After writing about a weird swerve in a New York Times article that was determined to revive old canards about the Catholic Church vs. True Science and Reason, readers chimed in with helpful background about Galileo.
As has been the case since I met him in 1984, David Yeago’s razor sharp mind cut to the bone of the matter. He writes:
Showing up this article is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but who can resist? The author of the article also apparently does not read her own newspaper.
Cf. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/01/world/vatican-science-panel-told-by-pope-galileo-was-right.html
I googled “pope galileo” and this was the third answer returned.
My instinct is to appeal to the traditional notion of invincible ignorance. Some people are so thoroughly socialized into the old Faith vs. Reason narrative that they can’t think otherwise.
July 27th, 2010 | 2:26 pm
It’s not “news” anymore, it’s “lightly researched opinion”. JournOlist says it’s OK, because it only pertains to the greater good.
July 27th, 2010 | 4:09 pm
Some people are so thoroughly socialized into the old Faith vs. Reason narrative that they can’t think otherwise.
Absolutely. Around the time of my conversion some 10 years ago, it took me a lot of time in the library going “huh” to realize everything society puts out there in this regard is a load.
July 27th, 2010 | 5:24 pm
Some of the best writing on the Galileo matter is by George Sims Johnston, and much of it appeared in Crisis. Galileo was an obnoxious egotist who all but forced the Church to act against him.
July 28th, 2010 | 12:24 am
Galileo was an obnoxious egotist who all but forced the Church to act against him.
By this view, scientific inquiry and academic freedom are not Christian values at all.
Before someone fires back about how Galileo was wrong about the cause of tides and wrong about the circular orbit of the planets, the whole point is that science moves forward through debate and free inquiry. The Catholic Church at the time — just like most governments today — was more concerned with worldly politics than with getting to the truth through vigorous debate.
Every scientist of any note has been wrong about something. Galileo is widely considered as the father of modern science, though, as he presented rigorous empirical evidence in favor of the heliocentric model. He marks the transition between Aristotle and Newton.
July 28th, 2010 | 3:03 pm
Mark,
First of all, perhaps it would have been a good idea to read the Scientific American article on Galileo vs. the Church linked in the comments (above yours) in the original post. You might not have chosen to repeat the canard that Church was “more concerned with worldly politics than with getting to the truth through vigorous debate.” Many of the Church officials who opposed Galileo on the grounds of Galileo’s arguments for Copernicanism being logically faulty were, in fact, correct. In sum, the article demonstrates that though many in the Church hierarchy acted rashly and at times stupidly in regards to Galileo, being averse to finding truth through rigorous debate is not an accusation that can be validly made against them.
The fault of Galileo was not that he was wrong about certain aspects of celestial movement, but that he had a certain recklessness when it came to picking his battles: He insulted a leading Jesuit astronomer – alienating the Jesuits who, given their enthusiasm for astronomy, should have been his natural ally. He put the words of Pope Urban – who did not believe Copernicanism to be true, but supported Galileo and was fascinated by the cosmological dispute – into the mouth of the oafish “Simplicus” character in his published dialogue that what was supposed to be a neutral account of the merits of both the geocentric and heliocentric positions, a move that publicly embarrassed the one person who could have kept him from a date with the Inquisition. But what finally sunk him was that he insisted on teaching Copernicanism as truth when neither he nor anyone else at the time could prove it. You do realize that in the 19th century, agnostic Thomas Huxley – certainly no friend of the Church – after reviewing the evidence offered the opinion that “The Church had the better argument”, right?
As I wrote above, members of the Church hierarchy acted rashly and rather stupidly at times in the course of this regrettable chapter in Church history. However, whitewashing over Galileo’s own various rash and rather stupid actions – not to mention his inability to prove his case as truth while teaching it as truth – in order to claim him as a “martyr for science” against the Church serves merely to perpetuate a myth instead of to advance a true understanding of the controversy.
Take care,
GR
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