Reproduction of the original.

Andrew Dickson White, a founding member of Cornell University, released A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom in two volumes in 1896. The original purpose of White's 1874 lecture on The Battlefields of Science is stated in the introduction. White expanded on this idea in a book titled The Warfare of Science that same year. He traces the growing separation of science from theology in numerous domains in these books. According to science historian Lawrence M. Principe, "No credible historians of science now continue to support the warfare thesis... The foundations of the warfare thesis may be found in the writings of two persons, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, from the late 19th century. Scientists have known for years that White and Draper's claims are more propaganda than history, according to science historian and atheist Ronald Numbers, who wrote in a collection about errors committed by White and others. The "battle" paradigm was based on a terrible oversimplification that required all facets of the history of science and religion to fit into one ill-chosen conceptual box. As a result, many scholars ignored the vast amount of historical information that simply didn't fit into that box.

Given the powerful and forthright title of Andrew Dickson White's classic study, it is best to make clear his own sense of the whole as given in the original 1896 edition: "My conviction is that science, though it has evidently conquered dogmatic theology based on biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand with religion, and that although theological control will continue to diminish, religion as seen in the recognition of a 'power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness' and in the love of God and of our neighbor, will steadily grow stronger and stronger, not only in the American institutions of learning, but in the world at large." White began to assemble his magnum opus, a two volume work first published in 1896 as A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. In correspondence he wrote that he intended the work to stake out a position between such religious orthodoxy as John Henry Newman's on one side and such secular scoffing as Robert Ingersoll's on the other. Historian Paul Carter declared that this book did as much as any other published work "toward routing orthodoxy in the name of science." Insofar as science and religion came to be widely viewed as enemies, with science holding the moral high ground, White inadvertently, became one of the most effective and influential advocates for unbelief.