Reactions to story from Mark, the Multifarious Modernist

Christopher Hitchens, on ‘Does Science make belief in God obsolete?’

http://modernistmark.wordpress.com/ 2008/ 05/ 11/ christopher-hitchens-on-does-scien...

Christopher Hitchens, on ‘Does Science make belief in God obsolete?’ May 11, 2008 by Mark No, but it should. Until about 1832, when it first seems to have become established as a noun and a concept, the term “scientist” had no really independent meaning. “Science” meant “knowledge” in much the same way as “physic” meant medicine, and those who conducted experiments or organized field expeditions or managed laboratories were known as “natural philosophers.” To these gentlemen (for they were mainly gentlemen) the belief in a divine presence or inspiration was often merely assumed to be a part of the natural order, in rather the same way as it was assumed—or actually insisted upon—that a teacher at Cambridge University swear an oath to be an ordained Christian minister.