Is religion the father of science

Is religious persecution the cause of the formal structure of the scientific method?

Is the fact that it was prohibited to talk about the final cause of reality and 'experiments' the clarifying condition that left us with a 'pure' scientific method?

The dynamics of human behavior, and the unpredictability of complex systems is rather fun. What this would mean, essentially, is that the dark ages cannot be viewed as a setback in humanity. The Renaissance, the scientific method and modern society as we know it, is irrevocably causally connected to this 'incubation' period for humanity and leads me to my definitions for good and evil.