Re: [Phys-l] Galileo was wrong

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Galileo is now firmly accepted by the Roman Catholic church along with
evolution.  Even if Notre Dame were more Catholic, that would not change
things with respect to Galileo, or indeed any of the sciences.  The RC
church received enough flak or Galileo that it mostly defers to the
scientists.  If they were "real conservative" Catholics they would defer to
the Pope, and accept Galileo.  So who are the kooks?  I think a word other
than conservative should characterize them.  Even the TX board of education
extreme religious conservatives do not doubt Galileo.  Indeed I do not know
of any of the major or minor churches in the US that doubts Galileo.

It is possible that many of them are OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).
This type of person is very resistant to any type of evidence.  But
physicists can suffer from it while still being fairly rational otherwise.
I knew one who had to wipe off his teeth after every meal.  He would go into
the bathroom and use toilet paper to wipe his teeth.  He compulsively washed
his hands in alcohol, and wiped of the phone mouthpiece before speaking into
it.  The thing that got some people was how he would drop his pants and
powder his nuts in the control room of an experiment.  That is appropriate
in a locker room, but I suppose if you have sensitive skin, why not.

But remember that paradigms are very hard to change as is shown by low FCI
gain after conventional education.  So these people were given the standard
science education, and they did not believe it.  They were just told things,
and they didn't reason it out from evidence.  This of course happened in
Galileo's time where people said that what he saw was an artifact of his
telescopes.

It would be fun to see what they are saying, but not for $50.  If it were a
free meeting with refreshments and I didn't have to drive too far, I might
be tempted to go.  It could be entertaining.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> bc,
> Its not a hoax.  The conference has been mentioned here in South
> Bend.  If you look at Dean's page you will see that the organizers
> make a point of it being near Notre Dame.  I suspect the two reason's
> for that are one that ND is not catholic enough for the organizers
> and for years one of the world experts on Galileo and the church ran
> the History of the Philosophy of Science Program at Notre Dame.  I
> think it is bait to get some press.  Most of us here don't plan to
> take the bait.  Besides they want $50 to attend, and I'm not
> interested in contributing to a diatribe by right wing types.