Science vs. Religion: Astronomy

It's been oft said that religion and science have little to do with each other, and that religion inhibits science. Nothing could be further from the truth, as religion has actually helped science along. Some of these connections should be explored. The best place to start is astronomy.

Once people began to farm, knowing when to lay crops down was extremely important. This need started to lay down a basic paradigm: almost everyone farmed, there were a few nobles, and the small remainder took up learning about the universe. Getting food was pretty much a full-time job, as was ruling; the original nobles were busy adjudicating disagreements, deciding what to do with neighboring tribes, which came down to fighting or marrying, and other like things.

This meant that the you had a very small number of people dealing with the gods. When people were more nomadic, the shamans had little time to really explore the universe, and so they noticed little more than constellations and correlated that to the behaviors of animals, plants, and weather, allowing the tribe to make plans more than a few days in advance. This was a serious advantage and allowed for regular religious rituals, as well as tracking time. Eventually they were able to stretch schedules into years. They also linked the times of the year to personality types, making astrology somewhat important.

When the tribes settled down and started farming, they were able to start doing more, and so started making calendars, with some of these being quite immense. After all, because of farming people started having more free time; they didn't need to gather food all of the time, and so were able to do some of the first public works projects. This explains a lot of the truly large buildings; the people would farm in spring, harvest in fall, and do maintenance chores during the winter. There was some weeding and brewing during the summer, and maybe some art, but it was mostly a very boring season, making it ideal for war and building. So they did.

Because watching the stars was so important, these first projects tended to be calendars. Big calendars. Some have noted how coincidentally major structures are lined up with specific constellations and directions; if your life depended on the appearance of a specific star, you would probably line up your biggest building to that star. Astronomy was actually pretty sophisticated when you realize that they were not doing it with computers and telescopes.

Oh, and another cool about the early astrologers: They kept records. Because tracking the stars was so important, they kept track of them and recorded their findings, and modern-day astronomers have been able to use these recorded numbers to determine a lot about the skies back then.

But the lesson to take away here is that even as they were doing what amounted to a lot of scientific inquiry, and that there was definitely a practical edge to that inquiry, the reason was fundamentally religious. By knowing the skies you could know your future and, in times of crisis, know the will of the gods. It's worth noting that the book religions each have a proscription against divination, possibly because God talk to His flock directly, and also as a way to make them different from the surrounding tribes. Nonetheless astrology lasted as a science until the 12^th century or so, when it started to be replace by astronomy, which stripped out the supernatural underpinnings and made it mere divination. Astronomy has become important to almost every branch of civilization, as its discoveries have led to advances in almost every area. Not bad for something started by some superstitious savages...