). Charles Babbage (1791–1871): mathematician and analytical philosopher known as the first computer scientist who originated the idea of a programmable computer. He wrote the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, and the Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864) where he raised arguments to rationally defend the belief in miracles. Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848): Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest. Known for his contributions to mathematical analysis, including the (ε, δ)-definition of limit, the least upper bound property of the real numbers, and the Bolzano–Weierstrass theorem. He also gave the first purely analytic proofs of the fundamental theorem of algebra and the intermediate value theorem. Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873): Anglican priest and geologist whose A Discourse on the Studies of the University discusses the relationship of God and man. In science he won both the Copley Medal and the Wollaston Medal. His students included Charles Darwin.