History of the Conflict between Religion and Science

John William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, published in 1874, is the primary text that gave the conflict thesis, the idea that religion and science have been in essentially continuous historical warfare, its most influential popular statement. It is cited here as the historical object of study, the actual text that shaped a century of popular belief about science and religion's relationship, not as a reliable modern account of that history. Its limit is significant and well documented, historians of science have shown many of Draper's specific historical claims to be oversimplified or outright inaccurate, and the conflict thesis itself is now considered by most historians of science to distort a much more varied historical relationship. Cite it for what it is, the founding popular statement of a thesis, and pair any historical claim it makes with a modern historian's assessment.