Re: [Phys-l] Galileo was wrong

[Hugh Haskell <haskellh@verizon.net>]

At 13:10 -0400 09/20/2010, Jeffrey Schnick wrote:
> It is my understanding that the Church told Galileo that it would be
> okay for him to say that it is much easier to describe/predict the
> motion of the planets in an inertial reference frame centered on the sun
> but that he should not say that the sun IS the center of the solar
> system / universe.  Galileo was championing a good model for
> understanding the motions of the planets but he refused to simply claim
> that it was a good model and insisted on claiming that it was reality.

I just finished reading a short book by Stillman Drake ("Galileo," 
Hill & Wang, New York, 1980) that proposes a slightly different 
reason for what happened to Galileo. In it Drake puts Galileo forth 
as a zealous Catholic who was desperately trying to save the church 
from error. In the concluding pages, Drake wrote:

"Galileo's own conscience was clear both as Catholic and as 
scientist. On one occasion he wrote, almost in despair, that at times 
he felt like burning all his work in science; but he never so much as 
thought of turning his back on his faith. The Church turned its back 
on Galileo, and has suffered not a little for having done so; Galileo 
blamed only come wrong-headed individuals in the Church for that." 
(p. 92)

and:

"The cause for which Galileo suffered, in his own view, was clearly 
not Copernicanism but sound theology and Christian zeal. That 
'misapplication of law" to which Galileo referred can hardly have 
been his condemnation in 1633, which so far as he was concerned was 
an error of fact. What grieved Galileo was the theologians' error of 
1616, as an indirect result of which he had been punished. Their 
error was in his eyes a misapplication of law established by the 
ancient Fathers who had wisely separated science from religion." (p. 
93)

Other scholars have attributed the motivation for his punishment to 
rival academics who used their influence with Church authorities to 
silence Galileo.

Other factors which probably contributed to Galileo's problems were 
the 30 years' war, which diverted the attention of the Pope (who had 
been a friend and patron of Galileo in the years before his 
ascendancy to the papacy), and his creating the role of "Simplicio" 
in his "Dialogue" and making him pretty obviously an embodiment of 
the Pope, and then putting some pretty outragious words in his mouth. 
These passages, when shown to the Pope, were said to have outraged 
him and effectively ended any possibility of papal support for 
Galileo in his trial.

According to Drake, Galileo accorded little importance to the 
distinction between advocating a particular notion and merely 
teaching about it. The 1616 document that apparently enjoined Galileo 
from even teaching about Copernicanism, is also alleged to have been 
a forgery.

A tangled web, indeed.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
mailto:hugh@ieer.org
mailto:haskellh@verizon.net

It isn't easy being green.

		--Kermit Lagrenouille