400 Years Ago, Galileo Discovered Four Jovian Moons

krswan writes "OK, the moons themselves are much older, but on January 7, 1610 Galileo first observed '4 fixed stars' surrounding Jupiter. Observations of their changing positions led Galileo to postulate they were really moons orbiting Jupiter, which became further evidence against Aristotelian Cosmology, which led to problems with the Roman Catholic Church, etc... Jupiter will be low in the southwest (in the Northern Hemisphere) after sunset this evening — nothing else around it is as bright, so you can't miss it. Celebrate by pointing binoculars or a telescope at Jupiter and checking out the moons for yourself."

Comments

Re:A little ignorance never hurt anyone, eh?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I've read extensively on the Galileo incident and I see no reason to change the the long accepted wisdom that it is a classic case of conflict between religious dogma and authority against scientific investigation..

I have however encountered quite a large number of people who have been persuaded by recent post-modernist type logic that in fact no; it was perfect alright and indeed correct for the church to threaten to burn Galileo alive because either/or
1) He was rude,
2) His finding would overturn centuries of dogma
3) Galileo's concrete observations were not good enough because he lacked the mathematics to describe them

Needless to say, I find such arguments unconvincing.

The Catholic church suppressed science. They threatened to kill Galileo and forced him to retract his theories. People often forget that last part. Galileo went to his grave holding that the Sun went around the Earth. You don't believe me? There's an official confession signed by him to that effect? You think he privately though otherwise? Tough; that confession is the end of the story. The church got what it wanted. Galileo and his works were suppressed.

I don't know exactly where this new apologia for the churches behaviour in the Galileo affair comes from, but I suspect it has more to do with US Culture Wars than actual critical thinking. Ironic, as for years the Galileo affair was a classic incident that Protestants held as demonstrating the abusive and backward position of the Catholic church. It's unfortunate that the relevant Wikipedia pages have been dragged into such revisionism, and in so doing have given it far more credit than it deserves. That's just another problem with Wikipedia and its monopoly on knowledge and viewpoints, but I'll leave that rant for another day.