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It is a truth universally acknowledged that he whose mind is ahead of his time and above thatof his peers may not be understood by his fellow people and be subject to critisizm andpersecution. Galilei Galileo, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes were am ong the first to breakaway from the conventional views of their times to find a place for science in a society andpropose the way it should be practiced. All three authors agree on some points but differemarkedly on others. Bacon insists on the importa nce of experimentation and relativeuselessness of senses and experience, while Decartes thinks them imporatnt for

understanding of nature. Galileo stresses the need for separation of science and religion, whileDescartes deems the correctness of the meth od of scientific thought to be most important.Yet all three writers agree that natural science should be freed of the grip of theology andhuman ethics, what sets them apart from previous generations of scientists and thinkers.

In his Discoveries, Bacon goes at great length to discuss the influence the prescientfic mode of thinking has had on generations of scientists, and tries to Descartes asserts that themathematical method of examining the relationship between objects and expressing them inconcise formulas, applied to the entire realm of knowledge, permits him to exercise his own

reason to the best of his ability. Since nothin g in philosophy is certain, it is evident that hemust discover his own philosophical principles.

Galileo's views on science and religion, as seen from his Letter to the Grand DutchessChristina are very radical for his times. He suggests that physical sciences must be separated

from theological studies because the goals of the two disicplines are to tally different: theologyis concerned with salvation of the soul, while the sciences are concerned with understanding of nature. He believes that the clergy apply faith where ther is none involved -- one cannotundersand nature just by quoting the Script ure because the nature, a fruit of God's infinitewisdom., defies the simple explanation men's feeble minds attempt to find in the Bible. Totruly understand nature, one has apply the little of the reason that God has given to him andlook "between the li nes" for the true meaning of the Bible. There are a number interpretationsone can find because the Bible is often general and simplistic; Galileo suggests that the bestway to find the true meaning is to disprove the false conclusions by finding contradi cions innature, as determined by accurate experiments rather than fervent meditation. It is a job of scientists to examine nature and it is the business of theologists to make sure the Bible agreeswith it, for nature is no less a manifestation of God th an the Holy Bible itself:

"A thing is not forever contrary to the faith until disproved by most certain truth.. When that

happens it was not the Holy scripture that ever affirmed it but human ignorance that everimagined it." (St. Augustine, De Genesi Ad Literam i, 18,19, p. 206 ). Ultimately, the true faithand physical sciences take two different but parallel pathways in an attempt to understandGod, one by following His canons and the other by exploring His creations, "by Nature in hisworks and by doctrine in his word" (183).

Bacon differs somewhat in his view of science and religion. Indeed, he claims that a truescince must be free of religious tenets where they do not apply: "It is therefore most wisesoberly to render unto faith that are faith's" (317). However, Bacon g oes further to describethe different uses and abuses of religion that can either further or impede the adavancementof science. Perhaps most notable of them is the idea of differentiating true faith fromsuperstition. The true faith is derived from th e scriptures and applied only to the matters of salvation, while superstition is a dangerous mixture of philosophy and religion that is appliedto the matters where there is no faith involved, such as politics and natural sciences. Unlike

Galileo and Des cartes, Bacon not only states that religion is not a means of establishingphysical truths because it does not rely on practical experimentation. He also suggests thatthe since the Bible was written centuries ago, it lacks the information scientists esta blished

from natural experiments over that perfiod of time; using it to explain the natural phenomenais nothing more than "seeking thus the dead among the living."

The role of the philosopher in science is different for Bacon and Descartes. Although both of the thinkers are sceptical of the benefits a philosophy may bring, Bacon denies a place for it inscience, while Descartes believes that it may still be of som e value. Bacon rejectsconventional philosophy mainly because it rests on what he considers to be a "weak

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foundation" or logic. Logic has no place in scientific method because it rests on few, if any,experimentally proven facts and then attempts to extra polate or deduce further conclusions.Logic is based on applying human mind in effort to explain nature, while, as Bacon claims, "The subtilty of nature is far beyond that of sense or of the understanding." Apparently, hebelieves that nature so beyond t he grasp of human mind that it goes against all theconclusion that human rationality prescribes. Therefore he abandons logic as a tool forunderstanding nature. Instead, he proposes to conduct science by the method of "true

induction" -- proposing a re asonable conclusion based on a set of thorough and deliberateexperiments.