A Christian foundation for science?

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Evolution is not a sicentific theory Why is it that science arose in very few cultures and only persisted to turn into a rigorous self correcting discipline in Judeo Christian societies?

There are some basic philosophical aspects to Christianity that encourage science, while the different views in other cultures discourage science. For starters, if God created the universe, then it is real and subject to ultimate truth, not merely an illusion of the senses as some philosophies see it. There is little point studying something that doesn't exist. If a single god created the universe and that god is rational and caring, then the universe he has created would be rational and consistent. If it weren't then natural philosophy (ie science) would just be about recording a series of random events that have no predictive value. Furthermore the natural world (including humans) consist of things created by god, rather than gods themselves. Thus there is nothing to fear in what may be discovered, no taboos in knowledge, and seeking to understand the world is seeking to understand God's creation. Cutting up a frog is not cutting up a god. Most of the famous scientists whose equations and constants we use in physics and chemistry were devout Christians, and sought to know God through his works. The Bible describes God's creation as being both real, and good - therefore worth studying. The idea of consistent 'natural laws' was first derived from the Bible rather than from nature and nature was studied with the expectation of finding natural laws. Finally, if man was created in the image of God then you would expect us to be able to understand God's creation - perhaps this is why maths (an entirely human construction) is so powerful in describing the natural world.

It is only a very recent change that has seen science portrayed as an enemy of Christianity, apparently by people who sought to use this to discredit Christianity. While they may have had some success in giving Christianity a bad name (admittedly with the help of many Christians), they have also misrepresented science and created unnecessary conflict that was detrimental to the growth of human knowledge.

The list below is from the book The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present, Citadel Press (2000), written by John Galbraith Simmons.

1 Isaac Newton the Newtonian Revolution Anglican (rejected Trinitarianism, i.e., Athanasianism;
believed in the Arianism of the Primitive Church)
2 Albert Einstein Twentieth-Century Science Jewish
3 Neils Bohr the Atom Jewish Lutheran
4 Charles Darwin Evolution Anglican (nominal); Unitarian
5 Louis Pasteur the Germ Theory of Disease Catholic
6 Sigmund Freud Psychology of the Unconscious Jewish; Atheist; Freudian psychoanalysis (Freudianism)
7 Galileo Galilei the New Science Catholic
8 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier the Revolution in Chemistry Catholic
9 Johannes Kepler Motion of the Planets Lutheran
10 Nicolaus Copernicus the Heliocentric Universe Catholic (priest)
11 Michael Faraday the Classical Field Theory Sandemanian
12 James Clerk Maxwell the Electromagnetic Field Presbyterian; Anglican; Baptist
13 Claude Bernard the Founding of Modern Physiology  
14 Franz Boas Modern Anthropology Jewish
15 Werner Heisenberg Quantum Theory Lutheran
16 Linus Pauling Twentieth-Century Chemistry Lutheran
17 Rudolf Virchow the Cell Doctrine  
18 Erwin Schrodinger Wave Mechanics Catholic
19 Ernest Rutherford the Structure of the Atom  
20 Paul Dirac Quantum Electrodynamics  
21 Andreas Vesalius the New Anatomy Catholic
22 Tycho Brahe the New Astronomy Lutheran
23 Comte de Buffon l'Histoire Naturelle  
24 Ludwig Boltzmann Thermodynamics  
25 Max Planck the Quanta Protestant
26 Marie Curie Radioactivity Catholic (lapsed)
27 William Herschel the Discovery of the Heavens Jewish
28 Charles Lyell Modern Geology  
29 Pierre Simon de Laplace Newtonian Mechanics atheist
30 Edwin Hubble the Modern Telescope  
31 Joseph J. Thomson the Discovery of the Electron  
32 Max Born Quantum Mechanics Jewish Lutheran
33 Francis Crick Molecular Biology atheist
34 Enrico Fermi Atomic Physics Catholic
35 Leonard Euler Eighteenth-Century Mathematics Calvinist
36 Justus Liebig Nineteenth-Century Chemistry  
37 Arthur Eddington Modern Astronomy Quaker
38 William Harvey Circulation of the Blood Anglican (nominal)
39 Marcello Malpighi Microscopic Anatomy Catholic
40 Christiaan Huygens the Wave Theory of Light Calvinist
41 Carl Gauss (Karl Friedrich Gauss) Mathematical Genius Lutheran
42 Albrecht von Haller Eighteenth-Century Medicine  
43 August Kekule Chemical Structure  
44 Robert Koch Bacteriology  
45 Murray Gell-Mann the Eightfold Way Jewish
46 Emil Fischer Organic Chemistry  
47 Dmitri Mendeleev the Periodic Table of Elements  
48 Sheldon Glashow the Discovery of Charm Jewish
49 James Watson the Structure of DNA atheist
50 John Bardeen Superconductivity  
51 John von Neumann the Modern Computer Jewish Catholic
52 Richard Feynman Quantum Electrodynamics Jewish
53 Alfred Wegener Continental Drift  
54 Stephen Hawking Quantum Cosmology atheist
55 Anton van Leeuwenhoek the Simple Microscope Dutch Reformed
56 Max von Laue X-ray Crystallography  
57 Gustav Kirchhoff Spectroscopy  
58 Hans Bethe the Energy of the Sun Jewish
59 Euclid the Foundations of Mathematics Platonism / Greek philosophy
60 Gregor Mendel the Laws of Inheritance Catholic (Augustinian monk)
61 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Superconductivity  
62 Thomas Hunt Morgan the Chromosomal Theory of Heredity  
63 Hermann von Helmholtz the Rise of German Science  
64 Paul Ehrlich Chemotherapy Jewish
65 Ernst Mayr Evolutionary Theory atheist
66 Charles Sherrington Neurophysiology  
67 Theodosius Dobzhansky the Modern Synthesis Russian Orthodox
68 Max Delbruck the Bacteriophage  
69 Jean Baptiste Lamarck the Foundations of Biology  
70 William Bayliss Modern Physiology  
71 Noam Chomsky Twentieth-Century Linguistics Jewish atheist
72 Frederick Sanger the Genetic Code  
73 Lucretius Scientific Thinking Epicurean; atheist
74 John Dalton the Theory of the Atom Quaker
75 Louis Victor de Broglie Wave/Particle Duality  
76 Carl Linnaeus the Binomial Nomenclature Christianity
77 Jean Piaget Child Development  
78 George Gaylord Simpson the Tempo of Evolution  
79 Claude Levi-Strauss Structural Anthropology Jewish
80 Lynn Margulis Symbiosis Theory Jewish
81 Karl Landsteiner the Blood Groups Jewish
82 Konrad Lorenz Ethology  
83 Edward O. Wilson Sociobiology  
84 Frederick Gowland Hopkins Vitamins  
85 Gertrude Belle Elion Pharmacology  
86 Hans Selye the Stress Concept  
87 J. Robert Oppenheimer the Atomic Era Jewish
88 Edward Teller the Bomb Jewish
89 Willard Libby Radioactive Dating  
90 Ernst Haeckel the Biogenetic Principle  
91 Jonas Salk Vaccination Jewish
92 Emil Kraepelin Twentieth-Century Psychiatry  
93 Trofim Lysenko Soviet Genetics Russian Orthodox; Communist
94 Francis Galton Eugenics  
95 Alfred Binet the I.Q. Test  
96 Alfred Kinsey Human Sexuality atheist
97 Alexander Fleming Penicillin Catholic
98 B. F. Skinner Behaviorism atheist
99 Wilhelm Wundt the Founding of Psychology atheist
100 Archimedes the Beginning of Science Greek philosophy