The Truth about the Gallileo affair - by an Atheist

[DrTaffy]

You are looking at it with hind sight using today’s modern astronomers lens. The fact is he could not prove his case based on knowledge as at that time.

Yes he could. He did. He had. And it shouldn’t matter - he should have been free to express his opinion even without evidence, even if he had been wrong.

That was, in my opinion, the fundamental thing the Church got wrong here. Not heliocentrism vs geocentrism, not “is torture OK?”, but whether or not scientific speech, at least, should be free.

It was common knowledge that visually the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and accepted by the scientific community at that time. The Pope is after all expressing the knowledge of the times. And that knowledge is also expressed by the majority.

Nothing you wrote above supports geocentrism over heliocentrism. And ‘the majority’ do not dictate what is factually true.

All that paragraph proves is that you, at least, have not learned the lesson of the Galileo affair.

You are being repetitive.

No, that was a different point that you apparently failed to grasp. Not only was it wrong to try to silence Galileo because (in your opinion) he had not proved his point, but it was hypocritical! The Pope not only failed to apply the same standard of proof to his own support of geocentrism, but took it further by trying to force Galileo to at least pay lip service to geocentrism. :tsktsk:

No I don’t support torture. What makes you think I do?

Gosh, maybe the way you are defending the case of a sick old man being threatened with torture?

 

[inocente]

The fact is he could not prove his case based on knowledge as at that time.

The fact is that Einstein couldn’t prove his case for GR based on his knowledge either. Science works by proposing an hypothesis and then trying to disprove it. That’s the case with all knowledge from experience, it’s made up of hypotheses which no one has yet disproved.

You are imposing today’s version of freedom of speech/religion onto yesterday in some medieval country. That doesn’t help your case in any way. How much freedom of speech did one had anyway during those times?

The Church is no mere political entity. It is supposed to be guided by an unchanging God, so appeals to moral relativism don’t wash. If Catholics won’t accept that the Church’s moral stance is absolute and infallible, they can’t expect anyone else to either.

On this occasion the Church done wrong, Pope John Paul II said it done wrong, and it’s weird that the only people who won’t accept his word, and the long and exhaustive Pontifical Commission, are a few Catholics. If Catholics won’t accept the word of a Pope, they can’t expect anyone else to either.

 

[Stephen168]

You denied that the subject of the Inquisition was heliocentrism.

Yes, because the inquisition was about heresy.

Then you agreed that it was.

No, I said the inquisition was about heresy.

Now you are back to, if not flatly saying that it was not heliocentrism,

No, I said the inquisition was about heresy.

then at least saying that ‘the subject of the inquisition was heresy’

Yes, I said the inquisition was about heresy.

as though that precludes it being about heliocentrism.

Yes, because the inquisition was about heresy.

So please stop flip-flopping to avoid the question.

I’m not flip flopping. It is your lack of understand what the inquisition and/or heresy means.

Galileo had extensive evidence to support heliocentrism

No, Galileo did not have any proof that the earth moved. When I asked you for the proof, you had none, which was all that Galileo had; none.

You have fallen for every myth listed in the OP and failed to proved they are not myths.

1. “Galileo proved the earth went around the sun and not the other way around.”
   Actually, he did not.
2. “The Church rejected science, condemned heliocentrism and was ignorant of the science behind Copernicus’ theory.”
   This is also a myth. In fact, many of Galileo’s staunchest champions and defenders were churchmen and many of his attackers were fellow scientists.

1. “The Church condemned heliocentrism because it believed the Bible had to be interpreted literally.”
   The Catholic Church did not (and does not) teach that the Bible had to be interpreted literally

1. “Galileo was imprisoned in chains, tortured and threatened with being burned at the stake.”
   In fact, far from groaning in any dungeons, Galileo spent all of his 1633 trial as the honoured guest of various senior churchmen in several luxurious palaces and apartments in Rome.

1. Galileo was condemned simply for using science to question Church teachings, which was forbidden by the Church.

 

[Stephen168]

One should have the right to hold opinions and express them, without absolute proof.

… And it shouldn’t matter - he should have been free to express his opinion even without evidence, even if he had been wrong.
That was, in my opinion, the fundamental thing the Church got wrong here. Not heliocentrism vs geocentrism, not “is torture OK?”, but whether or not scientific speech, at least, should be free.

I’m sure Michael Servetus would agree but that wasn’t the world they lived in until 50 to 160 years after the trial.

 

[Brendan]

Which is precisely the problem. Because by 1633 it was already known (thanks to Kepler’s 1621 book) that the 1616 injunction has absolutely no merit and the Earth does, in fact, go around the Sun.

Actually no,

Kepler’s elliptical model handled the issue of planetary retrograde, which Galileo’s circular model really screwed up.

But the attempts to verify stellar parallax were all negative. This would later be rightly attributed to the incredibly VAST distances to the stars, but that was completely unknown in 1633.

It was not proved until 1838

And even his primary proof, the transit of Mercury in 1631 was unobserved, as the Sun was not visible in Europe during the transit.

The Kepler model was not shown to be accurate until the 1639 transit of Venus.

So it 1633, Kepler’s model was was no more than conjecture

 

[weller2]

Kepler’s elliptical model handled the issue of planetary retrograde, which Galileo’s circular model really screwed up.

Nonsense. Do you even know what retrograde motion is and why it is a problem in a geocentric system, but not in a heliocentric system?

But the attempts to verify stellar parallax were all negative. This would later be rightly attributed to the incredibly VAST distances to the stars, but that was completely unknown in 1633.

Nonsense again. The non-observation of stellar parallax is even addressed in Dialogo and attributed to – wait for it – distance to the stars. I have even quoted the relevant section of Galileo’s work upthread.

[Heliocentrism] was not proved until 1838

Even more nonsense. The observation of phases of Venus which cannot be explained in geocentric system was made in 1610.

 

[Stephen168]

Even more nonsense. The observation of phases of Venus which cannot be explained in geocentric system was made in 1610.

Tychonic_system

 

[Brendan]

Nonsense. Do you even know what retrograde motion is and why it is a problem in a geocentric system, but not in a heliocentric system?

Yes I do. Not only am I an engineer myself, but my wife is a physicist. She has had this conversation with a number of colleagues The term, planetary retrograde motion describes the APPEARANT movement of the planets backwards.

Galileo attempted to explain it using his model, but his predictions were incredibly off, since his model leveraged circular orbits.

Nonsense again. The non-observation of stellar parallax is even addressed in Dialogo and attributed to – wait for it – distance to the stars. I have even quoted the relevant section of Galileo’s work upthread.

That was his theory, but the point was, it was not proved. Which is what we are discussing, how thourghly was the theory PROVEN.

Even more nonsense. The observation of phases of Venus which cannot be explained in geocentric system was made in 1610.

Actually, there was a theory to explain it, that of Venus having an ocean that reflected light and a darker land side. Which, of course, had the same level of proof that Galileo’s explaination for parralx had…none

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The fact is that Einstein couldn’t prove his case for GR based on his knowledge either. Science works by proposing an hypothesis and then trying to disprove it. That’s the case with all knowledge from experience, it’s made up of hypotheses which no one has yet disproved.

The Church is no mere political entity. It is supposed to be guided by an unchanging God, so appeals to moral relativism don’t wash. If Catholics won’t accept that the Church’s moral stance is absolute and infallible, they can’t expect anyone else to either.

On this occasion the Church done wrong, Pope John Paul II said it done wrong, and it’s weird that the only people who won’t accept his word, and the long and exhaustive Pontifical Commission, are a few Catholics. If Catholics won’t accept the word of a Pope, they can’t expect anyone else to either.

The Pope is infallible only when he is teaching about faith and morals. He is not infallible when making prudential judgments. The decision of the court was itself a prudential judgment and the Pope’s judgment of the court’s judgment was a prudential judgment. Neither he nor the Cardinal were teaching a matter of faith and morals which must be believed and adhered to. Please be careful when you say what Catholics are to believe or not believe.

Linus2nd

 

[ericc]

Yes he could. He did. He had. And it shouldn’t matter - he should have been free to express his opinion even without evidence, even if he had been wrong.

 

[ericc]

The fact is that Einstein couldn’t prove his case for GR based on his knowledge either. Science works by proposing an hypothesis and then trying to disprove it. That’s the case with all knowledge from experience, it’s made up of hypotheses which no one has yet disproved.

So does a hypothesis becomes a fact because someone thinks it should be? If you have a big name like Galileo or Einstein, you do not need to prove it? But a nameless nobody have to? Gosh, is that how the science community works?

The Church is no mere political entity. It is supposed to be guided by an unchanging God, so appeals to moral relativism don’t wash. If Catholics won’t accept that the Church’s moral stance is absolute and infallible, they can’t expect anyone else to either.

On this occasion the Church done wrong, Pope John Paul II said it done wrong, and it’s weird that the only people who won’t accept his word, and the long and exhaustive Pontifical Commission, are a few Catholics. If Catholics won’t accept the word of a Pope, they can’t expect anyone else to either.

I am not denying that some churchmen erred in handling this case. Science matters such as this do not fall under the scope of papal infallibility which is used rather loosely by non-catholics. There was no papal infallibility statement on morals in this case either. If you are aiming at particular individuals who have erred, please do so. History is littered with such people. Many of our Popes are not saints either. And your point is?

Is the Church anti-science? No. the evidence is to the contrary.

 

[inocente]

The Pope is infallible only when he is teaching about faith and morals. He is not infallible when making prudential judgments. The decision of the court was itself a prudential judgment and the Pope’s judgment of the court’s judgment was a prudential judgment. Neither he nor the Cardinal were teaching a matter of faith and morals which must be believed and adhered to. Please be careful when you say what Catholics are to believe or not believe.

Galileo and I now have something in common, we’ve both been told to mind our Ps and Qs.

But I never said anything about what Catholics are to believe or not believe. What I said was:

"If Catholics won’t accept the word of a Pope, they can’t expect anyone else to either."

In what way do you think that’s untrue? Isn’t it just a statement of the obvious? Couldn’t any Catholic say exactly the same? Couldn’t Pope John Paul II have said the same? Couldn’t Pope Francis say precisely the same?

 

[inocente]

So does a hypothesis becomes a fact because someone thinks it should be? If you have a big name like Galileo or Einstein, you do not need to prove it? But a nameless nobody have to? Gosh, is that how the science community works?

It’s how any a posteriori claim works, in philosophy and theology as well.

Abstract ideas, a priori, such as in math, can be proved. In other words, you can prove that a theorem follows from the stated axioms.

But this can’t be done with matters of fact, because they are based on past experience. You can say that the Sun will rise tomorrow, but you cannot prove it because you can’t be absolutely certain it won’t explode or whatever between now and then. So all a posteriori claims rest on probability and disproof rather than proof.

JPII’s Pontifical Commission (there’s a link to its report way back on the thread), concluded that there was evidence for Galileo’s claim at the time of the trial, and more evidence since, whereas no evidence whatsoever has ever been produced for the competing claim that the sun goes around the earth.

That was one of the big mistakes in the trial.

*I am not denying that some churchmen erred in handling this case. Science matters such as this do not fall under the scope of papal infallibility which is used rather loosely by non-catholics. There was no papal infallibility statement on morals in this case either. If you are aiming at particular individuals who have erred, please do so. History is littered with such people. Many of our Popes are not saints either. And your point is?

Is the Church anti-science? No. the evidence is to the contrary.*

That wasn’t my point though. The Church claims to be guided infallibly by God, and God never changes, in which case the Church’s moral stance must logically remain constant.

But some on this thread claim that the Church never made a mistake because it had different standards (on free speech etc.) back then. In which case we cannot trust that any of its standards of justice are absolute, they just blow in the wind according to the fashions of the times, including the Church’s stance on slavery, treatment of women, child labor, racism and so on.

So saying that the Church’s standards changed, directly refutes the Church’s claim to be guided infallibly by an unchanging God. Whereas if we accept the word of JPII that the case was a mistake, an aberration, then that problem never arises.

 

[Stephen168]

Here’s someone who did have a track record, although he wasn’t a blogger and so might not be much of an authority in your book. His Eminence Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture in 1992.

1. “Galileo proved the earth went around the sun and not the other way around.”

3. In fact, Galileo had not succeeded in proving irrefutably the double motion of the earth – its annual orbit round the sun and its daily rotation on the polar axis – when he was convinced that he had found proof of it in the ocean tides, the true origin of which only Newton would later demonstrate.

 

[inocente]

.

Thanks for finding the post linking the Commission report but I’m not sure what your point is. As said, Galileo was right. As said, it is not possible to prove irrefutably a posteriori claims. And as said, a few line after your quote:

“For their part, Galileo’s adversaries, neither before nor after him, have discovered anything which could constitute a convincing refutation of Copernican astronomy.”

And their summary:

“It is in that historical and cultural framework, far removed from our own times, that Galileo’s judges, incapable of dissociating faith from an age-old cosmology, believed, quite wrongly, that the adoption of the Copernican revolution, in fact not yet definitively proven, was such as to undermine Catholic tradition, and that it was their duty to forbid its being taught. This subjective error of judgement, so clear to us today, led them to a disciplinary measure from which Galileo ‘had much to suffer’. These mistakes must be frankly recognised, as you, Holy Father, have requested.”

 

[Stephen168]

Thanks for finding the post linking the Commission report but I’m not sure what your point is.

My point is: The OP listed five myths associated with the Galileo Affair. While we can add volumes to the details of the how, who, and why; they are, in fact, myths. For example, adding that Galileo’s adversaries have never disproved heliocentrism, doesn’t change the myth that Galileo proved it.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Galileo and I now have something in common, we’ve both been told to mind our Ps and Qs.

But I never said anything about what Catholics are to believe or not believe. What I said was:

"If Catholics won’t accept the word of a Pope, they can’t expect anyone else to either."

In what way do you think that’s untrue? Isn’t it just a statement of the obvious? Couldn’t any Catholic say exactly the same? Couldn’t Pope John Paul II have said the same? Couldn’t Pope Francis say precisely the same?

A Catholic who knows his/her faith is used to misunderstandings. If people don’t want to believe what we say about our own faith there isn’t much we can do. We certainly aren’t going to stop believing just those outside the faith can’t accept it.

I got what you said and your intention was clear enough. If you can’t see the difference between prudential judgment and an article of faith or a moral teaching, there isn’t much I can do.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

My point is: The OP listed five myths associated with the Galileo Affair. While we can add volumes to the details of the how, who, and why; they are, in fact, myths. For example, adding that Galileo’s adversaries have never disproved heliocentrism, doesn’t change the myth that Galileo proved it.

The only problem being that although it’s been asked for repeatedly, not one shred of evidence has even been produced for the OP claim that the supposed myths are “lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts”.

No evidence has been produced that these supposed “five myths” appear anywhere outside of dilettante internet blogs and forums.

Even then, suppose we take the third “myth”, that “The Church condemned heliocentrism because it believed the Bible had to be interpreted literally”.

John Paul II himself says that’s no myth, that’s a statement of fact:

“The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture.” - L’Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264) - November 4, 1992

So, as a Catholic, do you want me to trust the word of internet bloggers or do you want me to trust the word of Pope John Paul II?

 

[inocente]

A Catholic who knows his/her faith is used to misunderstandings. If people don’t want to believe what we say about our own faith there isn’t much we can do. We certainly aren’t going to stop believing just those outside the faith can’t accept it.

I got what you said and your intention was clear enough. If you can’t see the difference between prudential judgment and an article of faith or a moral teaching, there isn’t much I can do.

I don’t remember anyone saying anything about your faith.

I imagine you’re huffing and puffing to cover you retreat, but as I’m not feeling overly full of mercy at the minute it remains that any Catholic, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, could justifiably state the obvious fact that if Catholics won’t accept the word of a Pope, they can’t expect anyone else to either.

Before replying, you might like to recall the First Law Of Holes: When in one, stop digging.

 

[Brendan]

The only problem being that although it’s been asked for repeatedly, not one shred of evidence has even been produced for the OP claim that the supposed myths are “lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts”.

No evidence has been produced that these supposed “five myths” appear anywhere outside of dilettante internet blogs and forums.

The proof comes from the very definition of scientific proof.

A hypothesis is offered, the hypothesis will have charasitics predictions that are subject to empirical proof, the predictions are tested, when tested, the hypothesis is shown to have been proven.

Galileo (and Kepler) offered the first two, the hypothesis and certain predictions.

But neither one of them carried out the actual proof.

A more modern example is the Higgs Boson particle. Higgs did not ‘prove’ that the particle exists, he only offered the hypothesis and specific characteristics of what the particle would have.

The actual attempts to show proof are under way now.

Another example is the concept of universe expansion. Einstein showed that the universe was not in a steady state (static), that it was either expanding or contracting, but he did not know which. Lemaitre ( a Catholic priest by the way), came up with the theory of universe expansion, and show that if it was, it would have to have come from a single point, but did not ‘prove’ it.

It fell to Hubble to show that the universe was expanding, and the final proof if a distinct prediction of the ‘Big Bang’ came from the Bicep2 project just this year.

Galileo did many things, but no actual scientist or (any honest person) will claim that he proved heliocentrism. And even that got blown out of the water in the with the discovery that we are in the Milky Way, the Sun is not the center of the universe either