John Muir Quotes
I bade adieu to mechanical inventions, determined to devote the rest of my life to the study of the inventions of God.
Muir, John. The Life and Letters of John Muir. Edited by William Frederic Badè, vol. 1, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924, p. 154.
Only six years later, the University was intellectually and politically split asunder when the prestigious chairman of the Geology Department wrote that the fossil record was at variance with the date the church had ascribed to Adam and Eve. Vanderbuilt was then controlled by the Tennessee Methodist Episcopal whose Bishop served as its President. See {612709} and {612831}.
This is a very important historical quotation regarding the conflict between Science and Religion. What this quotation shows it that the accusation that the study of science undermined religious belief was a common accusation in the 17th century as well as today. Here Boyle gives the best argument against the accusation, However, despite the fact that this then seemed to be an irrefutable argument and it seems so today even, the accusation is continuously made with small fundamentalist religious factions attempting to reduce the influence of science on society.
John Muir also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American:42 naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States of America.
