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Statue of Galileo Planned for Vatican
Reservoir Hill writes "Four hundred years after it put Galileo on trial for heresy the Vatican is to complete its rehabilitation of the scientist by erecting a statue of him inside Vatican walls. The planned statue is to stand in the Vatican gardens near the apartment in which Galileo was incarcerated. He was held there while awaiting trial in 1633 for advocating heliocentrism, the Copernican doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The move coincides with a series of celebrations in the run-up to next year's 400th anniversary of Galileo's development of the telescope. In January Pope Benedict XVI called off a visit to Sapienza University, Rome, after staff and students accused him of defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo. The Vatican said that the Pope had been misquoted and since the episode, several of the professors have retracted their protest."
As far as I know, the catholic church is one of the few christian institutions that doesn't take issue with darwin, they contend something about a moment of divine intervention during evolution or something. Now I'm pretty damn tired right now, so someone else feel free to correct me :-p
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
You are correct. In fact, it seems that the vast majority of Christian institutions, and institutions of other religions, do not take issue with evolution. It's the Discovery Institute who takes issue with the notion of evolution. They've manufactured the idea a controversy over evolution, when no such controversy exists.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Giordano_Bruno/
There's another side to the Galileo debate - that he was the victim of a political persecution by fellow scientists who felt Galileo was making fools out of them. It was they, not the church, who put forward the idea that Heliocentrism would lead to sun worship. Galileo kept much of his research secret not because he feared the Church, but because he feared the rebuke of his fellow scientists.
Read here:
http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/scheiner.html
Also read this excerpt from Columbia Humanities Professor Robert Nisbet:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/nisbet1.html
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
To be specific we're talking about controversy in scientific circles, I think it's safe to say that there's plenty of controversy in the public, unfortunately.
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According to the New York Times - June 12, 1988, there were 135 cases of sexual molestation by priests were reported from 1983 to 1986.
Time frames are different, but in one city there were more reported child molestations in the public schools than in the catholic church nationwide.
Point of order (which may affect how you think about this topic): Galileo was not, as is commonly believed, imprisoned for advocating heliocentrism. He was imprisoned for using a Papal imprimatur on the book where he advocated it. This was equivalent to saying the Church endorsed his position, and it had actually not taken a side in an active scientific debate (ring any bells?). The Pope was a friend of his and Galileo had convinced him to give him the imprimatur on the book, sight unseen, after Galileo had promised the book would be even-handed.
Whether or not that's something to fix or apologize for... up to you. I'd think of it as more of an anniversary story (400 is a big one) rather than an "apology" story.
They've taken the legitimate scientific discussion, debates, refinements, questions, and testing and have manufactured a "controversy" where none exists. They've also taken the more scientific definition of the word "theory" (as a hypothesis presented for testing, discussion, and refinement) and given it a popular, fuzzy definition as "something that's not necessarily true."
I think you'll find a lot of Christians out there who are perfectly at home with evolution and other scientific thought because they're secure enough to know that it's not possible to have "proof." Most institutional churches don't take a stand one way or another. I suspect these more intelligent people are in the majority. What we have in the "Discovery Institute" and its ilk is a minority group that was marginalized as lunatics at one point but who've been given a sort of bogus legitimacy by politicians and the press. I suspect the pendulum will swing back and that they'll be marginalized again. Until that happens we need to be concerned with youngsters who may be receiving an inferior and shoddy education.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Galileo basically disproved Aristotelianism - the belief that the Universe was made of 5 elements, that 4 of them comprised the corruptible lower Universe, and that the perfect outer Universe was made of the 5th element. He did this experimentally by pointing a telescope at the supposedly perfect bodies and showing that they had surface features.
He also identified the orbits of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, thus demonstrating that, in the Universe, small bodies could orbit round a large one. He showed that a system of satellites was not unique.
He also did valuable early work in dynamics - the cannon ball story is long exploded - by building precise apparatus and timing systems for measuring the movement of balls rolling down slopes. It was not his fault that he did not know that gravitational potential energy was partly converted into rotational kinetic energy as well as translational energy, or that, in the absence of a definition of velocity, he did not get the formulae of motion into their modern forms. It is also not his fault that he got frustrated because the reaction of the people who he tried to demonstrate his evidence to was, in effect, to stick their hands over their ears and scream "can't hear you". It is also not his fault that Kepler was addicted to mystical ideas (such as that the orbits of the planets fit inside a nesting of the Platonic solids), and lacked a modern marthematical framework, which, at the time, greatly obscured the value of what he was doing.
As for suggesting that Galileo would "cluelessly" hope the Pope would find Simpleton funny, anybody who knows anything about Italian society at that era would know that to be nonsense. This was a society in which men fought to the death over perceived insults. My guess is that Galileo hoped the Pope would see arguments he supported being made by an idiot, and decide to forget about them quietly.
However, the Inquisition and its mates had far too much invested in Aristotle (and not being made to look ridiculous) and the rest is history.
Revisiting this before posting I am tempted to add that there is a great deal of misunderstanding of people like Newton, Galileo and Kepler due to anachronism. They did not live in a modern society, they did not have access to modern mathematics, instruments and communications. You cannot write about them without researching their background. But, believe me, if you do it is endlessly fascinating and there is much to learn for our own time. There is a huge amount of published material, in fact these were guys who could write their own books. They are worth reading. Both the Dialogue (Galileo) and at least part of the Principia (Newton) should be on every nerd's reading list, if only because it cures you of the idea that everything exciting in science happened since 1940.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Historical Fact:
Galileo was an asshole who refused to subject his work to peer review. Could not prove his theory at the time but was so egotistical that he claimed it as fact. Was critical and insulting of his contemporary peers dismissing their work as completely baseless. (Not only were some of these contemporaries right on, but their work could have helped substantiate Galileo's.) Then Galileo in fact insulted one of his biggest supporters publicly (who also happened to be both one of the top political entities and the head of the review board). Because this head of the review board (the Pope) asked Galileo just to state his premise as a theory until he could prove it.
The Catholic Church censured Galileo. This resulted in a house arrest, in a very nice house with catered food and all his needs met. Or in other words, a back-handed censure that actually included a patronage enabling Galileo to continue his work.
Sadly, most of this is lost in the popular sensationalism of Galileo. If this event happened today....Galileo wouldn't be lauded. He'd be considered one of those sensationalist jerks that goes to the media before peer reviewing and proving his work. And then trashes and insults every other scientist who comments on the matter or claims Galileo is mistaken, or has yet to prove his work.
***
What this is really about.... "Politics" to accommodate a bunch of uneducated, unlearned individuals who lack any knowledge of history (and probably not much more of science)...who like to consider themselves scientifically minded and well-educated, when they're not.
(A good example is most of the people commenting in this Slashdot thread who probably don't have a single iota about Galileo other than the motif that somehow the Catholic Church was imprisoned him because they didn't want people to believe the earth revolved around the sun. )
Because you uneducated mis-thinking fools need to be placated. You gribe about science and the church. But your idol was a man who made great folly's and while contributing much to science also fell far short of it as well.
Here's some education on the matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#_note-contrary_to_scripture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
I'm not sure why people think the price of education is so high in the US. Sure places like Harvard and Yale are expensive, but I priced schools in the US when I went. For international students, it's really high, but if you go to a school in your own state, the prices are quite comparable to those in Canada.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Sadly, the current Pope seems to favor "intelligent design" over evolution.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
As to peer review, since the very concept was in its infancy, or had not yet emerged, it's hard to justify the accusation that Galileo did not subject himself to it. In fact, by publishing at all, I'd argue that he was indeed subjecting his work to public scrutiny and criticism.
That is if you don't consider his published observations and data proof, or indeed facts. And no doubt as distinct from his detractors who could prove their geocentric theories by citing biblical passages and Aristotle.
They threatened to burn him alive. To set him on fire, still an offical punishment for heresy at the time. They banned his books. They locked him in a prison, which while pretty and comfortable, was still a prison. If this is "back-handed censure", I'm glad people aren't subjected to it nowadays.
The essential facts are preserved. Namely that
a) Galileo made objective scientific observations
b) Galileo published these observations and his theories on their meaning
c) The Catholic church considered his views to be heeretical
d) The church used its political influence to force Galileo, under threat, to publically retract his theories.
e) Galileo publicly retracted his theories.
A lot of people pass over that final fact. A scientist, and Galileo certainly was one, had to give up his theories, because he was threated with punishment if he did not do so. I'm sure a lot of people think that Galileo "didn't really" change his opinions. Well tough. What you think is irrelevant. He publicly retracted them. Something that would not have happened if he had lived in a freer society. Lets all hope that we live in such a society, and will continue to do so.
I'm sure in todays age of religious revivalism that there are many church apologists in the case of Galileo, and others like it. I'm sure that they will poke and prod at inconsistencies and minor points to cast doubt on the case and to paint organised religion in a better light. It's all in some way part of the modern tirade against science by religious interests. Wiser people should stick to the essentials of the case.
May the Maths Be with you!
Apparently even the Catholic clergy doesn't read the bible, because it contains not a single verse that indicates the sun must orbit the earth.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
It's even funnier than that. And in fact, so funny, that I propose to have Galileo sanctified as patron saint of nerds and OS zealots.
;)
Well, as you correctly note: the Pope was actually a friend of Galileo's originally and was actually a pretty open minded guy. He actually listened to Galileo, and although he wasn't convinced about this radical departure from all existing science, actually encouraged him to write about it. All the pope did ask for, was that Galileo presents both points of view fairly -- his _and_ the Aristotelian one -- and, basically, explains exactly what his own system explains better than the old one. Which is IMHO very much in line even with the modern scientific method.
Galileo, however, reacted like your average run-of-the-mill self-righteous nerd. He was incensed that the pope didn't immediately see that he's right. The book he wrote, yes, presented both points of view. However the old system was distorted and ridiculed. But the real faux pas was: he distorted the Pope's words and put them in the mouth of a character called Simplicius. I.e., pretty much "The Stupid". This character was furthermore portrayed as, basically, a stupid simpleton who couldn't grasp even elementary logic, and got repeatedly caught up in his own errors. That was the defender of the Aristotelian view in Galileo's book. (Which incidentally also presented the Pope as the zealot of a dogma where he was actually very much neutral.)
In a nutshell, Galileo thoroughly flamed the Pope. In public. In some of the most annoying ways possible. If someone did that on Slashdot, he'd end up at -5 Flamebait in 5 minutes flat.
What followed, well, basically had nothing to do with science-vs-religion. It's at most a case of why totalitarian power is bad. The Pope was an absolute monarch in Rome, and Galileo flamed him on his own turf. People ended up with their head on a spike for _much_ lesser offenses towards secular kings just as well. By contrast, Galileo ended up only with house arrest.
The accusation of heresy was mostly just a heavy-handed abuse of the law, to make it fall under the Pope's own tribunals' jurisdiction. (Things which weren't of a religious nature, otherwise fell under the jurisdiction of the secular authorities.) But make no mistake, it wasn't about science _or_ heresy. It was simply that the Pope didn't take lightly to heavy-handed public ridicule.
And if I'm to be a supporter of science in the whole science-vs-religion circus, I'd actually say the opposite: Galileo there actually did science a disservice. He created a conflict with the church where one hadn't existed before. The pope (and popes) before couldn't care less what rotates around what. The pope only became opposed to heliocentrism all of a sudden, so he could prosecute Galileo for the thorough public flaming. The whole incident _created_ an official position and a precedent, where one didn't have to exist, and turned the church from a potential supporter of the whole thing to an (at least implied) enemy.
So, yeah, I propose Galileo for sanctification. It's about time we too had our patron saint
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Not so, I'm afraid. From Wikipedia:
"Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and I Chronicles 16:30 state that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." Psalm 104:5 says, "[the Lord] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "the sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.""
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo, June 22, 1633 (translated from the Latin), in Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo, University of Chicago Press, 1955, pp. 306-10.
You can't take the sky from me...