In the Republican presidential debate last night, Rick Perry responded to John Huntsman’s appeal to science on climate change by saying:
The science is not settled on this. The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just nonsense . . . Just because you have a group of scientists who stood up and said here is the fact. Galileo got outvoted for a spell.
This has lead to numerous pundits to scoff at Perry’s analogy. Political scientist Steven Taylor provides a typical example:
. . . Perry presented this analogy as if Galileo was caught up in a scientific battle with other scientists when, in fact, he was the scientist battling non-scientists. As such, governor, that analogy does not mean what you think it means (or, to. paraphrase a debate line from many years ago: you, governor, are no Galileo).
Steven Taylor is a very smart guy. But he is (mostly) wrong about Galileo.
Here is the real story about Galileo Galilei. It’s not the story about an enlightened scientist being persecuted by a narrow-minded Catholic Church because that story is (mostly) a myth. It’s not a story about a great scientific genius either, though he was that (mainly). It’s also not a story about someone being reincarnated with the soul of the old astronomer like the song by the Indigo Girls that, for a few weeks in ’92, I thought was (almost) profound. (And I should point out that it not an original story but one that cribbed together from other sources.)
But like all good stories this one provides a (mostly) valuable lesson.
In Galileo’s day, the predominant view in astronomy was a model first espoused by Aristotle and developed by Claudius Ptolemy in which the sun and planets revolved around the earth. The Ptolemic system had been the reigning paradigm for over 1400 years when a Polish Canon named Nicholas Copernicus published his seminal work, On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs.
Now Copernicus’ heliocentric theory wasn’t exactly new nor was it based on purely empirical observation. While it had a huge impact on the history of science, his theory was more of a revival of Pythagorean mysticism than of a new paradigm. Like many great discoveries, he merely took an old idea and gave it a new spin.
Although Copernicus’ fellow churchmen encouraged him to publish his work, he delayed the publication of On the Revolution for several years for fear of being mocked by the scientific community. At the time, the academy belonged to Aristotelians who weren’t about to let such nonsense slip through the “peer review” process.
Then came Galileo, the prototypical Renaissance man a brilliant scientist, mathematician, and musician. But while he as intelligent, charming, and witty, the Italian was also argumentative, mocking, and vain. He was, as we would say, complex. When his fellow astronomer Johann Kepler wrote to tell him that he had converted to Copernicus’ theory, Galileo shot back that he had too — and had been so for years (though all evidence shows that it wasn’t true). His ego wouldn’t allow him to be upstaged by men who weren’t as smart as he was. And for Galileo, that included just about everybody.
In 1610, Galileo used his telescope to make some surprising discoveries that disputed Aristotelian cosmology. Though his findings didn’t exactly overthrow the reigning view of the day, they were warmly received by the Vatican and by Pope Paul V. Rather than continuing his scientific studies and building on his theories, though, Galileo began a campaign to discredit the Aristotelian view of astronomy. (His efforts would be akin to a modern biologist trying to dethrone Darwin.) Galileo knew he was right and wanted to ensure that everyone else knew that the Aristotelians were wrong.
In his efforts to cram Copernicanism down the throats of his fellow scientists, Galileo managed only to squander the goodwill he had established within the Church. He was attempting to force them to accept a theory that, at the time, was still unproven. The Church graciously offered to consider Copernicanism a reasonable hypothesis, albeit a superior one to the Ptolemaic system, until further proof could be gathered. Galileo, however, never came up with more evidence to support the theory. Instead, he continued to pick fights with his fellow scientists even though many of his conclusions were being proven wrong (i.e., that the planets orbit the sun in perfect circles).
Galileo’s primary mistake was to move the fight out of the realm of science and into the field of biblical interpretation. In a fit of hubris, he wrote the Letter to Castelli in order to explain how his theory was not incompatible with proper biblical exegesis. With the Protestant Reformation still fresh on their minds, the Church authorities were in no mood to put up with another troublemaker trying to interpret Scripture on his own.
But, to their credit, they didn’t overreact. The Letter to Castelli was twice presented to the Inquisition as an example of the astronomer’s heresy and twice the charges were dismissed. Galileo, however, wasn’t satisfied and continued his efforts to force the Church to concede that the Copernican system was an issue of irrefutable truth.
In 1615, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine politely presented Galileo with an option: Put up or Shut up. Since there was no proof that the earth revolved around the sun, there was no reason for Galileo to go around trying to change the accepted reading of Holy Scripture. But if he had proof, the Church was willing to reconsider their position. Galileo’s response was to produce his theory that the ocean tides were caused by the earth’s rotation. The idea was not only scientifically inaccurate but so silly it was even rejected by his supporters.
Fed up with being dismissed, Galileo returned to Rome to bring his case before the Pope. The Pontiff, however, merely passed it along to the Holy Office who issued the opinion that the Copernican doctrine is “foolish and absurd, philosophically and formally heretical inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the doctrine of Holy Scripture in many passages…” The verdict was quickly overruled by other Cardinals in the Church.
Galileo wasn’t about to let up, though, and to everyone’s exasperation, pressed the issue yet again. The Holy Office politely but firmly told him to shut up about the whole Copernican thing and forbid him from espousing the unproven theory. This, of course, was more than he was willing to do.
When his friend took over the Papal throne, Galileo thought he would finally find a sympathetic ear. He discussed the issue with Pope Urban VIII, a man knowledgeable in matters of math and science, and tried to use his theory of the tides to convince him of the validity of his theory. Pope Urban was unconvinced and even gave an answer (though not a sound one) that refuted the notion.
Galileo then wrote A Dialogue About the Two Chief World Systems in which he would present the views of both Copernicus and Ptolemy. Three characters would be involved: Salviati, the Copernican; Sagredo, the undecided; and Simplicio, the Ptolemian (the name Simplicio implying “simple-minded”). And here is where we find our hero making his biggest blunder: he took the words that Pope Urban had used to refute his theory of the tides and put them in the mouths of Simplicio.
The Pope was not amused.
Galileo, who was now old and sickly, was once again called before the Inquisition. Unlike most suspected heretics, though, he was treated surprisingly well. While waiting for his trial, Galileo was housed in a luxurious apartment overlooking the Vatican gardens and provided with a personal valet.
In his defense, Galileo tried a peculiar tactic. He attempted to convince the judges that he had never maintained nor defended the opinion that the earth moves and that the sun is stationary and that he had, in fact, demonstrated the opposite by showing how the Copernican hypothesis was in error. The Holy Office, who knew they were being played for fools, condemned him as being “vehemently suspected of heresy”, a patently unjust ruling considering that Copernicanism had never been declared heretical.
Galileo’s sentence was to renounce his theory and to live out the rest of his days in a pleasant country house near Florence. Obviously the exile did him good because it was there, under the care of his daughter, that he continued his experiments and published his best scientific work, Discourses on Two New Sciences. He died quietly in 1642 at the ripe old age of 77.
As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote, “In a generation which saw the Thirty Years’ War and remembered Alva in the Netherlands, the worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed.”
As Paul Harvey would say, now we know the rest of the story. So what can we learn from this tale? I think it provides different lessons for different groups of people.
For scientists it shows that if you are in agreement with most of your colleagues, you will most likely be forgotten while history remembers some crank. For advocates of non-consensus positions (e.g., AGW skeptics, Intelligent Design theorists) it teaches that claiming your theory is correct is no substitute for backing it up with experiments and data (even if you are right). For aggressively self-confident people the lesson is that sometimes being persistent and believing in yourself will just get you into trouble. For Catholics it provides an example of why you shouldn’t insult the Pope (at least when there is an Inquisition going on).
I suspect that there are many more lessons that can be gleaned from this story. But I find that the real moral is not so much in the story itself but in the fact that the story even needs to be told in the first place. While I first heard the story of Galileo in elementary school, it wasn’t until long, long after I had graduated from college that I finally learned the truth. No doubt some people are just now hearing about it for the first time. How is that possible?
I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that for centuries people like Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Carl Sagan, Bertolt Brecht, and the Indigo Girls have been passing on the myth. I don’t think any of them were intentionally lying. In fact, I doubt any of them ever bothered to examine the facts themselves. They didn’t need to. The story fit what they already believed—that science and religion were natural enemies—and that was all they needed to know.
It would be easy to mock such gullibility and intellectual laziness. But the truth is that I’m probably guilty of doing the same thing quite often. Perhaps it’s because I am a journalist (sort of) and am more apt to believe whatever version of a story I find more interesting. As a newspaper editor I often favored David over Goliath, even when the powerful Philistine was more credible than the person slinging the stones. “Boy Shepherd Slays Powerful Giant” always makes for a better headline.
As a Christian, though, I don’t have the option of favoring the position that will sell more newspapers. Instead, my duty is to side with the truth. When I hear a story that fits my agenda I should examine all the relevant facts before accepting it as Gospel. I may not always be absolutely certain which side of the line the truth lays. But I do know on thing for sure. That is the side that God will be on.
See also:
Mano Singham, “The Copernican myths” (Physics Today)
September 8th, 2011 | 12:55 pm
Besides just plain bias and historical illiteracy, I think a lot of the confusion on this point is due to the fact that the bright-line distinction between science and philosophy came much, much later than Galileo. Into the 19th century, naturalists were called “natural philosophers.” Stuff like disputes over the Aristotelian implications of an astronomical theory were just part and parcel of science back then — it wasn’t as though philosophers were “intruding” on a realm where they normally had no place. The scientists *were* the philosophers and the theologians, and vice versa.
September 8th, 2011 | 1:12 pm
What, you’re telling me that the Indigo Girls didn’t get this story right? If you can’t trust the Indigo Girls, who can you trust?
September 8th, 2011 | 1:20 pm
Joe Carter’s view is revisionist fiction and is inconsistent even with the Wikipedia entry he referred to.
First, here is the sentence of heresy:
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; also, for having pupils whom you instructed in the same opinions; also, for maintaining a correspondence on the same with some German mathematicians; also for publishing certain letters on the sun-spots, in which you developed the same doctrine as true; also, for answering the objections which were continually produced from the Holy Scriptures, by glozing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning; and whereas thereupon was produced the copy of a writing, in form of a letter professedly written by you to a person formerly your pupil, in which, following the hypothesis of Copernicus, you include several propositions contrary to the true sense and authority of the Holy Scriptures; therefore (this Holy Tribunal being desirous of providing against the disorder and mischief which were thence proceeding and increasing to the detriment of the Holy Faith) by the desire of his Holiness and the Most Emminent Lords, Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the sun, and the motion of the earth, were qualified by the Theological Qualifiers as follows:
1.The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures.
2.The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal action, is also absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.
Therefore . . . , invoking the most holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Most Glorious Mother Mary, We pronounce this Our final sentence: We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo . . . have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world; also, that an opinion can be held and supported as probable, after it has been declared and finally decreed contrary to the Holy Scripture, and, consequently, that you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated in the sacred canons and other general and particular constituents against delinquents of this description. From which it is Our pleasure that you be absolved, provided that with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in Our presence, you abjure, curse, and detest, the said error and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome.
Notice all those references to “bad manners and arrogance? Not there.
Noitcve the reference to “sunspots,” allowing Galileo to empically demostrate the rotation fo the sun and the geometry of the earth’s revolving around the sun, contrary to Joe Carter’s claim that Galileo lacked emprical evidence?
For anyone intersted, I encourage you to read the actual source documments.
It is inescapablethat the Church was far afield of its expertise without excuse. It simply had no business claimignit was heresy to belife a physical fact.
No amount of claiming that Galileo was rude, farted at Mass or ridiculed stupid clerics excuses the fact the Church was wrong wrong wrong.
This statemnt is essentially correct:
“Perry presented this analogy as if Galileo was caught up in a scientific battle with other scientists when, in fact, he was the scientist battling non-scientists.”
There’s no beating aroung the bush here. Perry is today’s equivalent of the Inquisition an –anti-science, religious fanatic. He will lose this election.
September 8th, 2011 | 1:35 pm
Joe McFaul Joe Carter’s view is revisionist fiction and is inconsistent even with the Wikipedia entry he referred to.
Oh my. My article isn’t consistent with a Wikipedia entry? There goes my reputation as a scholar . . .
First, here is the sentence of heresy:
Had you bothered to check out the source you cite, you would have discovered that it may be apocryphal. No one knows since even the editor who posted that on the web (from which all other sources refer) says that, “I have been unable to locate a printed source for the above text.”
For anyone intersted, I encourage you to read the actual source documents.
Great idea. Can you provide some links to the actual source documents you are referring to?
This statemnt is essentially correct:
No, it’s not essentially correct. Galileo was caught up in a scientific battle with other scientists and it was only his ego that caused the controversy to spill over into Church issues.
September 8th, 2011 | 1:39 pm
And Galileo’s abjuration:
I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, aged 70 years, tried personally by this court, and kneeling before You, the most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors-General throughout the Christian Republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the Most Holy Gospels, and laying on them my own hands; I swear that I have always believed, I believe now, and with God’s help I will in future believe all which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach, and teach.
But since I, after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely to abandon the false opinion that the Sun was the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth was not the centre of the same and that it moved, and that I was neither to hold, defend, nor teach in any manner whatever, either orally or in writing, the said false doctrine; and after having received a notification that the said doctrine is contrary to Holy Writ, I did write and cause to be printed a book in which I treat of the said already condemned doctrine, and bring forward arguments of much efficacy in its favour, without arriving at any solution: I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth is not the centre of the same, and that it does move.
Nevertheless, wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I will neither say nor assert in speaking or writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicion; and if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and Ordinary of the place in which I may be.
I also swear and promise to adopt and observe entirely all the penances which have been or may be by this Holy Office imposed on me. And if I contravene any of these said promises, protests, or oaths, (which God forbid!) I submit myself to all the pains and penalties which by the Sacred Canons and other Decrees general and particular are against such offenders imposed and promulgated. So help me God and the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands.
I Galileo Galilei aforesaid have abjured, sworn, and promised, and hold
myself bound as above; and in token of the truth, with my own hand have
subscribed the present schedule of my abjuration, and have recited it word
by word. In Rome, at the Convent della Minerva, this 22nd day of June,
1633.
I, GALILEO GALILEI, have abjured as above, with my own hand.
Again, nothing about his arrogance, obstinancy or bad breath—these are all offered as excuses for the Church’s reprehensible conduct.
If it was merely a matter of good manners and presentation, he’d have been charged with clerical insubornination, not heresy.
September 8th, 2011 | 1:54 pm
What, first I can’t trust the Indigo Girls and now I can’t trust Wikipedia either? What a horrible day. What’s next, you’re going to tell me I need to cancel my subscription to the Weekly World News?
“There’s no beating aroung the bush here. Perry is today’s equivalent of the Inquisition an –anti-science, religious fanatic. He will lose this election.”
Is there a George W. Bush pun in here somewhere or was that merely accidental? No hysteria in that statement, however. So Perry = Torquemada, got it. You do have a point, potentially. Perry may lose the election (50/50 shot at best to win it right now) and I will go you even one further. He might not even be the Republican nominee. I think that’s what they have primaries for.
September 8th, 2011 | 2:25 pm
One of the difficulties with the Galileo affair is that proof of the heliocentric theory wasn’t able to be acquired instrumentally until much later in history. A good deal of the controversy (again, when one reads the original correspondence, especially among the Jesuits who were sympathetic to Galileo) was concerned with being able to support the heliocentric hypothesis with actual data.
In truth, the Church was supporting Reason and being scientific–they wanted empirical evidence–something Galileo seemed not too concerned with in this matter, and several others.
Galileo held several beliefs that have since been proven scientifically incorrect (in particular, he held the motions of the planets were circular, not elliptical, and then there was his theory of tides…).
September 8th, 2011 | 2:41 pm
“Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right.” – Robert Park
Galileo didn’t have absolutely overwhelming evidence of heliocentrism, and some of his evidence (e.g. tides) was wrong. On the other hand, he did have a lot of new evidence – and seeing Jupiter’s moons, especially over the course of several nights, is pretty dang convincing.
There are people trying to ‘dethrone Darwin’ now, but I haven’t seen any come up with ‘new evidence’. The closest anyone’s come is claiming cases of ‘irreducible complexity’, but none of the proposed examples have panned out.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:30 pm
Maurice Finocchiaro has edited a volume of documents re the Galileo Affair, and a glance at the TOC from the google books excerpt suggests that the documents in that volume would provide a pretty solid look at the facts of the case, from the original primary sources. So there’s really no need to cryptically refer to “the sources” when its pretty easy to just go get a book and look at them.
The same author also has a pretty good essay in a 2001 issue of the academic journal “Osiris”, that discusses the historiography of the Galileo controversy, the title of which includes a warning against “oversimplification” of the Galileo Affair, ie. suggesting that Joe’s argument that we can’t reduce the Affair to the standard caricature is supported by quite a bit of the academic historical work.
I found these two sources in approximately 10 minutes of research, from which I draw the conclusion that if we want to just talk about our ideological presupposition and forget about the evidence, then lets do that. Otherwise, lets not pretend that the evidence is somehow mysteriously “out there” and hang the resolution on what is or is not on wikipedia.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:45 pm
@Ray,
Your comments support the contention. The difference is that the Ptolemaic system, which was the scientific “consensus” during Galileo’s time, had been around a lot longer than evolution has been. But I grant that knowledge grew more slowly back then.
I suggest we all bear this in mind when tempted to call scientists, who disagree with AGW, “deniers”. Is it not enough to disagree and push for more evidence? Also, wouldn’t it be good if we recognized the limits of biological evolution rather than trying to extend it into all corners of knowledge?
@Joe McFaul,
Galileo’s shortcomings in the charm department are well documented. Expecting to find that documentation in official public documents is absurd.
But the myth is deeper, I’ve heard more than once from otherwise knowledgeable people that Galileo was burned at the stake. (Perhaps they conflated him with Giordano Bruno, who was no scientist.)
September 8th, 2011 | 3:52 pm
This reminds me of all the articles written after Sarah Palin’s gaffe about Paul Revere to “prove” she was right.
September 8th, 2011 | 4:07 pm
Jack’s comment (and forgive if I’ve misunderstood its intent/perspective) illustrates exactly what I was after, above. If we want to drag politics into it, conjuring up specters of the enlightened progressives versus the knuckle draggers, then let’s do that, employ the various caricatures of the Galileo Affair as symbols of the current political positions we happen to hold, and forget all that pointless talk about evidence and facts. Then, we’ll be doing history as Nietzsche described it in sections of his “Use and Abuse”, using history as a tool for living–in this case, for ramming through a political/cultural position we’d hold to be true, no matter what the evidence for it (or lack there of) might happen to be. Otherwise, just read the dang primary sources, see what emerges from them, and let the chips fall.
September 8th, 2011 | 4:11 pm
A reader has pointed out another good article in Physics Today that I wasn’t aware of: http://physicstoday.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_12/48_1.shtml?bypassSSO=1
September 8th, 2011 | 4:50 pm
Jack,
Uh, no not really. Unless you filter every bit of reality through a very, very narrow set of political biases.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:54 pm
arty is right. Finocchiaro has a book on the subject that borders on obsessive about details and documents. It is really good and thoroughly debunks the church vs. science paradigm. The whole situation was much more of a socio-political power struggle with indistinct lines of demarcation between science and philosophy.
September 8th, 2011 | 6:06 pm
“Galileo’s shortcomings in the charm department are well documented. Expecting to find that documentation in official public documents is absurd.”
Alas for yoru point a number of letters from Galileo exist alogn with other contemporay writings. Read his letters if you want to get a feel for the man’s arrogacne. But, in any event, that’s not what’s being argued. That point is conceded.
When did the Church decide that it was the manners police and woudl therefore decalrae Galileo a heretic becasue he had bad manners?
WEhen did the Churhc decide it had the authority to be the science police and declare a fairly well established scietific fact as “heresy?”
You are, of couse, corect Bruno was burned at the stake in aprt for arguing tha the sun was just another star.
The Churhc ensured Galileo woudl ahve Bruno in mid becasue Galileo was questioned inteh very same rooms Bruno was earlier. Not surprisingly, Galileo abjured.
The Church was flatly wrong in the Galileo matter. It overstepped its bounds and has acknowledged that fact. The Church is neither the manners police or the science police.
Again, Galileo wasn’t chastised for lack of tact. He was abjured as a heretic for heliocentricism—a scientific fact.
No amount of whimpering about his alleged bad manners will change that fact.
The question is, “How does the Church keep from making that same mistake again?”
I contend that the Catholic Church has learned a lot from this incident and has adjusted how it addresses scientific matters that apparently conflicted with theology.
Other denominations haven’t.
September 8th, 2011 | 6:39 pm
Mike Melendez –
Well, depending on the lesson you want to take out of it. You’d need a lot of evidence to have any real chance of upsetting evolution, considering the range of observations it ties together. I don’t see anyone doing that today.
Frankly, I run into that more on the theist side. See, e.g. this spot, where a guy was worried about evolution being used to explain “the origin of matter”, which I’ve never heard of.
September 8th, 2011 | 7:03 pm
Your take on the Galileo affair does not comport with the view expressed by the Catholic Church itself (that is, it really was a battle between science and theology, as it was a political and interpersonal conflict):
“Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture…”
—Pope John Paul II, November 4, 1992
L’Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264)
“Galileo and the Vatican” is the title of a new book that gathers together the documents of the commission created by Pope John Paul II on the famous Italian scientist and, according to Cardinal Paul Poupard who headed up the study group, seeks to debunk the black legend and other myths about this case… Msgr. Sanchez de Toca explained that the judges of Galileo, in addition to the “obvious error” of believing that the Earth did not revolve, committed the mistake of entering a field outside their competence. “They thought the Copernicus system defended by Galileo with such vehemence endangered the faith of simple people and that it was their obligation to prevent it from being taught. This was an error and it is necessary that it be acknowledged.”
- Catholic News Agency (CNA), Apr 20, 2009
September 8th, 2011 | 7:20 pm
As best as I can determine, “Galileo and the Vatican” (“Galileo e il Vaticano”) has not been translated into English and can only be purchased from from the publisher. (short link – http://goo.gl/eaSpf)
September 9th, 2011 | 12:20 am
[...] The Myth of Galileo: A Story With a (Mostly) Valuable Lesson for Today. [...]
September 9th, 2011 | 1:30 am
Not my area of expertise, but a long time ago I read a fascinating book on Galileo, which I found very good (I have since completely forgotten the title).
From the little I remember the main conflict was described as: Dominicans versus Jesuits with Galileo kind of caught and kind of agitating in the middle.
I did a quick search on these key words and found this site:
http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=tale
and this
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/lectures/gal_life.htm
The reason the Galileo myth lives on is largely because few people read history books, and the media, this great information dissemination army, fails entirely in its job concerning the subject, not to mention the school system.
September 9th, 2011 | 9:28 am
If myth-busting is the goal, I’m not sure that Ian Paisley is the ahh, best source of info.
September 9th, 2011 | 9:32 am
R. Hampton JPII’s writing in L’Osservatore Romano article (at least the part you cite) does not say that the church’s action against Galileo was based on a science vs. theology grounds, only that his science contradicted accepted theology. No one is denying that.
And I don’t think the item from CNA says what you want it to say, either.
September 9th, 2011 | 10:09 am
For those interested in contemporary scholarship about the “Copernican Revolution” and the interaction between science and religion, here are a few works I recommend to my students:
Ron Numbers, Galileo Goes to Jail, and other Myths about Science and Religion, 2009 – Ron Numbers is an expert on the history of creationism from the Univ. of Wisconsin
David Lindberg & Ron Numbers, God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Religion and Science
Richard Blackwell’s “Galileo Galilei”, Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction
It is worth noting that a number of myth’s surrounding the reception of various scientific discoveries by clerics where advanced in the popular books by Draper and White in the late 19th century. Unfortunately, some of the popular revisionist work overreaches as well.
Finally, while it is true that people’s religious beliefs can keep them from accepting scientific truth, it is not just theistic religious views that can cause problems. Hoyle’s atheism played a significant role in his rejection of Big Bang cosmology. I’m not so sure this is a problem though. While skeptics are annoying, I do think on balance they make our work better by forcing us to examine our assumptions more carefully – whether said skepticism is based on fidelity to catholicism, atheism, or some other cultural motivation.
September 9th, 2011 | 10:40 am
So does this mean that rising concentrations of trace atmospheric co2 won’t lead to faster and more abundant plant growth? And McFaul is not at enmity with Christianity?
September 9th, 2011 | 12:05 pm
[...] Joe Carter writing for First Things: Here is the real story about Galileo Galilei. It’s not the story about an enlightened scientist being persecuted by a narrow-minded Catholic Church because that story is (mostly) a myth. It’s not a story about a great scientific genius either, though he was that (mainly)… [...]
September 9th, 2011 | 12:14 pm
_When did the Church decide that it was the manners police and woudl therefore decalrae Galileo a heretic becasue he had bad manners?_
Strawman much? Nobody’s claiming that “bad manners” were part of the charges against Galileo. But surely it’s reasonable to assume that the Church members who prosecuted him were human beings with all the foibles and flaws that any human beings have. Galileo stepped on some pretty powerful toes. People with power who get their toes stepped on tend to strike back. If you don’t believe me, be rude to the next cop who stops you for a traffic violation and see what happens.
September 9th, 2011 | 1:16 pm
I teach a course on the Galileo affair, and while the narrative Mr. Carter disputes is no doubt inadequate and seriously misleading, the story he tells here is not without its slant. The evidence doesn’t support the view that it was just or even primarily Galileo’s hubris that did him in. For example, it wasn’t an unmotivated fit of hubris, as Mr. Carter says, the prompted the Letter to Castelli, it was the fact that certain clergymen were campaigning against Galileo from the pulpit and on their own initiative reporting him to the Inquisition – this was long before he published any explicit defense of heliocentrism. Moreover, the idea that Bellarmine and the popes involved were just abiding by a perfectly reasonable notion of hypothesis and evidence doesn’t fit the historical evidence either. Partly this is due to an ambiguity in the notion of hypothesis: the Church was not saying that Galileo could publish defenses of Copernicanism as a hypothesis, i.e. a theory that had some evidence in its favor and might turn out to be true. They were instead saying that he could treat it as a purely instrumental calculating device, which obviously couldn’t ever be proved true, since Scripture clearly said otherwise (as interpreted according to Bellarmine’s understanding of the Council of Trent – see the Blackwell volume below for this issue). Some sources and comments for the curious who want to be informed on this vexed episode:
Maurice Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History. This is the definitive English-language collection of primary documents. Highly recommended. Note that the sentence quoted above by Joe McFaul is in fact the (significantly abridged) text of the 1633 condemnation. That’s what’s nice about this book – you can just check it without worrying about what some web editor did or did not verify!
Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo: 1633-1992. A very very useful history of the way the Galileo story has been told and twisted and falsified from the condemnation until JPII’s speech in ’92. I highly recommend this as a guide to the Church’s position on the affair through the intervening centuries. Someone mentioned the Poupard report – Finocchiaro discusses weaknesses of the report in a very balanced and informed manner, and he gives a very charitable and intelligent interpretation of JPII’s 1992 address.
Richard Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. This is the place to go to see the context for the disputes about Scriptural interpretation. It’s worth knowing that St. Robert Bellarmine took the Trent’s dictum that interpretations contrary to the settled reading of the Fathers on “matters of faith and morals” very broadly. That is, if the Fathers took geocentrism for granted in their commentaries – and they did, of course – then that meant you couldn’t read those passages in a contrary way – this poses rather obvious (to us, anyway) problems for scientific inquiry and the development of knowledge of nature. This is where the narrative that the Church was really the voice of scientific caution really goes off the rails and fails to connect with the actual documents and evidence. Bellarmine’s position wasn’t crazy or unconsidered, but it did effectively rule out the possibility that views about the natural world that the Fathers simply took for granted could ever be shown false – so long as those views show up in their Scripture interpretations.
Ernan McMullin, ed. The Church and Galileo 2005 collection of essays. Some different perspectives, but general agreement that the Galileo Commission under Cardinal Poupard didn’t really address some of the unresolved issues in the Church’s stance on the affair. Good scholarly discussions of Galileo’s writings on Scripture interpretation (note that JPII acknowledged that Galileo was largely right, and his critics mistaken, on the hermeneutical questions). Coyne’s piece, though it kind of misses the point of JPII’s speech in many ways (cp. to Finocchiaro above), is a good concise statement of the ways in which the Church’s 20th century take on the affair remained inadequate.
September 9th, 2011 | 1:22 pm
Ack – several typos and incomplete sentences in there. In the penultimate paragraph, it should say, “It’s worth knowing that St. Robert Bellarmine took the Council of Trent’s dictum, that interpretations contrary to the settled reading of the Fathers on “matters of faith and morals” are not permitted, very broadly.”
Now, in the context of Perry’s remark it’s not really the Church that’s the issue, but the question of evidence. That’s a mixed bag – Galileo did have some evidence, but he certainly hadn’t worked out and justified a whole natural philosophy that would explain how the earth can be moving and spinning without any apparent effects – then again, by that standard, nobody would ever make a revolutionary advance in science. But certainly there was a case to be made for Copernicanism – the problem with the Church’s position was not that it was unreasonable to disagree with or doubt Copernicanism; it was rather that the Church doubled down on the issue of the authority to interpret Scripture and how that related to the investigation of the natural world – it’s not that they should have accepted that Galileo was right, but that they clamped down on the inquiry itself.
September 9th, 2011 | 1:26 pm
What’s ridiculous about Perry’s remark is that Galileo, just because he knew he was going against the settled academic consensus, knew that he had to make his case aggressively and try to get his arguments (the good and the bad, as it turned out) out there. It just doesn’t make sense to appeal to that precedent and then have nothing to say about the science and the merits of the case, not even a reference to an alternate theory that one believes in. You can’t a) question the authority of a scientific discipline’s consensus, and at the same time b) take no responsibility for giving any arguments (or even citing any maverick scientists) as to why that consensus is wrong. Consensus of experts doesn’t guarantee truth, but it does give some probability.
September 9th, 2011 | 1:32 pm
A follow-up – it is true, what I said above notwithstanding, that Galileo was overconfident and made some overreaching claims about what he could prove. That’s true, but that doesn’t mean the Church came down on him because of that, and only because of that. Too often the Church-apologetics view of the affair makes that jump: Galileo thought he could prove it in a strong sense, but he couldn’t … therefore the Church was right! But the Church didn’t just decline to endorse Galileo – it forbade him from pursuing the hypothesis entirely.
It’s also true that Galileo wasn’t good at Vatican politics, and wasn’t nearly as good as he thought he was. So it’s true that he might have avoided condemnation if he had been more clever and politic about it. It doesn’t follow that there was nothing wrong with the Church’s action, or that the Church’s actions were just pushback on a meddling troublemaker. For a pretty balanced take on this aspect of the affair (one which to my mind exonerates Bellarmine and Urban VIII a little too broadly) see Shea and Artigas, Galileo in Rome: the Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius.
September 9th, 2011 | 2:02 pm
….’WEhen did the Churhc decide it had the authority to be the science police and declare a fairly well established scietific fact as “heresy?”’
But it was not a well-established scientific fact. It was a mathematical model that tried to make sense of the facts. What put Galileo at odds with the physicists was that as a mere ‘mathematicus’ he was daring to tell them what was physically real. No one had a problem with Copernicanism as a mathematical hypothesis (except that it was not especially more accurate and still had 20 epicycles). The Jesuits were teaching it at the Roman College. But the notion that astronomy was physics, not a branch of mathematics was the real revolution.
There were two primary “falsifications,” one of which was known to the ancients. If the Earth went around the sun, there ought to be visible stellar parallax. None could be detected; therefore, by Popper’s criterion (modus tollens) heliocentrism was falsified. This is why Aristotle and Archimedes rejected the Pythagorean woo-woo that fire “ought” to be in the center because it is “nobler” than earth and the center is a “nobler” place. (The second problem was the apparent lack of eastward deflection in free-falling objects.)
…”Bruno was burned at the stake in aprt for arguing tha the sun was just another star.”
There were eight counts in the indictment and none had to do with astronomy.
+ + +
That the sun rotates on an axis does not prove that the earth goes around the sun. The sunspots were also discovered by the Jesuit astronomer Scheiner, who developed the notation for tracking sunspots, deduced the rotation, and came up with an essentially correct theory for their origin. Galileo was livid and claimed that he really-truly saw the sunspots first and just forgot to tell anyone. (Harriott saw them before anyone and really did not tell anyone.)
That Jupiter has moons does not prove that the earth goes round the sun.
Aristotelians welcomed these developments at first because they overthrew Ptolemaic astronomy, which had always contradicted Aristotelian physics.
What really did sink the old astronomy was the phases of Venus. These proved that the Sun had moons, just like earth and Jupiter: viz., Mercury and Venus. It blew Ptolemy out of the water. Tycho Brahe, using a brand new set of actual detailed planetary trackings — Copernicus and Galileo had never bothered with such things — developed a geo-heliocentric system that made more accurate predictions than the Copernican system. Seems clunky to us; but no one back then had a *principle* to explain why any body should circle any other body.
….”Again, Galileo wasn’t chastised for lack of tact. He was abjured as a heretic for heliocentricism—a scientific fact.”
“Vehemently suspected of heresy” can be translated as “we’d like to call you a heretic, but don’t have any proof.” If you went to traffic court and really hacked off the judge with sass and trash talk, don’t expect the judge to write that you were fined for sass and trash talk.
September 9th, 2011 | 3:58 pm
arty
September 9th, 2011 | 9:28 am
If myth-busting is the goal, I’m not sure that Ian Paisley is the ahh, best source of info.
========
I have no idea who he is, but he turned up in the search for “doms v. jes” talking about the subject.
What myths are you saying he is perpetuating?
September 9th, 2011 | 4:03 pm
Joe: Consensus of experts doesn’t guarantee truth, but it does give some probability.
===========
And the fact that the sun is going around the Earth is there to prove it.
September 9th, 2011 | 4:53 pm
“What really did sink the old astronomy was the phases of Venus.”
Discovered by Galileo.
All of his evidence was internally consistent and consistent with heliocentricism and not explainable by geocentricism. The fact that he relied on sunspots observed by others is not a black mark against him, it is a sign of a good scientist. Nobody claims Galileo did not rely on the work done before him. Nobody claims Galileo singlehandled upended helicetricism with a singe observation.o
““Vehemently suspected of heresy” can be translated as “we’d like to call you a heretic, but don’t have any proof.” If you went to traffic court and really hacked off the judge with sass and trash talk, don’t expect the judge to write that you were fined for sass and trash talk.”
Bad anology–I’m been a traffic court judge. If you’re charged with running a red light and then sass and trash talk in my courtroom you will be convicted of running the red light and held in contempt of court—Two charges, two penalties.
“Vehemently suspected of heresy” CAN be translated in the wildly strained way you suggest. But nobody realistically accepts that translation especially when there is a follow up command to abjure:
“From which it is Our pleasure that you be absolved, provided that with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in Our presence, you abjure, curse, and detest, the said error and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome.”
That was not a suggestion to be more polite in the future.
The following is the main point that should have been learned by the Catholic Church: “…the problem with the Church’s position was not that it was unreasonable to disagree with or doubt Copernicanism; it was rather that the Church doubled down on the issue of the authority to interpret Scripture and how that related to the investigation of the natural world – it’s not that they should have accepted that Galileo was right, but that they clamped down on the inquiry itself.”
It bears reiterating because it’s being ingnored by commenters here.
Galileo had his disputes with other scientists–that’s how science is done.
The Church had no business settling those disputes at a heresy trial. That is what happened.
September 9th, 2011 | 5:01 pm
Alessandra: From William Hitchcock’s “The Struggle for Europe: “In 1969 and 1970, Protestant paramilitary groups such as Paisley’s Ulster Protestant Volunteers and the Ulster Volunteer force terrorized Catholic communities.” (p. 334-5). Paisley’s long been a plague in the Troubles,” I’d hesitate to see him as an authority on much of anything other than inciting people to do violence to one another in the name of politics masquerading as religion.
September 9th, 2011 | 5:15 pm
Ye Olde Statistician
Great points about the phases of Venus.
“Vehemently suspected of heresy” can be translated as “we’d like to call you a heretic, but don’t have any proof.”
I don’t think this is right – in spite of the odd phrasing, this was a condemnation for an offense, not a statement that they suspected but couldn’t prove anything. Hence the condemnation adduces evidence that Galileo actually did things he should not have done.
“But the notion that astronomy was physics, not a branch of mathematics was the real revolution.”
This overstates the case, I think. Disciplinary boundaries definitely played a role (hence Galileo’s focus on gaining the title of philosopher rather than just mathematician), but it was not universally agreed upon that astronomy was just a mathematical calculating device. The relationship between mathematical astronomical hypotheses and physical cosmology was loose and complex, but there was not an established consensus that astronomy had nothing to do with physics.
September 9th, 2011 | 5:20 pm
Alessandra: Paisley was involved with Protestant paramilitary groups in the “Troubles”, and is an all-around good example of politics masquerading as religion. Blessed are the peacemakers he is not, and I wouldn’t use him as an authority on anything other than how to incite your neighbors to violence by being a world class jerk.
September 9th, 2011 | 7:35 pm
Great points about the phases of Venus.
That’s why the Ptolemaic system was dropped. Mr. McFaul seems to think that ‘falsifying’ the Ptolemaic system somehow demonstrated the Copernican system, but overlooks two things:
1. The Tychonic system (and similar Ursine system) accounted for the phases of Venus as easily as did the Copernican system.
2. The Copernican system had also been ‘falsified’ thousands of years before by the lack of visible stellar parallax. [The reason turned out to be that the stars were =much= farther away than supposed, and so the parallax was much smaller than could be observed by eye. But no one had yet established that the stars =were= so much farther away.]
A third point is that the Copernican system relied on the same data corrupted by copyist errors over the centuries and often gave =worse= predictions that the Ptolemaic system. Nor was it computationally simpler. The Copernican system “was more complex and contained more circles than the then prevailing geocentric model.”
Hence, the bulk of astronomers and physicists signed onto the Tychonic system — until Newton provided a rationale for the Keplerian system.
A good account of the astronomical theory smackdown can be found here:
http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/galileo%E2%80%99s-great-bluff-and-part-of-the-reason-why-kuhn-is-wrong/
And an assessment of Galileo’s role here:
http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/extracting-the-stopper/
+ + +
“Vehemently suspected of heresy”
the condemnation adduces evidence that Galileo actually did things he should not have done.
Yes, it meant that he had done things that might could be heretical. That’s because one motion of the earth was considered ‘false in philosophy’ while the other was considered ‘dubious in philosophy.’ So the two charges against him were ‘formally heretical’ (i.e., heretical in form – another way of expressing it might avoid the problem) and ‘vehemently suspect of heresy.’ That is because neither proposition was ever declared heretical, only bad or suspect science.
The closest he came to heresy was in his Letter to Castelli, in which he put on a theolgian’s hat and explained how scriptures should be interpreted. In the midst of the Protestant revolution, this was incautious at best. He was twice denounced to the Roman Inquisition, which twice investigated and cleared him. Despite its seeming Protestantism, he was adjudged a devout Catholic; although the judges may have recalled the matter when it came to the trial. (He was actually charged with disobeying an injunction to hold Copernicanism only as a mathematical hypothesis until he had empirical proof that it was factual. There was also the matter that he had used Medici muscle to extort an imprimatur from the Florentine Inquisition.)
Now, if you were to publicly insult a judge and later got hauled up before that judge, or those who work for that judge, you might not find yourself fairing well. Mr. McFaul does not seem to consider that, and answers that if the trash talking was done in court, there would be a charge of contempt. Indeed. But the trash talking was done beforehand and was one of the reasons his old friend the Pope decided to smack him upside the head. The worst crime in Ren-Mod Italy was ingratitude.
When I was talking to a Vatican astronomer a few weeks ago, I was reminded that there was also a war scare, involving Roman-Florentine tensions, and Galileo was a courtier of the Grand Duke. History is always local and particular; we must beware of theory-based history.
+ + +
“the notion that astronomy was physics, not … mathematics was the real revolution.”
it was not universally agreed upon that astronomy was just a mathematical calculating device.
=That= was the significance of the telescope. It revealed the heavens as a =physical= place in which physical discoveries could be made. Ever since Columbus, the Europeans had been obsessed with capital-D Discovery. This has sometimes been called “the discovery of discovery.” In any case, you are correct, but correct precisely because of the telescope. Earlier than that, the purpose of astronomy was to make the calculations of planetary positions needed by astrologers, navigators, and others. It was not conceived as making discoveries about physical bodies.
An excellent book on the impact of the telescope on Europe, China, and muslim India and Near East:
http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Curiosity-Scientific-Revolution-Perspective/dp/0521170524/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315611292&sr=1-2
The relationship between mathematical astronomical hypotheses and physical cosmology was loose and complex, but there was not an established consensus that astronomy had nothing to do with physics.
September 9th, 2011 | 10:20 pm
“You are, of couse, corect Bruno was burned at the stake in aprt for arguing tha the sun was just another star.”
No wonder poor Galileo became so terrified he was eager to recant! I agree with Joe McFaul. There’s no way to sugar coat this issue. If Galileo was arrogant, the Catholic church was 100 times times more so. There’s been some fancy footwork by apologists for the Inquisition that is intended to restore credibility to the inquisitors. It just doesn’t work. And, as we now know, the earth certainly revolves around the sun.
I think Steven Taylor made an excellent point in the referenced article. Perry versus the scientific consensus? Perry? Has anyone seen his transcript from Texas A&M? Let’s face it, folks — this guy’s scientific knowledge is extremely modest. What does he think he knows that’s escaping all the outstanding, top-of-their-fields PhDs and Nobel prize winners who support the consensus? Perry is just another scientific illiterate who falls for the dim bulb conspiracy theories about climate science. We should expect better from a presidential candidate. Steven Taylor is spot on — Perry is taking the role of the ignorant and partisan Inquisition against the Galileos — the cutting edge scientists — of our day.
September 10th, 2011 | 2:10 am
arty
September 9th, 2011 | 5:20 pm
Alessandra: Paisley was involved with Protestant paramilitary groups in the “Troubles”, and is an all-around good example of politics masquerading as religion. Blessed are the peacemakers he is not, and I wouldn’t use him as an authority on anything other than how to incite your neighbors to violence by being a world class jerk.
=============
I had the impression that your criticism about his Galileo piece had nothing to do with the piece. I just wanted to make sure that was the case. You simply don’t like the man for other reasons.
You see, the reason I am criticizing your dismissal of the article is because I find these claims quite interesting:
There is no doubt in the present writer’s mind that quite apart from the longstanding antagonism between the Dominicans and the Jesuits, there was a specific Jesuit plot against Galileo following the publication of Galileo’s The Assayer in 1623. What is more, the present writer believes that this plot accounts for the document “G3” denouncing Galileo, which Redondi recently discovered in the inquisition. In essence, “G3” accused Galileo of undermining the doctrine of transubstantiation by his atomic theory expounded in The Assayer. Moreover it seems that the Jesuits deliberately betrayed Galileo in such a way that their hand would not be seen, as indeed it might not have been but for the researchers of Redondi.
***
The above seems to be a summary of Redondi’s book: “Galileo: Heretic”
“The author’s main thesis is that Galileo famous trial did not take place because he promoted a heliocentric view of the universe, but because he promoted a non-Aristotelian theory of physics at variance with the Church’s doctrine of transubstantiation.
Anyone who wants to read a heroic account of the victory of the forces of knowledge and experimental science (i.e. personified by Galileo) over those of ignorance (i.e. biblically inspired geocentricism) had better look elsewhere. On the other hand, anyone who wants to read a far more interesting (and believable) story which reveals much more about both religion and science than does the traditional Galilean myth will find this book fascinating.”
I haven’t read the book, Redondi’s main theory has been considerably challenged by others (especially his attribution of the G3 document to Galileo’s Jesuit rival Grassi). However, the book has been praised for describing well the intellectual currents at the time plus making other important contributions to relevant people and events. The book (written in an engaging drama style) sounds like a very good read, even if Redondi’s theory is not as strong as he believes.
September 10th, 2011 | 10:45 am
After reading the discussion here and then watching some of the recent Reagan Library GOP debate on YouTube, it occurred to me that the subject that is rarely addressed whenever the discussion turns to the lessons to be learned from the history of the interaction of religion, science and politics, is that of inalienable human rights.
Rather than an analysis of the meaning and true ramifications of Rick Perry’s statements that mentioned in passing evolution or the scientific validity of global warming, I would like to an see an analysis of his (and of the other candidates) answers to the following direct questions:
Is there such a thing as inalienable human rights?
Is the Declaration of Independence an authoritative legal document, the principles espoused therein being the measure of the authenticity and legitimacy of Supreme Court decisions and the laws of the land?
Do our current laws reflect those principles?
Now that would make for an interesting and worthwhile discussion of the lessons to be learned from the history of the interaction of religion, science and politics.
September 10th, 2011 | 5:08 pm
The Declaration of Independence is not an authoritative legal document of the United States.
September 10th, 2011 | 5:13 pm
Harry, while your point about inalienable human rights is an interesting one, I think the question remains whether or not a presidential candidate can have the humility to be a pragmatic leader and act in the interests of the common good, even when his own preconceptions are challenged. I would be more interested in hearing whether or not Perry can back up his comments about global warming being a hoax with cogent science. I am confident he could not. Is he able to admit that he is not equipped with the knowledge or analytical skills to admit the question is outside his area of expertise and to appoint a scientific advisor to help him. Probably not. He’s too much of an ideologue. His beliefs defy reality. This isn’t about faith and religion. This is about reality processing.
September 10th, 2011 | 7:35 pm
Is Saint Augustine’s exegesis of the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Genesis correct? Do a search: First Scandal.
September 10th, 2011 | 7:37 pm
Joe has done a brilliant job of pricking some skin as the fanatical and ill worded responses have indicated. However Margret raises a good point.
The problem is I don’t think Perry would object to, “there is a general case that the planet has grown warmer over the last few decades.” However, we like things short and simple. So, “global warming” in most political speech Left and Right has come to mean, “anthropological global warming that can be halted by various means including immediate reduction of carbon based fuel use and a general anti-industrial revolution policy in Western States.” If Perry meant the former, then yes, he has some explaining to do. If he meant the latter, well, he’s on fairly solid ground. Since the latter is the common usage, I’d propose he is on solid ground.
September 11th, 2011 | 10:44 am
Nick, this is what Rick Perry said: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly or even daily scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes our climate’s changed, they’ve been changing ever since the earth was born. But I do not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases found to be manipulating this information.”
When asked to name some of the scientists who question the idea that global warming in caused by fossil fuel pollution, he was unable to do so.
He goes even further in his book by claiming that the science behind anthropogenic global warming is a “contrived phony mess.”
Perry is receiving millions from Big Oil and has clearly been drinking the Exxon/Koch brothers-funded Kool Aid.
It’s frightening that a potential leader of the most powerful country in the world could be so gullible (or could it be cynical?). In the Galileo metaphor, he is certainly not Galileo who for all his shortcomings was an evidence-based scientist moved by truth and reality to take a position of conflict against those moved by superstition and authoritarianism.
This issue alone proves that Perry is not fit to lead what is still a first world country. Future global dominance will depend in large part on our technology and education. The race to clean, green, cheap energy is on. If we don’t invest in scientific education, research, and development, China and possibly a host of other countries will leave us in the dust. This is a shame because we used to lead the world educationally, technologically, and morally.
September 11th, 2011 | 12:55 pm
Very nice post, Alessandra, and thank you for mentioning Redondi’s book. I shall try to obtain a copy. M:-)
September 12th, 2011 | 9:57 am
Alessandra:
I’m not sure what gave you the impression that I was dismissing Carter’s article, since I mostly agreed with him. But, Paisley’s outside views struck me as relevant, since much of the debate over Galileo affair strikes me as springing from an inability to get clear on the difference between politics and religion, which Paisley isn’t exactly a poster child for.
September 12th, 2011 | 4:10 pm
For anyone interested, as a supplement to Joe Z’s excellent comments, an article I did for Catholic World Report on the topic as well.
September 13th, 2011 | 7:51 pm
arty,
You should have read:
“You see, the reason I am criticizing your dismissal of *Paisley’s* article is because I find these claims quite interesting…” (not Carter’s article)
From what I can see, Paisley simply summarized the content of Redondi’s book.
===============
Margaret,
You’re welcome! :-) It sounds like a very good read, indeed. If only I had a little bit more free time…
September 15th, 2011 | 7:09 pm
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