Galileo Goes to Jail- Volume 2

[wraggy]

I was wondering about the possibility of another volume of Galileo Goes to Jail. Surely the present volume has not exhausted all the myths about Science and Religion.

As the book outlined 25 myths about Science and Religion, I am interested to see if we could come up with another 25 myths. The book is not a work of religious or Christian Apologetics, therefore the collection of myths should not exclude those myths that are often promoted by religious people.

[bjorn]

Dec 11, 2010 3:14:03 GMT wraggy said:

I was wondering about the possibility of another volume of Galileo Goes to Jail. Surely the present volume has not exhausted all the myths about Science and Religion.

As the book outlined 25 myths about Science and Religion, I am interested to see if we could come up with another 25 myths. The book is not a work of religious or Christian Apologetics, therefore the collection of myths should not exclude those myths that are often promoted by religious people.

Not hard at all. My book from earlier this year (in Norwegian) ends with a table of fifty (I call them "Icons of Modernity", not all deal with science, though). And there are scores more.

[wraggy]

Bjorn, how about throwing some in this thread to get things started.

But not in Norwegian please.

[humphreyclarke]

Great idea for a thread! Ok lets see some recent ones.

1) That the Ancient Greeks were on the cusp of creating the scientific revolution before the crisis of the third century.

2) That Islamic natural philosophers founded modern science

3) That much of Medieval history is written by 'professional Christian apologists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the dark ages for religious purposes.

4) That Galileo Goes to Gaol was written by 'professional Christian apologists' and cowardly 'accommodationists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the past for religious purposes.

5) That the Church suppressed learning in the Middle Ages until a bunch of proto-atheist Italians - spurred on by Brunelleschi's dome - kicked off the renaissance and the scientific revolution.

6) That Galileo's censure killed off all 'independent thought' in Catholic Europe.

7) That the accounts of miracles seen in the devotional literature of the Middle Ages hindered the development of natural philosophy

[bjorn]

Dec 12, 2010 4:41:16 GMT wraggy said:

Bjorn, how about throwing some in this thread to get things started.

But not in Norwegian please.

Aah, you're not into Norwegian?!

Well, here are ten gems from the last few years ;D

1: Saint Augustine insisted that the earth was flat and that one didn't need science, just the Bible. Anything not mentioned in that book was harmfull.

2: The last documented astronomical observation in The West before Copernicus, was by Proclus in 475.

3: The Medieval Church banned the number zero.

4: The Medieval world was so superstitious that most people believed the world would end in AD 1000.

5: The Medieval Church was so ignorant of science and hygiene that bathing was banned.

6: The Pope banned Halley's Comet in 1476.

7: Vesalius was persecuted for his dissections (which was forbidden by the Church in the Middle Ages), not the least as he claimed women had the same number of rib bones as men. He had to flea to Spain and later make a pilgrimage which led to his death.

8: Luther and the early Lutheran Church attacked Copernicus vehemently, and Calvin firmly denounced Copernicus.

9: The Church banned lightning rods.

10: The Church feared knowledge and science so much that it opposed encyclopedias. The concept of such goes no further back than to the 18th century Enlightenment and France (from no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyklopedi)

[James Hannam]

An excellent thread in general, but please could we let the dog which Humphrey may accidentally awaken, lying down in from of the fire....

Best wishes

James

[davedodo007]

Dec 12, 2010 14:23:32 GMT humphreyclarke said:

Great idea for a thread! Ok lets see some recent ones.

1) That the Ancient Greeks were on the cusp of creating the scientific revolution before the crisis of the third century.

You're saying this is not true, we can never know for sure but the Hellenic inquiring mind was something to behold, who knows how advance humanity would be if their works were not repressed by the Judeo-Christian religion.

2) That Islamic natural philosophers founded modern science.

Of course not but the did preserve copies of the great Hellenic thinkers which spurred on the modern age.

3) That much of Medieval history is written by 'professional Christian apologists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the dark ages for religious purposes.

Change 'much' to 'lots' and this is true.

4) That Galileo Goes to Gaol was written by 'professional Christian apologists' and cowardly 'accommodationists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the past for religious purposes.

True (except for the cowardly bit as that is a bit much) and it's still happening now.

5) That the Church suppressed learning in the Middle Ages until a bunch of proto-atheist Italians - spurred on by Brunelleschi's dome - kicked off the renaissance and the scientific revolution.

True, though I doubt they were proto-atheists, just free thinking Christians.

6) That Galileo's censure killed off all 'independent thought' in Catholic Europe.

Are you seriously telling me it didn't give free thinkers pause for thought.

7) That the accounts of miracles seen in the devotional literature of the Middle Ages hindered the development of natural philosophy

Anything unusual was explained by 'Goddidit' is hardly going to encourage natural philosophers.

My answers are off the top of my head but that's because I want to keep this discussion alive:-)

[davedodo007]

Dec 12, 2010 16:50:27 GMT bjorn said:

Dec 12, 2010 4:41:16 GMT wraggy said:

Bjorn, how about throwing some in this thread to get things started.

1: Saint Augustine insisted that the earth was flat and that one didn't need science, just the Bible. Anything not mentioned in that book was harmfull.

Even with my limited knowledge of Saint Augustine, I know he wasn't a Biblical literalist, though the second part of your sentence could probably be contested.

2: The last documented astronomical observation in The West before Copernicus, was by Proclus in 475.

Obviously false as the sky is open to anyone and their were plenty of the religious working in astrometry.

3: The Medieval Church banned the number zero.

I haven't heard of this one, it wouldn't surprise me:-) but probably not true.

4: The Medieval world was so superstitious that most people believed the world would end in AD 1000.

You don't believe this! Weren't you around in AD 2000. There were enough superstitious nutjobs (not all exclusively religious) who thought it was the end of the world then, I'm willing to bet there were loads around in the first millennium.

5: The Medieval Church was so ignorant of science and hygiene that bathing was banned.

Wouldn't have surprised me if some did though not most of them of course.

6: The Pope banned Halley's Comet in 1476.

Regiomontanus might have something to say about that:-)

7: Vesalius was persecuted for his dissections (which was forbidden by the Church in the Middle Ages), not the least as he claimed women had the same number of rib bones as men. He had to flea to Spain and later make a pilgrimage which led to his death.

You doubt Hubert Languet you naughty boy:-)

8: Luther and the early Lutheran Church attacked Copernicus vehemently, and Calvin firmly denounced Copernicus.

Luther was a anti-Rationalist and Calvin was a particular nasty character, If it is untrue it is an understandable myth.

9: The Church banned lightning rods.

Logically it makes sense, After all this is an atheistic canard 'if you believe in God why does your church have a lightning rod.' Though after a few expensive churches burned down they probably changed their minds.

10: The Church feared knowledge and science so much that it opposed encyclopedias. The concept of such goes no further back than to the 18th century Enlightenment and France (from no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyklopedi)

Haven't heard of this one either, though probably not true it's an understandable myth.

[noons]

Davedodo007,

It sounds like you're trying to defend the conflict thesis, and, judging by your responses on this thread, you think that this is a case of religious apologists trying to rehabilitate the middle ages. It turns out, however, that for most of those things listed by Bjorn and Humphrey have no mention in historical documents prior to the 19th century, a time when anti-catholic sentiment was very strong. It really is surprising how much of history that "everybody knows is true" isn't really true.

[davedodo007]

Dec 27, 2010 17:37:15 GMT noons said:

Davedodo007,

It sounds like you're trying to defend the conflict thesis, and, judging by your responses on this thread, you think that this is a case of religious apologists trying to rehabilitate the middle ages. It turns out, however, that for most of those things listed by Bjorn and Humphrey have no mention in historical documents prior to the 19th century, a time when anti-catholic sentiment was very strong. It really is surprising how much of history that "everybody knows is true" isn't really true.

Hi noons.

I have never heard of the conflict thesis and I'm coming to this debate raw. I do think religious apologist are trying to rehabilitate both the dark ages and the middle ages. I doubt they are all anti-Catholic it's just that Catholicism has been around longer. Yes I'm aware of how myths take hold and I consider myself a debunker of 'urban myths' myself. It doesn't seem to me all these so called myths are false.

[noons]

I meant that those ideas, those specific claims about things that the Catholic church did during the middle ages come from a time when anti-catholocism was very popular. If these stories don't appear in any documentation before the 19th century, then it is safe to assume that they are in fact myths.

[wraggy]

[quote:Humphreyclarke]
"4) That Galileo Goes to Gaol was written by 'professional Christian apologists' and cowardly 'accommodationists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the past for religious purposes."

[quote:Davedodo007]
"True (except for the cowardly bit as that is a bit much) and it's still happening now."

Yes, we should be very suspicious of anyone who is an editor of the "Cambridge Encyclopedia of the History of Science" or anyone who has "Sarton Medalist" after their name. Anyone with these associations is sure to be an apologist.

[davedodo007]

Dec 28, 2010 7:52:49 GMT wraggy said:

[quote:Humphreyclarke]
"4) That Galileo Goes to Gaol was written by 'professional Christian apologists' and cowardly 'accommodationists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the past for religious purposes."

[quote:Davedodo007]
"True (except for the cowardly bit as that is a bit much) and it's still happening now."

Yes, we should be very suspicious of anyone who is an editor of the "Cambridge Encyclopedia of the History of Science" or anyone who has "Sarton Medalist" after their name. Anyone with these associations is sure to be an apologist.

I should have made it clear that I was talking about the general apologist of Galileo's treatment than this specific Author who's book I haven't read, sorry. I don't do authority figures as I'm more interested in what they write than how many letters they have after their name.

[humphreyclarke]

O.K - looks like this thread got kicked off after all - let's go through one by one

1) That the Ancient Greeks were on the cusp of creating the scientific revolution before the crisis of the third century.


Yes the achievements of the Hellenistic Greeks were very impressive. However, some have alleged that they were about to kick off the scientific revolution, or in other words all the methodological and institutional foundations of the scientific revolution of the 17th century were present. Obviously people mean a number of things when they talk about the scientific revolution. Here would be some of my choices - the mathematisation of the world and the discovery of mathematical laws of nature, measurement and experiment (going beyond observation) and new models for viewing nature - the new astronomy and the mechanical philosophy. This is a complex debate but - briefly - we find many antecedents of these in Hellenistic thought but these are not sufficiently developed to be able to establish a strict continuity between classical thought and that of the 17th century - advances in Medieval Europe and Islam were critical. Secondly Greek science went into decline after it's golden age in 300BC - one key reason for this being that it was poorly socialised and institutionalised in the ancient world; it had no consistent institutional base as it did with the development of universities in Medieval Europe. You allege that Greek thought was suppressed by Christianity - this is a bit of an odd conclusion given that Christians expended so much effort on preserving Greek texts as civilization crashed around them. If they were suppressing them they did a terrible job. What the heck was Cassiodorus thinking?

2) That Islamic natural philosophers founded modern science

We had a chap on here called Zameel who argued that Islamic philosophers founded modern science. Again, their achievements were impressive but they were all working within the Aristotelian mold.

3) That much of Medieval history is written by 'professional Christian apologists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the dark ages for religious purposes.

You say 'lots'. There is Rodney Stark but that's the only one I can think of right now - maybe Stanley Jaki. I do know of atheist apologists who attack much of the work that has done in researching the Middle Ages due to their philosophical bias.

4) That Galileo Goes to Gaol was written by 'professional Christian apologists' and cowardly 'accommodationists' who are seeking to rehabilitate the past for religious purposes.

True?!?!. Do me a favour and go look up the academic credentials of the contributors. You'll find they are second to none. Letters after ones name are not the be all and end all but they are a good way of separating the experts from the kooks

5) That the Church suppressed learning in the Middle Ages until a bunch of proto-atheist Italians - spurred on by Brunelleschi's dome - kicked off the renaissance and the scientific revolution.

The idea the Church suppressed learning in the Middle Ages is baloney. Someone who will remain nameless asserted that science flourished in areas of Italy beyond the control of the church - ignoring the fact that many theoretical advances took place at the University of Paris. Of course Brunelleschi's dome is classically inspired but it has many Medieval structural elements - similar to the new science of the 17th century in fact.

6) That Galileo's censure killed off all 'independent thought' in Catholic Europe.

A nice neat theory but slightly spoiled by Jesuit science and it's notable achievements in astronomy and mathematics. Copernicanism was still taught as a theoretical model. To say Galileo's censure killed off all independent thought is a ludicrous exaggeration. What really happened is that Northern Europe entered the intellectual and economic ascendancy.

7) That the accounts of miracles seen in the devotional literature of the Middle Ages hindered the development of natural philosophy

No medieval natural philosophers believed that God meddled frequently or arbitrarily with the created universe. Rather the perceived consistency of God meant he could be expected to abide by the order established at the point of creation. Thus God's absolute power was limited, for practical purposes, to the point of creation and was no impediment to natural philosophy.

[davedodo007]

Dec 27, 2010 22:35:43 GMT noons said:

I meant that those ideas, those specific claims about things that the Catholic church did during the middle ages come from a time when anti-catholocism was very popular. If these stories don't appear in any documentation before the 19th century, then it is safe to assume that they are in fact myths.

No doubt there is/was a lot of anti-Catholic myth making going on, a lot of it was well before the 19th century as well. I'm saying that their maybe some foundational truth in some of them.