# Quote — Freeman Dyson, The Scientist as Rebel

> The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science.

- Author: [Freeman Dyson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson.md)
- Book: [The Scientist as Rebel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/the-progress-of-science

## More from this book

> It is more difficult for a modern scientist to be a serious Christian, like Polkinghorne, than to be a serious Muslim, like the Nobel Prize-winning physicisit Abdus Salam. Salam happily proclaimed his Muslim faith but did not feel any need to write books about it. For Salam, the idea of a conflict between his faith and his science was ludicrous. Muslim faith has nothing to do with science. But Polkinghorne writes books to prove to himself and to us that his theology and his science can live together harmoniously..

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/it-is-more.md)

> It is a curious accident of history that the Christian religion became heavily involved with theology. No other religion finds it necessary to formulate elaborately precise statements about the abstract qualities and relationships of gods and humans. ... The idea that God may be approached and understood through intellectual analysis is uniquely Christian.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/it-is-a-curious-accident.md)

> It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind. A thousand years of theological disputes nurtured the habit of analytical thinking that could also be applied to the analysis of natural phenomena. On the other hand, the close historical relations between theology and science have caused conflicts between science and Christianity that does not exist between science and other religions.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/it-is-probably.md)