I must say, there still seems to be something intensely disingenuous about focusing on Galileo’s mistaken theory of the tides, as if that aspect of the debate mattered at all. On review of Sobel’s account, here is what I gather:
Galileo’s letter to Madama Castelli, having made its way to Caccini et al., wound its way up to an inquisitor general. Crucial passages in his letter were altered by malicious detractors, perhaps to precipitate an altercation. In truth, Galileo had taken some pains to avoid theological conflict, even providing explanations for how Biblical passages, such as those of Joshua commanding the Sun to remain still, could be reconciled with scientific observations. Galileo later had to send a copy of the unaltered letter to Cardinal Piero Dini, who dutifully circulated it, in an attempt to clear his good name. Through all this Galileo felt that his detractors were more in violation of theological principles than himself, citing Augustine, Tertullian, Jerome, Aquinas, Dionysis and Ambrose as supporting the idea that complex issues should be weighed with theological moderation and caution in case strident judgement unfairly condemned hypotheses that did not actually conflict with Scripture. In so doing, he indirectly accused them of violating theological principles set down in the Council of Trent, which gave the Church fathers sole authority to interpret Scripture. He, of course, was accused of the very same offense.
Lacking sufficient evidence to back the Copernican model (Tycho Brahe’s Geocentric model could not be satisfactorily refuted by the observations Galileo could make with his telescope). His “Treatise on the Tides” was submitted voluntarily, and Galileo hoped it would provide the proof necessary to vindicate the Copernican model, and, in his estimation, defend not only scientific inquiry under the aegis of Rome, but also, ironically, to defend Rome itself against heresy from within.
Galileo, in not taking the Moon into account, was indeed wrong about the tides. In fact, his inability to account for the tides except by invoking the concept of an Earth that moved proved nothing definitively, since he could merely be mistaken about their cause. But his theory on the tides was not unreasonable, given that the concept of gravity had not yet been invented. At any rate, the scientific merit of his theory was never the real issue. Pope Paul V refused to even read it, but rather called upon Cardinal Bellarmino, who had already professed distaste for the Copernican model on purely theological grounds, to evaluate the merit of the Treatise. Bellarmino rightly pointed out that Galileo had not provided proof of the Copernical model, and could not assert its truth. But his refutation, based only on what he felt was a common-sense observation that if the heavens appeared to move about the Earth, they in fact did, was absolutely lacking any of the proofs Bellarmino felt Galileo failed to produce.
Subsequently, a panel of theologians found Galileo’s defense of the Copernical model to be philisophically absurd, “formerly heretical”, and “erroneous in faith”. The theory of Copernicus was officially condemned for the first time as heresy, and Galileo was commanded to renounce it, which he did. Galileo was not yet charged himself with heresy, but the rumor of it besmirched his name, and Galileo had to request a letter of exoneration from Bellarmino to defend himself.
Again, I can see no reason to consider Galileo’s error in his theory of the tides as a mitigating or really salient issue in this episode. While he provided no definitive proof of the Copernical model, his detractors needed none; they relied solely on a narrow interpretation of scripture to bolster their argument, and supplied specious observational details to flesh it out. They then proclaimed the unquestionable Truth of the geocentric model, and called the matter resolved. Certainly if Galileo had agreed to only consider his Theory an hypothesis from the outset, and not insist on its accuracy, he would have fared much better. His judgement was indeed clouded by what he felt was a desperate need to set the Church fathers on the proper path, and that was certainly his undoing. But the objections of the Church fathers were themselves so weighted by bias, bias that was in no way supported by the sorts of proofs Galileo neededed to provide to defend his name from slander (not to mention the Copernican model, the correct model of the Solar System if one ignores the Sun’s motion about the galactic center, from the brand of heresy), it seems incredibly unbalanced to consider Galileo’s failings so worthy of note, or in any way deserving of what befell him.
