The Church is anti-science -- NOT!

[didymus]

Michael Flynn, science fiction writer, statistician, and amateur Thomist has been running a series on his blog about the Galileo controversy and the competition between heliocentrism, geocentrism & various combinations.

Based on available evidence at the time, Kepler’s theory seemed to fit best. The Church’s attitude was basically “let the scientists slug it out” complicated by the fact that each had patrons and enemies w/in the Church. Galileo came to the attention of the Holy Office only when he wandered from astronomy into theology.
Galileo didn’t help himself by alienating every friend and patron he ever had.

Also, there was no internet back then but advocates for each theory had flame wars attacking each other.

The series starts at:
tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html

 

[DavidFilmer]

Albert Einstein won exactly one Nobel Prize. Since he founded the field of quantum physics, and is easily the most influential physicist since Newton, a lot of people naturally assume he won the Prize for the Theory of Relativity, or the equivalence principle, or some quantum physics discovery.

Wrong. He won the Prize for unrelated earlier work regarding the photovoltaic effect (how electricity is generated when light strikes metal).

So why did the guy who invented quantum physics, and shook the foundations of science, and paved the way for dozens of others to win Nobel Prizes based on his work - why didn’t THAT guy win the Prize?

It’s because the Nobel Academy of Physics didn’t understand relativity. They didn’t want to risk awarding the Prize to someone whose work might be discredited.

And people suppose that a bunch of theologians consider themselves qualified to sit in judgement over science? I doubt five Bishops even understood what Gallello and Kepler were even talking about, any I equally doubt that five Bishops today could read a Feynman diagram and pass judgement over rate of atomic decay (or would even try).

 

[Arizona_Mike]

And people suppose that a bunch of theologians consider themselves qualified to sit in judgement over science? I doubt five Bishops even understood what Gallello and Kepler were even talking about, any I equally doubt that five Bishops today could read a Feynman diagram and pass judgement over rate of atomic decay (or would even try).

Most of the bishops and priests of the time had a keen understanding of what Galileo and Kepler were discussing, as astronomy was one of the core curricula that the (Church-run) universities taught. There was a lively interest and much discussion of the controversy in clerical circles, with some holding for Galileo’s position and some against (Galileo was a rock-star in scientific circles at the time, and there was no shortage of bishops offering to take him in as a house-guest for his eventual house arrest), and there was also interest in the human dimension of the dispute between Galileo and the Pope, who was fascinated by astronomy and also one of Galileo’s best friends and supporters - until Galileo suddenly and unexpectedly dissed him in print. Bad idea to do that to another Italian male, which was Galileo’s biggest error.

Galileo probably would have been okay if he hadn’t made the personal slight against the Pope and if he hadn’t done the opposite of what you described - namely, entering a magisteria in which he was not considered qualified, namely theology. By offering his own public opinions on how his unproven theories of cosmology (the observational evidence did not exist at the time) could be supported by theology.