Scientific progress might be slowed by the sheer difficulty

of certain problems[say, the structure of the atom]but what

interferes with progress-holds it up,stands in the way--

would be human failings; superstition, lies, prejudice,

stupidity,and the like.I might have said simply'religion'

and said it all.For over a century 'the conflict of

religion and science'has been seen as the chief hindrance

to scientific progress in the Western world.Religion is

said to have 'INSTITUTIONALIZED IRRATIONALITY'making

interllectual 'crimes' into social and political ones.

The persecution of Galileo in the seventeenth century and of

Darwin in the nineteenth.The brute 'tenacity' of the church

still shocks people today kind regards