It is an American assumption that science and religion are mortal enemies from time immemorial, yet this assumed emnity is of fairly recent derivation. In fact, the Catholic and then Protestant churches fostered scientific thinking as a way to better know God and were in many respects the cradle in which modern science was nurtured to a point it could start to evolve independent of its theological parent. Only when the findings of science became difficult to reconcile with the predictions of older natural theological hypotheses (e.g., plenitude and the Scala Naturae) did the friction begin in earnest. Not coincidentally, this is when the word "science" began to evolve from its original meaning of "knowledge in general" to its specific modern use to describe knowledge about the natural world. Like most family schisms, the breach became one between science and its parent, in this case the Judeo-Christian tradition, and little involved other religions. The emnity that does exist has been fueled by aspects of religion, but no less by the failure of scientists to accurately project what the basic principles of science involve, and how this both gives science its power and limits its scope.