Randi tackles religion vs. science

Great Debates
81

Oouch. Stop it, Dewey, your powers of analysis are giving me a headache.

The Church objected when Galileo began publically speaking about what he saw. Pope Urban told him, in all seriousness, that it didn’t matter what he observed since God could make the universe look like whatever he wished. :rolleyes:

If we’re seriously considering the question of whether an organization abused its power and authority, citing sources linked to that organization is a questionable tactic at best. It’s not called the “Catholic” Encyclopedia because it’s all-inclusive, buddy.

The idea that the Earth is somehow, mysteriously, not subject to the same principles as everything else? Um, that is apologism, Dewey. And have you stopped chewing on lead paint chips? :slight_smile:

** Those “learned men” weren’t scientists – they learned by rote. Galileo didn’t just pick a position at random. His new position was based on observable evidence and principles of logic that seem to be beyond you. The heliocentric model was objectively better in a scientific sense. (Once Kepler realized that orbits were actually ellipses, Galileo’s ideas were incontrovertible, but that doesn’t mean they were weak before.)

But Copernicus kept his head down. He was also worried about
being perceived as a heretic. I’ll see if I can locate a cite.

** It was a dumb position.

He wasn’t a prick. His insistence wasn’t based on ego or arrogance, but on CONCEPTUAL PRINCIPLES that can be used to evaluate arguments. I’m sure that if he had been willing to compromise his reason and his principles, the Church wouldn’t have had a problem.

Please, continue blaming the victim. The mighty and powerful Galileo obviously was a tremendous threat to the struggling masses of the faithful. Galileo had to sneak out his final work because… because he was sneaky! Yeah, that’s it!

82

The CE is a valuable resource that has stood the test of time. It’s silly to dismiss it out of hand, any more than you would dismiss the views of a Notre Dame professor. **

Again, I am not an apologist for Catholic doctrine.

83

** As I pointed out before, the standards for “learned persons” aren’t the same now as they were then. The geocentric explanation also had serious flaws.

Your point being? Since when did the Catholic Church become the arbiter of scientific debate? --especially since “science” as we know it was just being born.

Even with their limitations, Galileo’s ideas about the shape of the solar system were superior to the Ptolemaic system. Why did people hold to that system? Because they were used to it. Brahe’s proposed compromise was a massive, ad hoc way of acknowledging the superiority of the heliocentric model while keeping the Earth at the center.

They contradict statements you’ve made about the reasons the Church prosecuted Galileo. Did you actually read them?

84

Yes, by all means, read that cite. Particularly this paragraph:

(Emphasis added)

Yeah, that sure sounds like an institution opposed to all scientific inquiry affecting church doctrine. :rolleyes:

85

**

Perhaps I am not making my posts clear. The italicized quotes are from the source material I have cited

**

Yes the Catholic Church had committed itself to Ptolemy’s view of the solar system. However, it was not saying that Galileo was wrong in his following the Copernican view. They were not questioning that the planets and moons moved as he said they did. They were saying that there could be another explanation for this movement and that Galileo had to agree, when writing, that it is possible there was another explanation for the movement he saw.

**

Please cite. PBS and Rutger’s University seem to agree with my view.

**

Hindsight is 20/20. In the 1600s there was not enough ‘proof’ for either side to overwhelm the other with evidence. What could be seen could easily support either argument. The Copernican model thought that all planets rotated around the sun in a perfect sphere, which was not what was beening shown by the evidence.

That is the 2nd grade version. If you want to look at the fact as an adult, Galileo was an arrogant man who would not admit there could be another possible explanation for his observations. He would not look at the reality of his situation and see that those with political and spiritual power around him where telling him. Not to keep quiet, but to admit that there were other explanations besides his own.

I am not in any way excusing the Catholic Church. Urban made an ass out of himself and a laughing stock out of the church with his decisions. However, it is not in any way as cut and dried as you are saying.

86

You seem to have read nothing about Galileo beyond the propaganda you are attempting to purvey. Galileo scorned everyone who did not worship at the altar of adulation for him, even castigating people who actually proved him wrong while erroneously declaring that he was right. When he got into a fight with Fr. Grassi over comets (in which Grassi was clearly right and Galileo clearly wrong) Galileo not only called Grassi and ass, he declared that “it was granted to me alone to discover all the new phenomena in the sky and nothing to anybody else. This is the truth which neither virtue nor envy can suppress.” Among the people he dismissed, rudely, was Marius von Gunzenhausen who discovered the spiral nebula in Andromeda. He claimed to have discovered sunspots, despite the fact that they were already known from the works of Lystat and Scheiner (among others). He ridiculed the notion of comets, calling them “Tycho’s monkey-planets.” He failed to recognize that his own observations were accepted because Kepler supported them. going so far as to simply refuse to acknowledge communications from Kepler.

Here is a fairly evenhanded treatment of the whole mess How NOT to engage the Theology/Science debate (pdf format)
And the same site in Google cached html

This is simply anti-religious propaganda as a reading of the actual history shows. (For one thing, it ignores two salient points: many of the people studying astronomy at the time disagreed with Galileo; Galileo never provided proof of his assertions–proof that can be found, and was when we finally identified a stellar parallax in 1838–providing errors as defense.) Galileo did not engage in scientific debate, he used a literary satire to present his propositions.

87

Um, actually it did. The Ptolemaic model relies completely on a series of ad hoc “corrections” that are necessary to keep its predictions related to the observable universe. The Copernican model wasn’t a great deal better, but it was certainly no worse.

He wasn’t right by accident.

88

Your first sentencve indicates that you are simply ignorant of people you are libeling. Few people and no scholars learned by rote. It is interesting that you raise Kepler’s modification to the Copernican system, since Galileo loudly argued against Klepler on that point, making Galileo’s claims erroneous.

89

** Galileo was also a pompus, arrogant ass. So was Newton. Your point being?

It would be nice if Galileo was a paragon of virtue, but he was as conniving, glory-seeking, and willing to take credit for the discoveries of others as the rest of the “scientists” of the time.

He was still justified in this instance.

90

No. Nothing that Galileo published ever proved the Copernican theory (especially since, without the corrections supplied by Kepler that Galileo rejected, the Copernican calculations were in error), and he published enough easily spotted errors as to make his claims suspect. What do you believe he published the “proved” helocentrism?

91

When are you claiming heliocentrism was “proved”?

Heliocentrism is simply the most convenient way of thinking about things. We can always create other explanations for our observations – they just won’t be as good.

92

Again, not true. No one contested Galileo’s publication of his observations of Jupiter. They took issue with his interpretation of those observations, but not with the observations themselves. **

This is getting old. If you have a serious challenge to any of the facts contained in the CE, please pony up citations now. Enough of this mudslinging nonsense.

(It’s a “Catholic” Encyclopedia, BTW, because it is an encyclopedia of people, places and events involving the church. The Galileo affair is one such event. Its coverage of that event is as inclusive as an encyclopedia entry can be). **

Your contention that Tycho Brahe – one of the giants of astronomy – was a church apologist is noted. It doesn’t help your credibility. **

By “learned men,” I meant Galileo’s contemporaries in the study of astronomy. You’re being deliberately obtuse. **

Actually, at the time, it wasn’t “objectively better.” Indeed, there were gaping holes in Galileo’s theory, just as there were problems with the Brahe theory. You can’t expect Galileo’s contemporaries to have just overlooked those problems. **

Actually, Kepler was Brahe’s assistant, and it was Brahe who put forth the notion of elliptical orbits. Kepler of course went on to make his own contributions to science, including disproving Galileo’s objectively wrong theory on the tides. **

I call bullshit on this. Copernicus died long before the church started taking Copernican motion seriously (he did meet some resistance from Protestants, though – and was protected by a Catholic bishop). Copernicus died in 1543, long before the Galileo affair. **

You are aware that it is possible to both be right and be an arrogant prick, aren’t you?

93

The point is theat the false claim was made that Galileo’s nasty way of writing was simply a reaction to being ignored by people that he had proven wrong. The reality is that he was nasty to everyone, including people who had proven him wrong and people who tried to help him. He also made enough errors that his own claims were not “proof” of his claims.

He was basically persecuted for being a nasty SOB and prosecuted by attempting to dictate doctrine, and the claims that he was persecuted or prosecuted for holding science up against faith are bogus.

94

Pls. read my post again: I never said religion is bad, nor did I ever say your “spiritual love” (I still don’t know what it is, btw) is bad. I merely pointed out that you were being disingenious by listing only the negative side of science.

Also, none of the three things you mentioned are mutually excusive.

While I am a non-believer, I have no probem with the above statement.

95

He didn’t dictate doctrine. He had no authority or power to do so.

It’s not as if he were part of the religious hierarchy. He was prosecuted for spreading false teachings that contradicted Catholic doctrine (which is how it was known they were false).

96

Not really. There was no doctrine regarding the heliocentric or terracentric theories. At the first trial, the judges made a declaration of heresy based on their own interpretations. They were not relying on any church teaching that preceded them. They were motivated by personal issues with his behavior.

Once they had ordered him to no teach the Copernican theory, the second trial resulted from his apparent violation of that order.

In other words, he was not brought to trial for violating doctrine.
The claim that “he didn’t dictate doctrine,” based on the faulty premise that he did not have that authority is incorrect. One of the reasons that he irritated people (beyond his personality) is that he did insist that doctrine be changed. Please go back and read the various descriptions of “maintining the appearances.” The phrase has a different meaning, now, regarding putting up a false face in public, but the technical meaning in philosophy at that time was a different issue. As long as Galileo had simply published his findings on science, he would have been left alone. It was specifically that he insisted his science be used without proof to modify doctrine that got him in trouble. Had he actually had proof, we might be looking at a different story, but his proof was lacking.

97

Yes, there was.

The Catholic Church actively taught the idea that the Earth was the center of Creation, metaphysically AND physically. This wasn’t originally part of Christianity, nor was it the doctrine of other branches of Christianity at the time.

The discovery of objects orbiting something that wasn’t Earth disproved the Church’s claims that Earth was the center and focus of everything.

98

Much of the Catholic Encyclopedia is not facts, but theology. And even facts can be colored by bias. Specific citations? Here’s one. I have read much about Jesus’ life, from pious fiction to serious archeology/anthropology to those who claim the dude never existed. The following quote, from CE, would fall pretty far on the pious side of the fence:

500 eyewitnesses? About the number that personally witnessed UFOs land in Roswell, right? So the CE is a book of facts?

(Note: this text is followed by a section that purports to refute all possible arguments against an actual, physical, supernatural, resurrection of the body and person of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.)

Now, you want me to accept a history story as incontrovertible fact, a story about Church/science interaction, from a source which has much to gain in the eyes of the world if shown to be accurate? Not without some serious corroborating evidence, friend.

99

You can, of course, provide a citation to the council, synod, papal bull, encyclical, or some sort of reference to support this statement, which is, in fact, not true?

Quoting anti-religious tracts is not going to cut it, here. We will need to see an actual pronouncement from the church, not speculation by a theologian or preacher, but an official church declaration regarding the physical universe.

The fact of the matter is that you have built up your argument by reverse-engineering what you want to believe occurred in despite of the evidence. Even the noted antireligious writer, Thomas Huxley, offered his opinion that the trial of Galileo was pretty much a victory for the church on points.

Rather than your neat fable of the heavy-handed church squashing Galileo’s science, the historical record shows that the Holy Office of the Inquisition (or its immediate predecessor) rejected claims against Galileo on two separate occasions when outraged prelates sought to have him tried for heresy, on each occasion finding nothing wrong with his writings. It was only on the third review by the Holy Office–after Galileo had demanded action from the pope–that they finally looked over his latest claims in which he insisted that they declare his unproven theories (with their errors of fact) to be “True” that they finally got tired of having him show up and declared his statements contrary to faith. And, at that, the did not cite any previous document of the church that actually supported their position.

100

So what? Galileo basically said “I’m right, all my critics are wrong, and the church needs to adjust its doctrine accordingly.” He was, in fact, telling the church that they had to change their doctrine. That he personally had no power to do so is irrelevant – that is what he was seeking to have happen.

TVAA, I don’t know what your problem is, but I look back over this thread and I see valid citation from myself, tomndebb, and Reepicheep. I see nothin’ from you, except for a couple of links that don’t contradict anything we’ve actually said. Are you ever going to put up or shut up?