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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."
We won't live to see Darwin's statue, but this is a start!
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Well, if the Church wants to give the impression that they want to fix their mistakes and apologize for them, I think it would be better if they apologized for supporting dictatorships and benefiting from them (as they did in Spain for 40 years, for example).
They could also get rid of child molesters and stop paying (lots of) money to keep things under wraps, which obviously is not the best way to solve the problem.
These kind of news really pisses me off. A statue to Galileo 400 years late? WTF?
It's one thing for the Vatican to apologise for its past mistreatment of a figure like Galileo, but erecting a statue of him? I don't know - it seems almost sensationalist. If I'd been tortured and mistreated by an institution, I wouldn't want them to have a statue of me as a tourist attraction! Faith will always be against certain types of scientific enquiry, and I think the Vatican should be honest enough to admit so rather than making an almost-martyr of this one famous figure in order to garner public approval.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
They should just shut up and read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett:
"Gods on the Discworld exist as long as people believe in them and their power grows as their followers increase. This is a philosophy echoing the real-world politics of the power of religion and is most detailed in the novel Small Gods. If people should cease believing in a particular god (say, if the religion becomes more important than faith) the god begins to fade and, eventually, will "die", becoming little more than a faded wispy echo."
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while galileo was only imprissoned and threatend with torture, giordano bruno was murdered by the chruch...
Galileo!
Sadly for Giordano Bruno, he didn't have Galileo's powerful protectors and was a bit too all-out mystical. Roger Bacon just got locked up for years for suggesting that Arab science should be adopted to ease the work of the poor - can't have peasants having free time to think about things. However, the Church at least has a history of adopting ideas once they've been safely mainstream for a few hundred years. Some of the Protestant sects seem intent on actually going backwards, hence the drive towards Bible literalism (which wouldn't have been understood by most of the early Church fathers, but is a peculiar product of 19th century Protestantism separated by an ocean from its roots.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I'm fine with the Church being a dictatorship as long as it only affects their followers. I've got a problem when they support a militar dictator that oppresses a whole country, though.
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!
A fully erect Galileo in the Vatican Garden. It sems hard to belive.
I know the Catholic church has it's dark side in history, however, I'm very pleased that one of the worlds foremost religion is doing such a fantastic job 'respecting' science. Before you blast me with examples of how the Catholic church is blundering (big bang?), remember that they are (as far as I know), the only _major_ Christian church that supports evolution. Furthermore, I do have a lot of respect for the Jesuits and their pursuit of science. Finally, the Vatican may not 100% pro-science, but they seem far from being anti-science.
Though I'm not Catholic (atheist), I respect the Vatican for trying to understand how science merge with their faith, instead of bending science to their faith. Considering the horror stories that I see and hear about creationist faith (cringe!), this is a breath of fresh air!
My $0.02 CAD
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
(Sorry folks; just my zippy-the-pinhead moment of the month)
Erections should really be prohibited inside the Vatican. What on earth is the Catholic church coming to?
when are we getting a statue of darwin at oral roberts university?
my money is on the year 2578
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Personally, as a non-theist (I don't care for the term atheist as it implies hostility toward religious people), all I can do is respect these great men for their part in helping explain the universe.
Galileo would have been deeply honored (or so I believe), so I respect what the Church is doing here.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I hope Galileo is celebrated with his right arm raised and his middle finger extended, in the time honored way. I'm sure if he were alive that's what he would want.
You're fine with the church killing people who change their minds and don't want to be followers any more ?
Because that's one of the things that dictators do. Including the Roman Catholic Church who burned people at the stake for heresy.
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Uh, you do know the Catholic church condemns all forms of birth control, right? Including condoms.
Maybe I am too sleepy to get the sarcasm.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Hopefully said statue will wear a condom. The Vatican wants to show how far they've come and admit their mistakes. I guess we'll have to wait another 400 years for the tribute to the little rubber thing...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
*deeper voice* Galileo!
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In addendum to the above post, I'd like to point out that the Catholic church represent about half of the Christian population and 1/6th of the world's population (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_church), so I'd like to consider it major, but not exclusive.
For those that I've offended: s/the only major Christian church/a Christian church/.
Thanks for pointing out other (mostly European?) churches that consolidate instead of bending science. Forgive my ignorance. Since I live north of what seems to be the biggest hive of creationism fundamentalist, it sometimes sound like every religion is science bashing. Usually, their statements are hilarious but I absolutely abhor the tone of the fundamentalist bible-blabber.
For anybody that cares, I'm curious to hear what other churches/religions have a position similar to the Vatican on science.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
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."
I believe that your "troll" mod is probably deserved. But since I currently live in Indiana, one of the "fly-over states" I feel the need to point out that the majority of the most recent fights over teaching evolution occur in Florida. A state where everyone lives within 100 miles of the ocean. There was a post on this web site yesterday about a bill in florida to allow teachers to teach whatever they want in class, even to contravene the standards for the state with the goal of allowing them to teach creationism at the expense of evolution. Now I'll not argue that it appears to be the more rural individuals that buy into this, but don't go turning this into a rural v. urban, or red state/blue state thing. Ignorance is found everywhere. Also, while I currently live in Indiana I'm originally from Massachusetts and I know more "creationists" there then I do here.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
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!
Wasn't it Asimov who said that science decisively won the argument with faith when churches started putting up lightning conductors?
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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
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I managed to find a translation -- the BBC pointed me in the right direction when the news story broke. The translation is pretty difficult reading, because it's full of flowery language and doesn't come right out and give you convenient bullet points. However, here were my take-aways from my reading of this document:
Of course, every time Pope Benedict opens his mouth to insert his foot, the Vatican handlers around him are certain to claim that his remarks were taken out of context. It's really hard to see how they can claim that with a straight face this time. I'm willing to acknowledge that the translations available are not perfect, but I can't believe they'd be so bad as to say the opposite of what the source material appears to be saying.
John Paul II is a tough act to follow.
It's a myth that Galileo was prosecuted because of his (Really Copernicas') helocentric theory. He was prosecuted because he made fun of the Pope in a book. This shows why you don't mix religion and politics but using it as a case where the Vatican and science are at odds is strange to me. The church held to the view the earth was the center because the math models (very complicated) used to explain it could accuratly predict the location of the planets. Galileo was closer to being correct but even he said the sun was at the center of the universe which we today know isn't correct. Also he said the planets were in circular orbits but when you do the calculations that way they don't do a better job predicting where the planets will be then the geocentric model. Now that we know the answer it is easy to look back and say how stupid they are. But if you have one model that gives better results then another why would you say the least accurate one is better. Also notice that when Kepler came along and figured out that there really were eliptical orbits the model was actually more accurate and simpler then what they had before. Galileo thought that eliptical orbits were wrong because they "had" to be perfect circles. So as always nothing is exactly as it seems.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
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.
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