ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that methodological debates by scholars of science and religion have suffered from a common failing: they have been too preoccupied with classical philosophical issues and have not properly engaged recent work by historians of science. It summarizes current historical approaches to science and religion for those unaware of current historiographical practice. The chapter focuses on the concept of the Scientific Revolution, and draws a contrast between early work on the concept and those that have been produced by historians. Historians reject the possibility of metaphysical essentialism with respect to science because it creates insensitivity to the changing boundaries of the study of the natural world. Traditional histories of the Scientific Revolution focused on the physical sciences, especially physics, because general mathematical laws were the most powerful example of the new knowledge of nature, and historians tended to focus on theories and episodes that met the ideal.
