The collapse of the culture and loss of much of the knowledge gained was a big hit to scientific development, but the blame put on Christianity isn't founded. The church at the time was the main place to go to for education, and were doing quite a bit of science during the start of the scientific revival spurred by the translation of many Greek and Roman texts from Arabic into Latin. (The science was continued on still during the 'dark ages', but not much focus is placed on it because it didn't happen in the European areas of the world. Much of history is biased towards the European side whilst ignoring what happened in the rest of the world) Hindrance by Christianity only came later when science started proving the assumed knowledge of Christianity at the time wrong, but by this point they weren't able to do much other than slow advancement a little. Some parts of Christianity were still embracing science while other parts were opposing it.