Reading the Wikipedia article isn’t really conducting an exhaustive research on the subject. I read about the legal case made at Galileo’s trial in an offline book. I tried to find an online reference to it but I couldn’t.
Obviously, the reason Galileo was charged was due to political factors and I don’t need that explained to me. But the specific charges were not political. Galileo wasn’t charged with five counts of Weakening Church Authority in Germany in the Second Degree.
How do you know that?
Did anybody else think electromagnetic induction when you read the thread title?
Obviously the Wikipedia entry isn’t intended to be a source for deep research. It’s supposed to be a summary for those who don’t know much about the subject. You want a book? O.K., look at the beginning of Part 5, Chapter 1, “Galileo’s Triumph” in The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler. It talks about how Jesuit astronomers confirmed Galileo’s observations by using telescopes themselves. Now let’s hear your citation.
It seems to date to at least the Ancient Greeks:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5624-h/5624-h.htm
(Search for the text, “earth was”)
Sage Rat, the book you’re citing consists of two lectures, one delivered in 1913 and the other delivered several years later. In one of those lectures, the speaker illustrates his argument by making up a Socratic dialogue in which the characters are named after the characters given in Plato’s dialogues. This only proves that in 1913 (or so), there was someone who believed that people at one time believed that the Earth was made for man. It doesn’t address at all the specific belief that things that man can’t see don’t therefore exist.
I did not notice that! Woops!
Looking again, I see many assertions that Greek, Christian, and Islamic philosophy all endorse the idea that the world was made for mankind, but I don’t see any citations of actual scripture as of yet. I’ll keep looking.