Geocentrists Convene To Discuss How Galileo Was Wrong

rollcall writes "'Galileo Was Wrong' is an inaugural conference to discuss the 'detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe.' The geocentrists argue that 'Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the [Catholic] Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.' I, like many of you, am scratching my head wondering how people still think this way. Unfortunately, there is still a significant minority of Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe: 18% of Americans, 16% of Germans, and 19% of Britons." I hope there is live blogging from the conference.

Comments

Re:Spurious survey results?

[TheRaven64]

If you gave me a survey with questions like that, I'd claim to be a Republican and tell them I thought Obama was a kenyan muslim who worshiped Stalin and wanted to make America a sharia-communist country. Especially if they conducted it over the phone and irritated me. What people believe and what they claim on surveys are entirely different things.

Re:Doesn't really matter...

[Stormy Dragon]

[Sherlock Holme's] ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."

"To forget it!"

"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."

"But the Solar System!" I protested.

"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

--- A. C. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

Re:I am not surprised.

[wienerschnizzel]

Erm, if there was no religion, there would be no need to hide some selected intellectual works in monasteries.

If there was no religion the Library of Alexandria would still be standing.

The poor understanding of history is on your side. We know a lot about what kind of works were lost during the dark ages from the references to the documents that don't exist anymore. We know that there were works in which scholars argued that stars are like the sun, but very far away. We know that there were other Homeric books around. We know of the lost works of Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, Aristophanes and many more. You can read the handful of their works that survived - and they are works of genius - and wonder how much brilliance was lost.

The dark ages we are talking about are not to be praised by how works were preserved, but condemned for how many books were lost and destroyed. Go read your Name of the Rose again because that is the true picture of the ages.