[quote]roybot wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]roybot wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
And again:
Galileo was not prosecuted for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun.
That was taught, as a theory, all over Europe by lots of people, even in Christian colleges and universities.
What he has prosecuted for was being an obnoxious asshole that made as many enemies as he possibly could just because he was lucky and hit paydirt with this new “telescope” thingy he, um, appropriated from a Dutchman and demanding that the church reinterpreted scripture so as to fit his theory WHICH HE COULD NOT PROVE.
When he then, finally, also directly attacked one of his long lasting allies which just so happened to be THE FUCKING POPE, then he got… house arrest.
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Heliocentrism was allowed to be taught as a theory as long as it remained one. Galileo’s asshole rep was earned in part because he was the first to state it as fact. He was prosecuted by the church, but was opposed by a large portion of the scientific community of the day who held true to the idea that the Earth was the center of the known universe. That’s why he met opposition on all sides. It was about far more than which orbited which.
He stood trial for heresy, but it wasn’t because he attacked the Pope: his Popeishness asked Galileo to add his views to his newly completed book. Galileo complied and put the Pope’s words in the mouth of a character called Simplicio. Simplicio was supposed to be named after an Aristotelian philosopher and Galileo mentioned this in his preface. The character represents the argument for geocentrism.
Unfortunately for Galileo, the name ‘Simplicio’ had negative connotations and his enemies in court suggested to the Pope that Galileo was trying to make a fool of him. That didn’t help, but the court record shows that Galileo was directly accused of opposing scripture by way of his support of heliocentrism.
Galileo was initially sentenced to indefinite imprisonment. This was shortly after reduced to house arrest, but the initial sentence is what it is.
None of this really matters: he was right.[/quote]
That was the Wikipedia version.
It fails to mention that the CC readily accepted the discovery of Jupiters moons, which existence was impossible according to the Ptolemaen model.
It also fails to mention that he could not prove his model, the EVIDENCE was on the side of the Inquisition. Like in, we develop a modell and then look for proof evidence which just so happened to support the Ptolemaeic version of things. More or less.
Also, this whole Simplicio thing would carry much more water if there werent letters he wrote to his colleagues were he was quite a dick, if he had not spoken Italian and if Simplicio had not bought up the exact same arguments the Pope had. This guy had a history.
Finally, the wars between Protestants and Catholics were very recent at that point and the one thing nobody needed was another issue to fight over.
As for him being right… yeah, he got lucky. Despite the best available evidence at that time he was right.
Does not change that this episode in no way, shape or form demonstrates that the CC was not on the side of reason or were against science. The one insisting on faith based evidence in this case was Galileo and he was able to do that for decades until he finally managed to go one step to far. [/quote]
Well, no, it wasn’t the Wikipedia version. It was a summarized version of events to save pages of back-and-forth. What I said was not “complete nonsense”. The discovery of Jupiter’s moon did not undermine the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe; heliocentrism would have, so of course the former would have been more readily accepted. It wasn’t a case of “oh, Galileo has a tidbit of information that will challenge what we know about the known universe…let’s hear what he had to say with an objective ear”…far from it.
Simplicio brought up the exact same arguments as the Pope because Urban requested that his views be featured in Galileo’s book. As the Pope was aligned with the Ptolemean view of the cosmos, his views were naturally integreted into a character who embodied those views.
It just so happens that the Italianization of Urban’s given pseudonym denoted an individual of low intelligence. It was Galileo’s word against theirs, and he was shouted down by the majority (as usual when someone takes a stand).
If Galileo was such an outspoken ass (and being one doesn’t preclude being right or competent), he would have presented Simplicio as a flat-out idiot and there would have been evidence of his plan to humiliate the Pope in his letters, and he wouldn’t have mentioned in his preface who inspired the name in the first place.
He was not on trial for being a dick; he was on trial for heresy.
Not a hearing: a trial. His character and conduct were under review for writing about Copernican theory, not his findings. Galileo had proof. It was in his book in the form of a dialogue. The same book that was banned by the Inquisition and led to his charge in the first place.
If you want to discuss the nature of proof and evidence, maybe you should look to those who held to geocentrism. There was no proof of that, yet they still believed it even though they were utterly wrong…
The Inquistion did not have evidence or reason on their side. They were wrong. We know this.
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Hell no.
Simplicio was a pompous idiot and he he spouted of the arguments of the then pope. That is a bit much of a coincidence.
Then, Galileo was not able to explain why, if the earth was revolving around the sun we would not see a parallax. So, the question the Inquisition asked was why, when your hypothesis is right, does it not hold water when we watch the sky.
That was not an unreasonable request, in fact, that is what I would want every scientist to ask. While the truth is that there is a parallax, it was entirely not observable by the instruments of that day.
Also, hell yeah, he discovery of the Jupiter moons threw a monkey wrench into the Ptolemaen world view which postulated that the planets rotated around the Earth in shifting circles while nothing revolved around them .
You even have letters of cardinals admitting that if Galileo was right and could prove it the Bible would have to be reinterpreted.
Alas, he could not.
Now you can defend someone who insists on his hunches all day long, but the truth of the matter is you focus on Galileo because he was right in spite of his lack of evidence. Had he not had his one lucky guess you would not have heard about him and that is all that it was.
Someone clashed with the CC and by an off chance was right. If that is all you have to smear an institution that is probably the single entity that did the most for scientific inquiry in the history of mankind, you have nothing.
