Editing Andrew Dickson White (section)

===Conflict thesis===
{{main|Conflict thesis}}
At the time of Cornell's founding, White announced that it would be "an asylum for ''Science''—where truth shall be sought for truth's sake, not stretched or cut exactly to fit Revealed Religion."<ref>Lindberg and Numbers 1986, pp. 2–3</ref> Until then, most of America's private universities had been founded as religious institutions and generally were focused on the [[liberal arts]] and religious training.

In 1869, White gave a lecture on "The Battle-Fields of Science" in which he argued that history showed the negative outcomes resulting from any attempt on the part of [[religion]] to interfere with the progress of [[science]]. Over the next 30 years, he refined his analysis, expanding his case studies to include nearly every field of science over the entire history of Christianity but also narrowing his target from "religion" through "ecclesiasticism" to "dogmatic theology."

The final result was the two-volume ''[[A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom]]'' (1896) in which he asserted the [[conflict thesis]] of science being against [[dogmatic theology]]. Initially less popular than [[John William Draper]]'s ''History of the Conflict between Religion and Science'' (1874), White's book became an influential text in the 19th century on the [[relationship between religion and science]]. White's conflict thesis has been widely rejected among contemporary historians of science.<ref>Quotation: "The conflict thesis, at least in its simple form, is now widely perceived as a wholly inadequate intellectual framework within which to construct a sensible and realistic historiography of Western science". (p. 7), Colin A. Russell "The Conflict Thesis", ''Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction'', Gary Ferngren, ed., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. {{ISBN|978-0-8018-7038-5}}".</ref><ref name="Shapin1996">Quotation: "In the late Victorian period it was common to write about the 'warfare between science and religion' and to presume that the two bodies of culture must always have been in conflict. However, it is a very long time since these attitudes have been held by historians of science". (p. 195) {{cite book
 | author = Shapin, S.
 | year = 1996
 | title = The Scientific Revolution
 | url = https://archive.org/details/scientificrevolu00shap_0
 | url-access = registration
 | publisher = University of Chicago Press Chicago, Ill.
 | isbn = 9780226750200
 }}</ref><ref name="Brooke1991">Quotation: "In its traditional forms, the conflict thesis has been largely discredited." (p. 42) {{cite book
 | author = Brooke, J.H.
 | year = 1991
 | title = Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives.
 | url = https://archive.org/details/sciencereligions0000broo
 | url-access = registration
 | publisher = Cambridge University Press
 | author-link = John Hedley Brooke
 }}</ref> The warfare depiction remains a popular view among critics of religion.<ref>"... while [John] Brooke's view [of a complexity thesis rather than an historical conflict thesis] has gained widespread acceptance among professional historians of science, the traditional view remains strong elsewhere, not least in the popular mind." p. x, ''Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction'', Gary Ferngren, ed., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.  {{ISBN|978-0-8018-7038-5}}.</ref>