Religion and the Social Legitimation of Science

In the first volume of his magisterial Science and the Shaping of Modernity series, Stephen Gaukroger draws attention to a distinctive feature of the rise of modern science in the West. Not only do we witness an efflorescence of scientific activity in seventeenth-century Europe but we also see science become firmly established as a central feature of the culture, in contrast to the ‘boom-bust’ pattern characteristic of other times and places. This successful consolidation of the new science Gaukroger attributes to its capacity to harness the legitimating power of religion. This chapter extends Gaukroger’s argument by identifying a range of different ways in which the new sciences were able to harness religious themes and values in order to secure their long-term legitimacy.