Hi, I’m John Green, and welcome  to Crash Course Religions.

So, meet the Three Sisters  – corn, beans, and squash.

According to Haudenosaunee tradition, they sprouted from the  daughter of a spiritual figure,  Sky Woman, providing the gift of agriculture.

The Haudenosaunee have long believed the Three Sisters grew best when planted together —both a spiritual and practical perspective.

Corn grows in the middle as a  structure for the beans to climb.

Squash provides shelter from the harsh sun.

And beans bind all three together as they grow.

And around five hundred years  after these practices began,  botanists have confirmed these  insights with Western science.

But, wait a minute.

Aren’t science and religion supposed to  be locked in an eternal grudge match?

Well, as it turns out, that rivalry  might be a little overhyped.

[THEME MUSIC] Let’s start with the obvious:  religious beliefs, of course, can be  incompatible with scientific understanding.

Consider the age of the Earth.

Most scientists believe Earth  formed around 4.5 billion years ago.

And they came to this conclusion  by dating the time it takes  for certain radioactive elements  in Earth’s rocks to decay.

It took hundreds of years  and lots of experimentation  – and that’s just not how  understanding works in many religions.

Like, some Christians believe the  Earth’s age is laid out in the Bible,  making it around six thousand years old.

Some Hindu texts say the Earth,  and the universe as a whole,  are closer to 150 trillion years old.

And sections in the Qur’an seem  to claim that the Earth’s creation  lasted anywhere between 6,000 and 300,000 years, depending on who you ask.

In each of these examples,  knowledge is handed down through  sacred texts believed by many to be  both literal and irrefutable truth.

And probably nowhere is this incompatibility  more raw than in the stand-off  between creationism and the theory of evolution.

Christian Creationism holds that  God created the world in six days.

Adam, the first man, was formed  like a sculpture from Earth’s clay,  and Eve was brought to life  when God gave her Adam’s rib.

It’s said that God created Adam in his image,  a belief that’s sacred and  deeply held by many Christians, as well as some Jews and Muslims, although the story varies a bit in each telling.

But then along came a guy named Charles Darwin, and when he dropped “On the  Origin of Species” in 1859, it shook a lot of people up.

Because, like, if life evolves from other life, that is a real problem for people who believe that all life was created by God at the same time.

Darwin’s work was the foundation  for the modern theory of evolution,  which states that humans evolved  – over a long period of time – from an ancestor we also have in common with other apes.

And that idea doesn’t vibe  with creationism…or does it?

We know from past episodes that  perspectives are incredibly diverse  not only across religions,  right, but also within them.

So it would only make sense that  creationism is also multifaceted.

Some creationists, called theistic evolutionists,  believe in a less literal  interpretation of the Bible, where Adam and Eve are metaphors and evolution happens as an expression of God’s creativity.

They’ve found a way to reconcile the seemingly conflicting ideas of religion and science – and in that respect they’re not alone.

Like, a recent survey found that, while 59% of Americans think science and religion often conflict, only 30% think that science conflicts  with their own religious beliefs.

So it would seem that, outside of big, heated debates like creationism or the age of the Earth, which are of course very important, on the individual level, a lot of people can and do find ways to balance their religion with science.

So why do we think of these two  concepts as eternal enemies?

Well, I think there are a few reasons,  but one is a story you may have heard about a telescope and a guy named Galileo.

But that story’s likely not the full truth.

Let’s head to the Thought Bubble!

Five hundred years ago, it was common knowledge that the Earth was the center of the universe.

Astronomers knew it, mathematicians  knew it, priests knew it.

But then it all came into question in the 1600s with the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.

As the common story goes,  Galileo’s fervent insistence  that the Sun was actually the  center of the solar system, thank you very much, was a big problem for him, because the Catholic Church was heavily invested in the Earth-centric perspective.

Despite warnings from the pope, Galileo published a book that supported his sun-centered theory.

And he was eventually called  before the Roman Inquisition,  thrown in prison, and only  spared a torturous death when his powerful friends  stepped in to beg for his life – or at least so the story goes.

The truth, as always, is a bit more complex.

The Inquisition knew its case  against Galileo was weak,  and so they offered him a plea deal.

He was charged with suspicion  of heresy and sentenced  to a single day in prison  before moving to house arrest.

And at his very short trial  Galileo admitted to not necessarily  believing himself that the sun was  the center of the solar system.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

So there were consequences to  Galileo’s scientific inquiry,  and those consequences were  enforced by the Catholic Church.

But it’s important to  remember that Galileo’s model  didn’t just threaten the  Church’s religious authority, because the Church wasn’t  just a religious institution.

It was also a hugely powerful  political institution,  with wealth and leaders  scattered throughout Europe, and more than a challenge to religious doctrine, I would argue that Galileo’s inquiries undermined the Church’s political power and influence.

So at least from my perspective anyway, the story of Galileo is as  much about those in power  not wanting their authority to be questioned as it is about religion being  inherently incompatible with science.

After all, the Church could  have embraced a Sun-centered  view of the solar system and  still existed as a Church.

In fact, it has.

But the idea that religion and science are locked in perpetual tension is, of course, quite sticky, and stories like Galileo’s have  reinforced it over generations.

This opposition was especially  popularized in the 19th century  by a couple of guys you’ve  probably never heard of, despite them likely influencing  your views on religion and science.

John William Draper and Andrew  Dickson White were academics,  and both had their own reasons for  positioning science against religion – particularly Catholicism.

Draper worried about the  growing power of the pope,  while White was concerned about overly  strict interpretations of religion.

Out of their writing, a new theory was born: the conflict thesis, which pitted science as an inevitable winner in a battle with religion.

The thesis claimed there were a  few points of contention that made  science and religion as irreconcilable  as Batman and the Joker.

The first argued that what we know  about the world through science  couldn’t possibly be squared with what  we know about the world through religion.

It was a question of epistemology, which asks, “What can we know and how do we know it?” One thing we can know is  that when people use the word  epistemology it’s a shibboleth  for “I know more than you”.

And shibboleth is of course a word that you  only use if you’re trying to sound smart.

What is the difference between  sounding smart and being smart?

I don’t know, I’m in the sounding smart business.

So epistemologically, can we  know that Jesus was resurrected?

Can we know it in the way we know, for instance,  that Dr Pepper was invented in  1883 by Dr. Charles Alderton?

The second problem was closely related,  about how we gain what might  be considered valid knowledge.

In other words, it was a question of methodology.

It argued the means by which we gain knowledge  in religion are incompatible with  the methods we use in science.

The third contention was about ethics.

Like, in the 19th century, there was  a fear that acceptance of Darwin’s  theory of evolution would lead to an  abandonment of the ethical behaviors enforced by a belief in religion.

And the fourth contention  claimed that science would  inevitably question the social  power and authority of religion, as it did with Galileo.

But the conflict thesis oversimplified the  ways people practice religion, of course  — and also oversimplified the ways  people practiced science in real life.

After all, there’ve been  plenty of religious scientists.

George Washington Carver, who made great leaps in agricultural science, called his laboratory “God’s little workshop.” Barbara McClintock, who won a Nobel Prize in 1983,  considered scientific practice  as a kind of mysticism.

And our very own Dr. Samuel Ramsey,  host of Crash Course Biology,  is a lifelong Christian.

So, let’s return to the story of  the Three Sisters for a moment.

The crops were part of Haudenosaunee spirituality;  they believed they were protected  by three “inseparable spirits”.

But the agricultural practice was also based on  detailed observations of and  knowledge about the physical world —an example of what scientists today  call traditional ecological knowledge.

In recent decades, scientists  have been partnering with  and following the lead of  Indigenous groups across the world to apply traditional ecological knowledge, garnered over hundreds of thousands of years, to modern-day environmental  threats, like climate change,  increasing demands on our food supply, and more.

And when conflict does arise between Western science and traditional knowledge, it’s often a lot more nuanced than  simply “science bad, religion better.” Or vice versa.

Like, during the summer of 2019, at the base of Hawaii’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea, protestors blocked an access road to what  would be the location of the  world’s largest telescope.

This dormant volcano is sacred  to many Indigenous Hawaiians,  who see it as the umbilical cord of the  world, and a dwelling place of the gods.

For astronomers, Mauna Kea is important  because its pristine atmosphere  free from light pollution makes it one of the best locations  for an observatory in the world.

And that clash might look  like religion is literally   standing in the way of scientific progress.

But we need to take a step  back here, because framing  is everything when it comes to  telescopes – and also to life.

You see, besides the mountain’s  religious significance,  there’s also its ecological importance.

Indigenous Hawaiians have a rich  history of working with the land, and there were concerns that the massive telescope could damage the mountain’s fragile ecosystem.

On top of that, as there  usually is in these stories,  there's also the shadow of  empire and colonization.

Indigenous Hawaiians have long worked to reclaim their traditional beliefs and languages, which were suppressed for many  decades under American colonial rule.

The ongoing debate over this planned observatory  highlights just how many other  factors there are in this web — not only science and religion, but history, power, authority, culture, and people.

And a path forward may be  emerging because in 2022,  Hawaii’s governor signed  legislation that would eventually transfer control of the area to a governing board made up of representatives from both “astronomical observatories and  Native Hawaiian communities.” The intersection of science and  religion takes us to the edge  of what we know, and also asks us  to consider how we can know it.

But it’s worth noting that  many nontheistic religions  don’t really conflict with  scientific inquiry at all, and in many cases, theistic religions  have found ways to make space  for science rather than presenting  themselves in opposition to it.

Science, in turn, is in the  business of acknowledging  what we don’t yet know, and  even what we can’t know.

And so I would argue that the conflict theory–  while there certainly has been  and will continue to be conflict between science and religion–is  just too simplistic a lens  through which to consider this relationship.

In fact, I’d argue there’s  much to learn when we find  a way to consider religion and science together.

In our next episode, we’re going  to look at a similarly complex  and equally tangled intersection:  religion, sex, and gender.