On Tue, 7 Dec 1999 19:58:22 -0600 (CST), Susan B wrote:
[...]
>SJ>> In the sixteenth century, Copernicus' co-worker, Domenico da
>>Novara, held that no system so cumbersome and inaccurate as the
>>Ptolemaic had become could possibly be true nature. And Copernicus
>>himself wrote in the Preface to the De Revolutionibus that the astronomical
>>tradition he inherited had finally created a monster.'
>>
>>However, so ingrained was the idea that the Earth was the centre of the
>>universe that hardly anyone, even those astronomers who were well aware
>>of the growing unreality of the whole system, ever bothered to consider an
>>alternative theory."
>>
>>(Denton M.J., "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis", 1985, p349)
SB>There was also the problem that you could be burned at the stake for
>considering an alternative theory.
The fact is, as Koestler points out, that only *two* scientists were ever
burnt at the stake by the Church, and only one (Bruno) was by the Catholic
Church, and both were executed not for their scientific opinions, but their
religious opinions:
"Giordano Bruno and Michael Servetus (burned, in 1553, by the Calvinists
in Geneva) seem to be the only scholars of repute who became victims of
religious intolerance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - not, of
course, because of their scientific, but because of their religious opinions.
(Koestler A., "The Sleepwalkers", 1972, p451).
In commenting on this, Marston & Forster point out that atheists have a far
worse record of persecuting and executing scientists:
"Ironically there are instances of persecution by irreligious authorities.
During the avowedly anti Christian French Revolution, one of history's
greatest chemists (Antoine Lavoisier) was guillotined on a trumped up
charge reputedly with the words 'France does not need men of science' in
Soviet Russia there was a more overt clash of science and irreligion, as
eminent adherents of the scientific Mendelian geneticists were mercilessly
persecuted because the theories were thought to contradict Marxist ideas."
(Marston P. & Forster R., "Reason, Science and Faith", 1999, p312)
SB>Copernicus wisely kept his mouth shut.
This is just a fiction. Marston & Forster show that the reason "Copernicus
wisely kept his mouth shut" was that he did not have enough *evidence*
and he was afraid of public ridicule:
"Copernicus (1473-1543) was actually a conservatively minded devotee of
Greek science, yet it was he who created the first mathematical system
based on a moving earth (Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, 1543). A
canon of the Catholic church, he received nothing but clerical
encouragement during his lifetime. The first resume of his system was
given in 1532 by the Pope's private secretary in the Vatican gardens. in
1535 Cardinal Schoenberg (a confidant of the Pope's) urged Copernicus to
publish. Copernicus' most immediate disciple, Rheticus, stood high in the
Lutheran camp when he published Narratio Prima (1540) summarising his
mentor's views: the rejection of Copernicanism by Melancthon and German
Lutherans did not imply any suppression of its adherents. Copernicus'
reluctance seems to have been from fear of common ridicule rather than
religious persecution coupled with the knowledge that he had no evidence
for the truth of his system which was at least as mathematically
cumbersome as the old one." (Marston P. & Forster R., 1999, p315)
SB>His disciple Gallileo didn't. (He foolishly thought evidence mattered).
>Gallileo escaped the flames by publicly recanting and spending the rest of
>his life locked in his house.
Again, as the fact is that Galileo was not punished for his scientific
theories, but for his
"Galileo was a man who reveled in debate, and ridiculed opponents in it.
This was a good way to win debates but also to make enemies. Though he
claimed to have long been a Copernican, his public interest came only after
his improvement of the telescope (around 1609), and the telescopic
discoveries which he tried to portray as relevant to the issue. In 1615,
following some after dinner conversation, he launched himself into the
controversy with a Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. The leading
Cardinal Bellarmine in a letter to Galileo's disciple Foscarini set out the
Catholic church's view. If a physical proof of the earth's motion could be
produced then the church would be prepared to rethink its biblical
interpretation (ie rethink the current synthesis of theology and science).
Until that time Galileo was, he said, prudent to speak only hypothetically
about earth motions.
In 1632 Galileo published a Dialogue on the Two World Systems. This was
supposed to present 'both sides', but was a thinly disguised argument for
the earth's movement. In its final section the favourite argument of the
Pope on the issue (that we should avoid dogmatism since God could use
many different means to an effect) was put into the mouth of the dunce in
the Dialogue; the Pope (who had previously been an admirer of Galileo)
was furious. Scientifically Galileo's book would have been out of date even
if published 15 years earlier. He ignored Kepler's elliptical orbits (published
24 years earlier), and gave the impression of circular ones which would
have been absurdly inaccurate. Tycho's system of a static earth but with the
planets going around the sun had been accepted by leading Jesuits because
it fitted best the data and lack of observed stellar parallax. 29 Galileo
ignored it and pretended the choice was between his own and Aristotle's.
All the physical proofs presented in his book were either wrong (as his key
theory of the tides) or would apply equally to Tycho's system. It was a
popular book rather than a real academic contribution written in pithy
Italian rather than academic Latin.
So what was the fuss? In today's terms the real issue might be seen as one
of the social responsibility of a scientist rather than one of academic
freedom. Do scientists have a duty to publish nay and all discoveries or
ideas they have - irrespective of the social effects of such publication?
Should Galileo have popularised a system for which he had no proof and
premature publication of which might have had an destabilising effect on
ordinary people? Bellarmine, rightly or wrongly, had thought not, and in
Galileo's later trial the only real issue was whether or not Galileo had
received and disobeyed a specific personal order' from Bellarmine in 1615.
Throughout all this period Galileo had many supporters in all branches of
Catholicism, but also made personal enemies. When, however, a young
firebrand denounced Galileo from a pulpit somewhere, more than one
leading member of the order might express to Galileo their regret that such
ignorance existed.
In his 1633 trial, the evidence is that a 'plea bargain' was scotched by the
pope - either under political pressure or from pique at believing Galileo had
mocked him in the Dialogue and the issue was therefore forced.
Galileo was never thrown in the dungeons but placed under comfortable
house arrest. He was not pronounced heretical (the verdict was 'suspicion
of heresy') but was made to recant and his book placed in the prohibited
Index. (Copernicus' book had seen on the Index from 1616-1620 pending
very minor corrections.) Three of the ten Cardinals refused to sign the
sentence anyway. The various recent books on the affair contain all the
documents and details - though on any reading of them a simple `science
versus religion' view is hopelessly naive. Ironically, it was after the
Inquisition turned him away from his rather sterile astronomical
speculation, that Galileo did some of his really useful work on dynamics in
the last years of his life feted and honoured by all.
We have no axe to grind in 'defending' the Catholic Church over the
Galileo affair, and note the Church's own recent heart searchings over it.
But to see it as a simplistic 'faith versus science' or as epitomising science-
faith relationships is simply not tenable."
(Marston P. & Forster R., 1999, pp317-318)
If Susan doubts this, because it was written by Christians, she should read
Arthur Koestler's "The Sleepwalkers", 1972, pp431-503, or the recent web
article at: http://www.explorezone.com/columns/space/1999/august_galileo.htm
which confirms Marston & Forster's summary above, and concludes with:
"It's interesting to note that during all of Galileo's conflicts with the
Church, other astronomers, including the equally famous Johannes Kepler,
were openly writing and teaching heliocentrism. Kepler even worked out
and published the equations that describe the orbits of the planets about the
Sun. Yet he never had the problems Galileo did, in part because he had less
to do with the Catholic Church, but also because he did not have Galileo's
biting arrogance. So it was that it was Galileo's mean and spiteful manner,
his knack for turning even his best friends into enemies, that repeatedly got
Galileo in trouble. His accomplishments cannot be overstated - Galileo
truly is one of the giants of science - but in recounting his famous run-in
with the Church it's also important to remember that the real root of his
problems (other than the Church's excessive power at the time) were not
his scientific views, but his own unbridled arrogance."
SB>The most Denton or Behe have to look forward to is refutation.
>I have a feeling either of them would prefer the stake.
Well at least Denton and Behe are open to "refutation"!
Steve
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"Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species, was published in 1859. It is
perhaps the most influential book that has ever been published, because it
was read by scientist and non-scientist alike, and it aroused violent
controversy. Religious people disliked it because it appeared to dispense
with God; scientists liked it because it seemed to solve the most important
problem in the universe-the existence of living matter. In fact, evolution
became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it
and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in with it. (Lipson
H.S., "A physicist looks at evolution", Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 4,
May 1980, p138)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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