John Heilbron on Galileo and the Church

[turoldus]

Has anyone read one of his (Heilbron's) books? This article shows a better grasp than most on the Galileo affair, though its conclusion is rather ambiguous:

www.hnn.us/articles/134395.html

[himself]

The summary gives the impression (by omission) that the Church made no move regarding Galileo prior to 1979, and it seems a bit incredulous when it concludes:

Their report, issued a decade later, blamed and exonerated both parties: the Inquisition had understood the scientific issues at stake, but not the principles of exegesis; Galileo had employed a sound hermeneutics, but not an acceptable standard of scientific proof. Their no-fault collision arose from a “tragic mutual misunderstanding.” People restricted to ordinary modes of thought may have trouble accepting this resolution and the associated assurance that there is no essential opposition between science and religion.

Although that was Huxley's conclusion, also, when he said, "The Church had the better case." I'm less sure that it was a "tragic mutual misunderstanding" than it was the venting of personal spleen on the part of an offended Barberini.

Heilbron is right about Galileo needlessly alienating his Jesuit friends. They had been teaching Copernicanism themselves - quite properly as a mathematical tool for calculations. (That astronomy was part of physics, not of mathematics, was a new idea then.) Grienberger (IIRC) was reported afterward to have said that the Jesuits - even Clavius himself - were very nearly convinced of Copernicanism and, if only Galileo had known how to keep their friendship, he could have written anything he pleased. As it was, they sat on their hands.

The irony is that the Copernican system was wrong. Of the half-dozen different systems being booted around at the time, the Ptolemaic one was pretty much on the ropes; but neither the Tychonic/Ursine systems (still very much in play) nor the Keplerian system (which turned out to be the most correct of them) were so much as mentioned by Galileo in the Dialogue.

thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/galileo%E2%80%99s-great-bluff-and-part-of-the-reason-why-kuhn-is-wrong/

[davedodo007]

Dec 26, 2010 12:24:29 GMT turoldus said:

Has anyone read one of his (Heilbron's) books? This article shows a better grasp than most on the Galileo affair, though its conclusion is rather ambiguous:

www.hnn.us/articles/134395.html

Oh please this historical relativism is too much, for your own sakes give it a rest it's embarrassing. Copernicus's system this, Kepler's system that it doesn't matter. Galileo was right and the church was wrong end of. It's all very well to the untrained eye who just sees the sun and the moon but anyone who goes beyond that and observes the planets and even the stars the Geocentric model very soon becomes problematic. With a telescope with more planets to observe this problem only increases. Why do the planets orbits loop, this makes no sense in a Geocentric universe (solar system) but perfect sense in a Heliocentric universe (solar system.) Galileo saw this and was punished for stating the truth.

You do realize you're defending the Inquisition right, right. What next the Gestapo where misunderstood and just needed hugs OK yeah! So what if he worked for the church and pissed off a few Jesuits what is he supposed to do live a lie to appease them. The behaviour of the church was disgusting and any attempt to whitewash it is sheer apologetics of the worse kind. I'm sorry if this post seems too aggressive but it's for your own good, when your in a hole stop digging.

[turoldus]

It is not "historical relativism" to put things into their context - actually, that's what history as a discipline is about. I guess you are of the Benson/Freeman school of "if historians question our narrative, let's question the historians' motives rather than look at their arguments" which is, by the way, another trait New Atheists share with their evil twins, Fundies.

[merkavah12]

Galileo saw this and was punished for stating the truth.

Nope. He was punished for being too proud to admit that his argumentation had more holes in it than a roid jockey's apartment wall.

www.nature.com/news/2010/100305/full/news.2010.105.html

Had he just tried to refine his proofs and argumentation (like Kepler did) than he could have taught Heliocentrism as fact. Instead he refused to see that his argumentation at the time was weak and in a fit of egomaniacal raving he alienated all of his allies.

[elephantchang51]

Surely nobody is arguing Galileo in some way deserved his punishment,are they?

[davedodo007]

Jan 1, 2011 19:32:53 GMT merkavah12 said:

Galileo saw this and was punished for stating the truth.

Nope. He was punished for being too proud to admit that his argumentation had more holes in it than a roid jockey's apartment wall.

www.nature.com/news/2010/100305/full/news.2010.105.html

Had he just tried to refine his proofs and argumentation (like Kepler did) than he could have taught Heliocentrism as fact. Instead he refused to see that his argumentation at the time was weak and in a fit of egomaniacal raving he alienated all of his allies.

Sorry but you just need to read the comments to see this stance is wrong.

[davedodo007]

Jan 1, 2011 19:02:20 GMT turoldus said:

It is not "historical relativism" to put things into their context - actually, that's what history as a discipline is about. I guess you are of the Benson/Freeman school of "if historians question our narrative, let's question the historians' motives rather than look at their arguments" which is, by the way, another trait New Atheists share with their evil twins, Fundies.

Nothing wrong with historical relativism per se, it's when it comes with an agenda that it becomes problematic.

Yes of course new atheist are as bad as fundies what with flying planes into building, blowing people up and killing abortion doctors, being sexist and homophobic. What were we thinking.

[humphreyclarke]

Jan 6, 2011 4:50:06 GMT davedodo007 said:

Jan 1, 2011 19:32:53 GMT merkavah12 said:

Nope. He was punished for being too proud to admit that his argumentation had more holes in it than a roid jockey's apartment wall.

www.nature.com/news/2010/100305/full/news.2010.105.html

Had he just tried to refine his proofs and argumentation (like Kepler did) than he could have taught Heliocentrism as fact. Instead he refused to see that his argumentation at the time was weak and in a fit of egomaniacal raving he alienated all of his allies.

Sorry but you just need to read the comments to see this stance is wrong.

Are you referring to this comment by Ney Lemke?

The idea that the aristotelian world view was supported by the observational knowledge at Galileo times is very naive. There were a plethora of different observations that showed in a direct way that Aristotle was wrong. I quote two of them:the jovian moons
the moon craters
The first one furnishes a clear analogy to the solar system, and show conclusively that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. The second one played an important role in Galileo judgement.

I believe that Aristotle himself, if he had access to the telescope, will imediately be convinced that his model was wrong

Well, first up we are talking about Aristotle who established the basic tenants of Geocentricism - but really we should be talking about Ptolemy as it was his system that became standard and was really the one at issue in astronomy. Ney cites two pieces of evidence but he has massively overstated their significance to contemporaries. Firstly the discovery of the Jovian moons provided evidence that the earth was not the centre of all cosmic motion - however it proved nothing about what sort of center the planets revolved around (they also disproved a Peripatetic argument that the earth could not be a planet as it had a moon whereas the other planets did not). The observations of the moon's craters (and the sun spots) was evidence of the imperfection and changeable nature of heavenly bodies - this counts against the Aristotelian worldview but not Geocentrism.

Had Ptolemy looked through the telescope he might have changed his mind, but he could have also pointed to the fact that while his system was less elegant it made better predictions than the Copernican model.

Following these observations Galileo went on to re-assess Copernicanism and remove most of the empirical-astronomical arguments against the earth's motion and offering new ones in it's favour. However this strengthening did not make heliocentrism self evidently true. Against the Copernican model were the lack of annual Stellar Parallax (not observed until 2 centuries later), the fact that the mechanical objections had not been explicitly refuted and the fact that the physics of a moving earth had yet to be articulated.