Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World

This is the story of John Draper, Andrew White, and the conflict thesis: a centuries-old misconception that religion and science are at odds with one another.

Renowned scientist John William Draper (1811-1882) and celebrated historian-politician Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918) were certain that Enlightened Science and Dogmatic Christianity were mortal enemies--and they said as much to anyone who would listen. More than a century later, their grand and sweeping version of history dominates our landscape; Draper and White's "conflict thesis" is still found in countless textbooks, lecture series, movies, novels, and more.

Yet, as it would later be discovered, they were mistaken. Their work has been torn to shreds by the experts, who have declared it totally at odds with reality. So how, if this is the case, does their wrongheaded narrative still live on? Who were these two men, and what, exactly, did they say? What is it about their God-versus-Science "conflict thesis" that convinced so many? And what--since both claimed to love Science and love Christ--were they actually trying to achieve in the first place?

In this book, physicist David Hutchings and historian of science and religion James C. Ungureanu dissect the work of Draper and White. They take readers on a journey through time, diving into the formation and fallacy of the conflict thesis and its polarizing impact on society.

The result is a tale of Flat Earths, of anesthetic, and of autopsies; of Creation and Evolution; of laser-eyed lizards and infinite worlds. It is a story of miracles and mathematicians; souls and Great Libraries; the Greeks, the scientific method, the Not-So-Dark-After-All Ages... and, of course, of popes and unicorns.


About the Author
David Hutchings is Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a physics teacher at Pocklington School in England. He is the author of Let There Be Science (2017) and God, Stephen Hawking and the Multiverse (2020). Hutchings is a regular speaker on the philosophy, history, and theology of science across the United Kingdom.

James C. Ungureanu is Fellow of the Historical Society in London and Upper School Humanities Teacher at The Stony Brook School. He is an intellectual historian primarily focused on the history of religious thought who teaches everything from biblical studies to the history of science and religion. Ungureanu is the author of Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict (2019).