You’re not wrong. You’re just early.
September 28th, 2006 by Mr. TMOLGalileo Galilei, known as “the Father of Science,” was a high achiever whose accomplishments have withstood the tests of time. There is no denying that he was a truly brilliant man.
In 1633, The Catholic Church convicted Galileo of heresy because Galileo demonstrated that the earth revolved around the sun, something at odds with the Catholic Church’s belief system. One hundred eight years later, Galileo was formally rehabilitated by the church; 17 years after that, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, the church formally acknowledged that the earth did in fact rotate around the sun. A few hundred years later, the church apologized (well, “apologized” as much as a Church is able to muster an apology–must not show weakness or they will attack the doctrine of virgin birth next):
In October 1992, Cardinal Paul Poupard presented the Pope with the findings of the Galileo study commission, which declared, “From the Galileo case we can draw a lesson which is applicable today in analogous cases which arise in our times and which may arise in the future. It often happens that, beyond two partial points of view which are in contrast, there exists a wider view of things which embraces both and integrates them.” By Vatican standards, this rotund language was an apology. The Pope responded by saying that Galileo’s realizations about the sun and earth must have been divinely inspired: “Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions.” Through its 1992 ceremony, the church finally lifted its edict of Inquisition against Galileo, who went to his grave a devout Catholic, despite the church’s treatment of him.
It appears that Stephen Jay Gould’s “magisteria” will “overlap” whenever religion flunks science. It’s happened before and it MIGHT be happening right now . . .
Therefore, if the position of a church disagrees with your own, this doesn’t mean that you are necessarily wrong. You just need to be patient. Give it a few hundred years before drawing any conclusions.
September 28th, 2006 at 11:12 am
As a corollary and observation to Galileo’s plight (which is indefensible, so I’m not in any way trying to let the Church off any hook), it did take them 28 years to convict him. When you read some of the transcripts, you can see them bending over backwards to NOT condemn him of heresy.
In fact, the heliocentric model of the solar system was devised under the auspices of the Church. The Church told Copernicus to “fix the calendars” and the only way he found that worked was moving the sun to the center. This didn’t bother the Church, because the feast days finally coincided. They were happy, and more than a few probably (undoubtedly) thought Copernicus was actually right.
The issue with Galileo was not science–it was authority. Galileo–brilliant as he was–was a hot head who refused to countenance anyone telling him what to do. Especially when he thought he was right. And in this instane he was right. The Church was muffling him because he challenged their position as disseminators of The Truth. That was the issue, really, not whether the earth spun around the sun, but who had the right to “reveal” that fact.
To a degree, that’s what is going on now. It’s an authority issue, but because we live in a putative democracy, the source of authority gets a little fuzzy. And responsibility is always a problem.
Science tends to empower people. It tends also to make one responsible, if one has an ounce of moral fiber. The two together make for an unmanageable constituency that will not be afraid to speak truth to power.
September 28th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Galileo’s crime was not so much repeating the observation of Copernicus, already privately accepted by the church. But rather that he showed that the other planets themselves were centers to other moons. And he did it in a public arena before getting permission from the church to publish.
The church was already pissed off at him for his besting them at insider commodity trading when he used his lens from a tower to see ships coming over the horizon and telling his cousin what to buy before anyone else could tell what goods were approaching. This was before he thought of turning his instrument skyward.
October 1st, 2006 at 10:27 am
Greek rhetoricians had a word for waiting for the opportune minute to make an issue of something- kairos. The logic went that if you did not raise an argument at the right time, you would face a backlash against it until the opportune moment truly came and made people receptive to the idea. Such patience may not work as a consistant rule of thumb, but it does make it readily apparent that proper timing has played a role in persuasion and initiating change for a very long time.