Galileo: Right On the Solar System, Wrong On Ice

carmendrahl writes "Famed astronomer Galileo Galilei is best known for taking on the Catholic Church by championing the idea that the Earth moves around the sun. But he also engaged in a debate with a philosopher about why ice floats on water. While his primary arguments were correct, he went too far, belittling legitimate, contradictory evidence given by his opponent, Ludovico delle Colombe. Galileo's erroneous arguments during the water debate are a useful reminder that the path to scientific enlightenment is not often direct and that even our intellectual heroes can sometimes be wrong."

Comments

Right for the wrong reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading somewhere that another opponent, possibly the same in the blurb, had the same complaints about the heliocentric system. While he believed it to be true as well, he found Galileo's reasons as to why were erroneous, and fought over these 'wrong reasons'.

Re:Right for the wrong reasons

[Antipater]

Galileo's not the only Great Man of Science to gain his fame out of sheer assholery. Louis Pasteur, for example, "proved" the nonexistence of spontaneous generation by falsifying his notes and by forcing a prominent critic, Felix Pouchet, to withdraw from experimental competition by a combination of intimidation and biased "independent" panels. Later science proved that Pasteur had the right general idea, of course, but in his specific experiments facing off against Pouchet (the famous "swan-necked flasks") he was actually mistaken. Had Pasteur not been such an asshole, Pouchet would not have withdrawn from competition and would have won.

It just goes to show that sociopaths running the world is not a new phenomenon.

Re: More false history

[Daniel Dvorkin]

present the same amount of scientific research against a popular mainstream thinking and the scientist of today will call for you to be fired and blacklisted

[sigh] I may regret asking this, but would you care to present any actual examples? Note: some guy screaming "help, I'm being oppressed!" doesn't count.