Talk:Galileo affair

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Over at Galileo Galilei there was talk a long time ago about splitting out the section called Church Controversy and rewriting the whole story as a separate article. The section has long been too big (putting the article as a whole over the recommended max size) and too sprawling and self-contradictory. In spite of its already large size, fair coverage of the many controversies inevitably causes the section to get longer, even if handled well. But no one ever had the time to do the rewrite.

Now that that section has been hit with a demand for cleanup, we really ought to undertake the job. For a basis, I have copied the whole section, as it stands, as the text of this article. This is not because the article ought to stay in its present form, but to get the old text into a convenient place in the History.

Then I'll change the section in the Galileo article to a brief summary, with a pointer to this as the Main Article. More on that in the the Galileo talk page.

Then I'm going to blank out the text of this Trial article and turn it into a stub, from which the new article can be written. It would be futile to try to make a good text just by patching the old one, which needs massive reorganization; but we'll have all the pieces of the old version from which to crib as needed. Parts of it are very good.

The old Church Controversy text is also being copied below as part of the talk page, as this might be more accessible than going back into the History page to find old text. Dandrake 23:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Dandrake, this is a very impressive, NPOV and accurate article with repect to this controversy. WRT names, how about something like Galileo: the conflict with Rome ot Galileo's Conflict with Rome (or The Church or The Inquisition, etc..) The point is to get trial out of there as it is too resticted and expand it a broader concept like conflict or confrontation or something along those lines.--Lacatosias 08:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Usually the whole church controversy topic is known as the "Galileo Affair". It's actually the name of several books, but I think it predates the books that use that as the title; I think the commonness of the term outweighs the partisanness of it, since people have written about it using that term from a wide variety of views.--ragesoss 14:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

n fact, the new brief text from the main Galileo article has been pasted in, forming a rough outline. Let's replace this rapidly with a well-organized text (in which it will be impossible to recognize this first hack).

As to this article's name: it's not really accurate, as this covers far more than the trial of 1633. It is very hard to find a descriptive and neutral name. "The Galileo Affair" could be one, but it's not, being the title of a book, and a partisan one. "Galileo--For Copernicus and the Church" appeals to me, but that one is also taken. As is "The Crime of Galileo". "Galileo, heliocentrism, and the Church" would be descriptive, but it sounds pompous.

Any better ideas? Please? Dandrake 01:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Church controversy

This is the former text, complete:
Galileo was a practicing Catholic, yet his writings on Copernican heliocentrism disturbed some in the Roman Catholic Church who believed in a geocentric model of the solar system. They argued that heliocentrism was in direct contradiction of the Bible (Joshua (10:12)): "Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, 'Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon'." This Bible passage could be literally interpreted as the Sun and the Moon were both objects peripheral-to or a subset-of Earth, as opposed to a more symbolic, metaphysical interpretation (e.g., their representing a highly illuminated state of consciousness (the Sun founded upon Gibeon) and a phase of lower reflected intellect (the Moon in the valley of Ajalon) or thought). At that time the most literal Biblical interpretation was prevalent with the church hierarchy, especially among the Dominican Order, facilitators of the Inquisition; it was also in line with the highly revered ancient writings of Aristotle and Plato.

The geocentric model was generally accepted at the time, as it had been since philosophers first considered the heavens. By the time of the controversy, the Ptolemaic model had a serious rival in the Tychonian model in which the Earth was at the center of the Universe, the Sun revolved around the Earth and the other planets revolved around the Sun. This model is geometrically equivalent to the Copernican model and agreed with observations in that it predicted no parallax of the stars, an effect that was impossible to detect with the instruments of the time. In the view of Tycho and many others, this model explained the observable data of the time better than the geocentric model did. (That inference is valid, however, only on the assumption that no very small effect had been missed: that the instruments of the time were absolutely perfect, or that the Universe could not be much larger than was generally believed at the time. As to the latter, belief in the large, possibly infinite, size of the Universe was part of the heretical beliefs for which Giordano Bruno had been burned at the stake in 1600.)

An understanding of the controversies, if it is even possible, requires attention not only to the politics of religious organizations but to those of academic philosophy. Before Galileo had trouble with the Jesuits and before the Dominican friar Caccini denounced him from the pulpit, his employer heard him accused of contradicting Scripture by a professor of philosophy, Cosimo Boscaglia, who was neither a theologian nor a priest. Galileo was defended on the spot by a Benedictine abbot, Benedetto Castelli, who was also a professor of mathematics and a former student of Galileo's. It was this exchange, reported to Galileo by Castelli, that led Galileo to write the Letter to Grand Duchess Christina. (Castelli remained Galileo's friend, visiting him at Arcetri near the end of Galileo's life, after months of effort to get permission from the Inquisition to do so.)

There is evidence of an organized and secretive opposition to Galileo among some academic philosophers. This included professors against whom Galileo, who was not officially a philosopher at all, had successfully argued for the theory of buoyancy developed by Archimedes, as against that of Aristotle, which had been taught in the academies. Moreover, the new telescopic discoveries in astronomy were, even without arguments on heliocentrism, upsetting the established comprehensive theory of the heavens, again due to Aristotle. The Jesuit astronomers, after a period of disbelief when good telescopes were almost unobtainable, had soon enough agreed on the validity of Galileo's discoveries; by contrast, some professors of the secular academic world refused for a time to look through the telescope. Caccini's attack, if not actually inspired by the philosophers, was welcomed by them and had their support.

However, real power lay with the Church, and Galileo's arguments were most fiercely fought on the religious level. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century historian Andrew Dickson White wrote from an anti-clerical perspective:

The war became more and more bitter. The Dominican Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name ushered in sharper weapons; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that "geometry is of the devil," and that "mathematicians should be banished as the authors of all heresies." The Church authorities gave Caccini promotion.
Father Lorini proved that Galileo's doctrine was not only heretical but "atheistic," and besought the Inquisition to intervene. The Bishop of Fiesole screamed in rage against the Copernican system, publicly insulted Galileo, and denounced him to the Grand-Duke. The Archbishop of Pisa secretly sought to entrap Galileo and deliver him to the Inquisition at Rome. The Archbishop of Florence solemnly condemned the new doctrines as unscriptural; and Paul V, while petting Galileo, and inviting him as the greatest astronomer of the world to visit Rome, was secretly moving the Archbishop of Pisa to pick up evidence against the astronomer.

Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, one of the most respected Catholic theologians of the time, was called on to adjudicate the dispute between Galileo and his opponents, including both religious zealots and secular university professors. The appointment shows the world view that prevailed before the Scientific Revolution: a leading theologian was assigned to tell scholars what views they were allowed to "hold or defend" concerning the workings of the physical world.

Bellarmine insisted that Galileo furnish more adequate proof of his new theories before he would be allowed to teach them as true or even as probably true. Until such proof was forthcoming, the ideas should only be taught as hypotheses, in the old sense of the word: that is, as calculating tricks that were not to be considered as in any way real.

This put Galileo in a difficult position, as he had no conclusive proof for his position. In fact, his theories had gaps and errors, as is (we now know) the usual condition of radically new scientific work. The real meaning of the requirement for better proof became clear in the 1630s, when Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition because of his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. That book contained what Galileo considered to be a physical proof of the Earth's motion, based on the tides; had it been correct (which it was not), it would have satisfied Bellarmine's requirement. In the event, the Inquisition did not even consider whether the argument was right or wrong. It condemned Galileo simply for publishing, ignoring Bellarmine's reasoning.

While many in the Church supported Galileo, the charges brought by the priests who had been goaded to act against him were serious. These men asserted that dreadful consequences must result to Christian theology were the heavenly bodies proved to revolve about the Sun and not about the Earth. Their most tremendous dogmatic engine was the statement that "his pretended discovery vitiates the whole Christian plan of salvation." Father Lecazre declared, "It casts suspicion on the doctrine of the incarnation." Others declared, "It upsets the whole basis of theology. If the Earth is a planet, and only one among several planets, it can not be that any such great things have been done specially for it as the Christian doctrine teaches. If there are other planets, since God makes nothing in vain, they must be inhabited; but how can their inhabitants be descended from Adam and Eve? How can they trace back their origin to Noah's ark? How can they have been redeemed by the Saviour?" Nor was this argument confined to the theologians of the Roman Church; Melanchthon, Protestant as he was, had already used it in his attacks on Copernicus and his school. (White, 1898; online text)

In 1616, the Inquisition warned Galileo not to hold or defend the hypothesis asserted in Copernicus's On the Revolutions, though it has been debated whether he was admonished not to "teach in any way" the heliocentric theory. Copernicus's book was not condemned, rather, it was just held pending the correction of a few sentences. When Galileo was tried in 1633, the Inquisition was proceeding on the premise that he had been ordered not to teach it at all, based on a paper in the records from 1616; but Galileo produced a letter from Cardinal Bellarmine that showed only the "hold or defend" order. The latter is in Bellarmine's own hand and of unquestioned authenticity; the former is an unsigned copy, violating the Inquisition's own rule that the record of such an admonition had to be signed by all parties and notarized. Leaving aside technical rules of evidence, what can one conclude as to the real events? There are two schools of thought. According to Stillman Drake, the order not to teach was delivered unofficially and improperly; Bellarmine would not allow a formal record to be made, and assured Galileo in writing that the only order in effect was not to "defend or hold". According to Giorgio di Santillana, however, the unsigned minute was simply a fabrication by the Inquisition.

In 1623 Pope Gregory XV died, and Galileo's close friend Maffeo Barberini became Pope Urban VIII. The new Pope gave Galileo vague permission to ignore the ban and write a book about his opinions, so long as he did not openly support his theory. Galileo consented, and set to work writing his masterpiece, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (often called simply the Dialogue). It involved an argument between two intellectuals, one geocentric, the other heliocentric, and a layman, neutral but interested. Although it presented the Church's point of view, the geocentrist was depicted foolishly, while the heliocentrist often dominated the argument and convinced the neutral member in the end.

The Dialogue was published in 1632 with the approval of Catholic censors. It was applauded by intellectuals but nevertheless aroused the Church's ire. Despite his continued insistence that his work in the area was purely theoretical, despite his strict following of the church protocol for publication of works (which required prior examination by church censors and subsequent permission), and despite his former friendship with the Pope (who presided throughout the ordeal), Galileo was summoned to trial before the Roman Inquisition in 1633.

The Inquisition had rejected earlier pleas by Galileo to postpone or relocate the trial because of his ill health. At a meeting presided by Pope Urban VIII, the Inquisition decided to notify Galileo that he either had to come to Rome or that he would be arrested and brought there in chains. Galileo arrived in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition on February 13, 1633. After two weeks in quarantine, Galileo was detained at the comfortable residence of the Tuscan ambassador, as a favor to the influential Grand Duke Ferdinand II de' Medici. When the ambassador reported Galileo's arrival and asked how long the proceedings would be, the Pope replied that the Holy Office proceeded slowly, and was still in the process of preparing for the formal proceedings. In the event, having responded to the urgent demands of the Inquisition that he must report to Rome immediately, Galileo was left to wait for two months before proceedings would begin.

On April 12, 1633, Galileo was brought to trial, and the formal interrogation by the Inquisition began. During this interrogation Galileo stated that he did not defend the Copernican theory, and cited a letter of Cardinal Bellarmine from 1615 to support this contention. The Inquisition questioned him on whether he had been ordered in 1616 not to teach Copernican ideas in any way (see above); he denied remembering any such order, and produced a letter from Bellarmine saying only that he was not to hold or defend those doctrines.

He was then detained for eighteen days in a room in the offices of the Inquisition (not in a dungeon cell). During this time the Commissary General of the Inquisition, Vincenzo (later Cardinal) Maculano, visited him for what amounted to plea bargaining, persuading Galileo to confess to having gone too far in writing the book. In a second hearing on April 30, Galileo confessed to having erred in the writing of the book, through vain ambition, ignorance, and inadvertence. He was then allowed to return to the home of the Tuscan ambassador. On May 10, he submitted his written defense, in which he defended himself against the charge of disobeying the Church's order, confessed to having erred through pride in writing the book, and asked for mercy in light of his age and ill health.

A month later (June 21), by order of the Pope, he was given an examination of intention, a formal process that involved showing the accused the instruments of torture. At this proceeding, he said, "I am here to obey, and have not held this [Copernican] opinion after the determination made, as I said."

On June 22, 1633, the Inquisition held the final hearing on Galileo, who was then 69 years old and pleaded for mercy, pointing to his "regrettable state of physical unwellness". Galileo was forced at this time to "abjure, curse and detest" his work and to promise to denounce others who held his prior viewpoint. Galileo did everything the church requested him to do, following (insofar as there is any evidence) the plea bargain of two months earlier; nonetheless, he was convicted of "grave suspicion of heresy" and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Although ten Cardinal Inquisitors had heard the case, the sentence delivered on June 22 bears the signature of only seven; one of the three missing was Cardinal Barberini, the Pope's nephew. It is generally held that this indicates a refusal to endorse the sentence. The seven who signed, however, were those who were present at that day's proceedings; Cardinals Barberini and Borgia in particular, were attending an audience with the Pope on that day. Analysis of the Inquisition's records has shown that the presence of only seven of ten Cardinals was not exceptional; hence the inference that Barberini was protesting the decision may be doubted.

That the threat of torture and death Galileo was facing was a real one is widely, though not universally, accepted. Many point to the earlier Inquisitional trial against Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in 1600 ostensibly for holding a naturalistic view of the Universe. However, Bruno denied the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the immortality of the soul, among other heresies. He partially recanted his heretical beliefs during the investigation of his works, but returned to them before the investigation was completed. Heretics were never burned unless they recanted and subsequently returned to their heresies. Galileo was never convicted of heresy; even in the second trial, he was only "vehemently suspected of heresy".

It is often held that he was punished at the second trial for having disobeyed what was believed to be a valid injunction not to discuss Copernicanism. The formal decision of the court, however, makes no mention of such an order, condemning him only for the Copernican teachings. Moreover, in order to believe that there was such an injunction, one would have had to deny the word of a Cardinal (now a Saint) of the Church. In any case, such disobedience was not punishable by death. Thus, there is no substantial correspondence between Galileo's case and Bruno's. Whether such fine legal distinctions entered into Galileo's assessment of the dangers that faced him while the Inquisition was threatening him with torture and death is, of course, beyond the scope of this article.

The tale that Galileo, rising from his knees after recanting, said "E pur si muove!" (But it does move!) cannot be accepted as true: the penalty for going back on a confession before the Inquisition was to be burned at the stake (famously, in the case of Giordano Bruno and Jacques de Molay), and such a defiance would have been a ticket to follow Bruno to the stake. But the widespread belief that the whole incident is an 18th century invention is also false. (Drake, 1978, pp. 356–357). A Spanish painting, dated 1643 or possibly 1645, shows Galileo writing the phrase on the wall of a dungeon cell. Here we have a second version of the story, which also cannot be true, because Galileo was never imprisoned in a dungeon; but the painting shows that some story of "E pur si muove" was circulating in Galileo's time. In the months immediately after his condemnation, Galileo resided with Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini of Siena, a learned man and a sympathetic host; the fact that Piccolomini's brother was a military attaché in Madrid, where the painting was made some years later, suggests that Galileo may have made the remark to the Archbishop, who then wrote to his family concerning the event, which later became garbled in re-telling.

Galileo was sentenced to prison, but because of his advanced age (and/or Church politics) the sentence was commuted to house arrest at his villas in Arcetri and Florence 1. Because of a painful hernia, he requested permission to consult physicians in Florence, which was denied by Rome, which warned that further such requests would lead to imprisonment. Under arrest, he was forced to recite penitentiary psalms regularly, but his daughter, who was a nun at a nearby convent, successfully petitioned Rome to be allowed to say the psalms in his place. He was not supposed to have house guests, but this rule was not always strictly enforced. He was allowed to continue his less controversial research. During his confinement at home, Galilei managed to write an important book on his discoveries in physics (not related to the astronomical controversies), the "Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno á due nuoue scienze" or Two New Sciences.

Publication was another matter. His Dialogue had been put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the official black list of banned books, where it stayed until 1822 (Hellman, 1998). The banning of specific works was not an uncommon occurrence or one necessarily involving other dire consequences; Bellarmine himself had at one time been threatened with having his own work placed on the index. Nor, of course, did the ban inhibit Protestants and others; it meant only that Roman Catholics would not be able (without special permission) to know what Galileo had written. However, the prohibition did not stop at the one book. Though the sentence announced against Galileo mentioned no other works, Galileo found out two years later that publication of anything he might ever write had been quietly banned. The ban was effective in France, Poland, and German states, but not in the Netherlands. When the time came to publish the new book, Galileo had it smuggled out to Leiden, where it was published in 1638.

Placed under house-arrest, Galileo would, in 1638, be allowed to move to his home near Florence. Though by then totally blind, he continued to teach and write. After more than 8 years under arrest, he died at his villa in Arcetri, just north of Florence, in 1642.

According to Andrew Dickson White, in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (III.iii), 1896, Galileo's experiences demonstrate a classic case of a scholar forced to recant a scientific insight because it offended powerful, conservative forces in society: for the church at the time, it was not the scientific method that should be used to find truth — especially in certain areas — but the doctrine as interpreted and defined by church scholars, and White documented how this doctrine was defended by the Church with torture, execution, deprivation of freedom, and censorship. In a less polemical frame, this has remained the mainstream view among the historians of science. However, some feel this elides the underlying complexity of the trials and their context within Church and secular academic politics, as well as the weaknesses of some of Galileo's specific arguments, in light of the imprecise observations available at the time.

The viewpoints of White and similar-minded colleagues were never accepted by the Catholic community, partially because White's final analysis depicted Christianity as a destructive force. A fierce expression of this critical attitude can also be seen in Bertolt Brecht's play about Galileo, a source for popular ideas about the scientist. This is, of course, unfortunate. Brecht, a Marxist, was not interested in hewing to the historical facts so much as he was in making a case against theism and for atheism. Moreover, deeper examination of the primary sources for Galileo and his trial shows that claims of deprivation were likely exaggerated. Dava Sobel's biography Galileo's Daughter offers a different set of insights into Galileo and his world, in large part through the private correspondence of Maria Celeste, the daughter of the title, and her father.

On March 15, 1990 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, today Pope Benedict XVI, said in a speech in Parma: "At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just."

In 1992, 359 years after the Galileo trial and 350 years after his death, Pope John Paul II established a commission that ultimately issued an apology, lifting the edict of Inquisition against Galileo: "Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions." After the release of this report, the Pope said further that "... Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this regard [the relation of scientific and Biblical truths] than the theologians who opposed him."

[edit] Discussion of original text

There is much in here that should be incorporated into the main entry but hasn't. Is this a question of a subtle bias in favor of the Church perhaps??--Lacatosias 10:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Some of the biases in this article aren't just subtle, and there is a fair amount of disinformation; very few historians of science would agree with White's take on the Galileo Affair, as it's pretty much been proven wrong, as much as you can prove a general historical claim. But some of it is worth saving.--ragesoss 14:50, 20 January 2006 (UTC)


No, I wasn't referring to the sections on White. I was more interested in several claims that are in this version (not attributed to anyone) but are not in the other. E.g.:

"A month later (June 21), by order of the Pope, he was given an examination of intention, a formal process that involved showing the accused the instruments of torture. At this proceeding, he said, "I am here to obey, and have not held this [Copernican] opinion after the determination made, as I said."

and several others. As I am not going to go around chasing down the sources for these myself, my point was just to call attention to the fact that this version has some interesting and possibly usefel info that belongs in the article if it is true. If it's not verifiable, that's another matter. --Lacatosias 16:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I was just giving an example, and kinda writing in a hurry... sorry about that. The only point I was really trying to make was that, as you recognize, there is some valuable material, it just all needs to be checked carefully before being added.--ragesoss 17:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First notes on the rewrite

This text is painfully light on references. On an issue of such historical sensitivity (it is used as an "I told you so" argument by both sides) we HAVE to reference what we say. My texts differ with this article even on such simple things as dates, where did this information come from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.102.137 (talk • contribs) 12 April 2006

Very poorly refernced indeed. Compare with this article Katyn Forest. But your are free to edit the article and add any authoritiave verifiable references you think best. You'd be quite skocked at the the lack of references on Wikipedia. Iìm not an expert on this topic myself and don't have access to a library. Also, you should aslo ralize that the people who originally wrote this entry may not even be contributors to Wikipedea anymore. Any help you can provide would be appreciated.--Lacatosias 08:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Church (Pope) Apologises for Galileo Trial

I think this should be mentioned as one of the last paragraphs in this article. A quick search on the internet (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,230447,00.html) mentioned that the Pope had apologised for the trial. The article is originated in 2000, but the section seems to indicate that this happened further in the past (I can only vaguely recall when this happened. Mid 1990s???). So, what I'm saying is that something like this should be mentioned here if someone has got more facts than I have can you please put this in? Thanks. Further reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II#Apologies it states that this happened 31 October 1992, unfortunately this doesn't have a reference. Demerzel 16:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

It did indeed happen in 1992 - my astronomy book mentioned that the Roman Catholic church pardoned Galileo in 1992. Aerothorn 19:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
here (in italian) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1992/october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19921031_accademia-scienze_it.html
The article wrongly indicates 1992 as the year in which the Pope "established a commission". The commission was established on July 3, 1981Luca priorelli 01:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Koestler'sbook

Has anyone read Arthur Koestler's book "The Sleepwalkers?" I've heard there is an excellent section on the Galilean affair —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.181.209.20 (talk) 08:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Merits of the Catholic case against the Copernican view

The current article seems to me to be significantly unbalanced, giving the impression that the Church's objections to the Copernican view are principally Scriptural. No mention is made of two key features of the Church's case: (1) Galileo had no answer to the parallax problem - a key argument that the earth does not move that dates back to Aristotle. Thus it was indeed so that the proposition that the earth moves is "foolish and absurd in philosophy". Indeed, unless I am mistaken, no observations were made of parallax among the fixed stars until 1837 - Copernican believers just pressed on regardless of their lack of a coherent account of parallax. (2) That the sun is stationary (has the privileged position, among all objects in the universe, of being stationary and that around which all else revolves) is (a) not a position with which modern physics would have any truck (we believe that any point can be taken as the origin of an inertial frame, so that it is no more wrong to say that the earth is stationary than that the sun is stationary), and (b) clearly is an affront to any rational orthodox theism (so, the Churchmen did not need the sort of Scriptural arguments mentioned). For if the earth had a privileged stationary position, that would make sense - for it is where God made the Man and where the Son of God rose from the dead. But if the Sun were stationary and all else moved, we would want to know why? Is the Sun, perhaps, a God (indeed, there were suspicions that Copernicans were closet sun-worshippers)? At the very least, it would seem that there was something God might have mentioned. (This latter is an oft-under-reported element of the debate. Indeed, it is perhaps worth a little speculation whether relativity theory might have been developed earlier, had Copernican scientists reflected more deeply upon this important theological objection, instead of blithely regarding it as arising from religious dogmatism.)

In addition to these points (to which Galileo had no answer), there are further important objections to which Galileo did respond, including one of the most elegant thought experiments in history. Two of these are: "If the Earth is moving, why don't we (and particularly other creatures such as birds) feel it?" and "Why don't falling objects end up behind where they started?" Galileo's response was the famous thought experiment of the man on a horse throwing up a ball and catching it. The ball travels with the man, and its motion is relative to his. In the same way (indeed more so, since there is less friction for movement through solar space) the earth carries us with it. That is why we do not feel its motion, and why falling objects do not drift against the direction of the earth's motion.

The lack of all these important arguments significantly reduces the interest of the current entry. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.253.24.21 (talk) 14:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

These are well known facts, and somehow lacking in this article. Would you care to insert them, or shall I ? DanielDemaret 12:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
The claim that "Galileo had no answer to the parallax problem" is highly misleading. Not only did he have an answer, which he set out in detail at least three times in writing, the answer which he did give was quite correct. This correct explanation of why parallax was not observed--namely, that the radius of the earth's orbit is negligible relative to its distance from the fixed stars--had in fact already been suggested by the Pythagorean Philolaus, about 50-100 years before the time of Aristotle. Aristotle himself briefly refers to Philolaus's explanation in Chapter 13, book II, of de Caelo, without raising any objections to it.
While Aristotle has often been credited with having argued that the absence of stellar parallax constitutes evidence against the motion of the earth, this claim appears to be solely based on a very dubious reading of the first paragraph of Chapter 14, book II, of de Caelo. In view of all this I suggest that the attribution of this argument to Aristotle be dropped from the article, especially since the originator of the argument is largely immaterial anyway.
There are a few other problems with the text you have added:
'So despite his theory contradicting both simple theoretical arguments and observed data, he wanted his conviction to be taught as truth.'
This is a staple furphy of the less reliable apologetics literature. I have never seen a shred of evidence offered to justify it. There is good evidence from Galileo's private correspondence that he had been convinced by the discoveries he described in The Starry Messenger in 1610 that the Copernican Theory was at least a good approximation to reality, though probably not correct in every detail. However, before the end of 1613 the only statements he had ever published in its defence or support had been two very brief and relatively uncommittal remarks in The Starry Messenger and Letters on Sunspots.
At the end of 1613 and throughout 1615 Galileo produced a good deal of writing in response to alarming, scripturally motivated attacks on both Copernicanism and himself personally, including his denuncation to the Inquisition by two Dominican friars at the beginning of 1615. These writings consisted of:
  • his Letter to Castelli. This was private letter, although copies of it were circulated amongst Galileo's friends and supporters, and one of these eventually wound up in the hands of his enemies;
  • the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, an expanded version of his Letter to Castelli. Galileo started this in late 1614 or early 1615 in response to the alarming incidents which had occurred at that time. He had intended to circulate this widely amongst his friends and supporters, and possibly even to have it published. However, Copernicanism was condemned by the Congregation of the Index before he had had a chance to do so, and it does not seem to have circulated much, if at all, at that time. It was not published until 1636;
  • a response to Bellarmine's Letter to Foscarini. This was never published in Galileo's lifetime and he does not appear to have sent copies to anyone;
With the exception of the less important items of correspondence, English translations of all these writings have been given by Maurice Finoccharo in The Galileo Affair--a documentary history, which I have read. Not one of them contains any claim by Galileo that the evidence for Copernicanism is conclusive, let alone any evidence that "he wanted his conviction to be taught as truth." Neither have I seen this claim made in any other works by professional Galilean scholars that I have read, including Stillman Drake's Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography and Galileo: A Very Short Introduction, Michael Sharratt's Galileo--Decisive Innovator and Richard Blackwell's Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. It should be deleted from the article.
'As Simon Singh shows in his book "The Big Bang", there were other serious related problems with the Copernican model. The model by Ptolemaios corresponded better to observed data than the Copernican model.'
With all due respect to Simon Singh, this is poppycock. Owen Gingerich, an expert on Copernicus and Kepler, has shown by direct calculation that neither of the two models was markedly more accurate than the other (according to this site, reported on p.232 in The Eye of Heaven). More to the point, though, is that an alleged superior correspondence of the ptolemaic model to observed data was never raised as an objection to Copernicus's model by any of its opponents. This claim should therefore also be deleted.
The main argument against a movable earth was well known at the time, and was presented by Aristotle almost two millenia before : If the earth moves, why are there observable parallax shifts?
But in fact, Copernicus had already forestalled objections of precisely this form in chapter 10, book I of De Revolutionibus by deducing from the absence of observed parallax that the fixed stars are "an immense height away". Thus, when opponents of Copernicus (and Galileo) wanted to base an argument on the absence of parallax, they had to do so by arguing that it was 'absurd' to imagine that there could be such a vast expanse of 'wasted' empty space between Saturn or the fixed stars, or that the observed apparent sizes of the stars would have to make them 'absurdly' large if they had been so far away (larger than the entire solar system, according to Tycho Brahe).
In my opinion, the emphasis on the argument from the lack of parallax is misguided. The fact is that if one rejected the principles of Aristotelian physics and cosmology, many of which Galileo had already shown to be erroneous anyway, then Galileo had reasonable answers to all the objections to Copernicanism, including the argument from the lack of parallax. What he did not have is convincing evidence in favour of the Copernican theory, since the observed phenomena were all explained just as well at that time by the theory of Tycho Brahe, which had the added advantage of predicting that no annual parallax should be observed. David Wilson 16:43, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
"However, before the end of 1613 the only statements he [Galileo] had ever published in its defence or support had been two very brief and relatively uncommittal remarks in The Starry Messenger and Letters on Sunspots."
Since writing this I have learned that it isn't accurate. The Starry Messenger contains three brief statements that could be interpreted as supporting Copernicanism. Only one of these could reasonably be called "non-committal". The other two are anything but, and could hardly leave any of Galileo's readers in any doubt that he was a convinced Copernican.
David Wilson 13:42, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Big Bang

Simon Sing, in his book "The Big Bang" makes it clear that the idea of the earth running in a circle around the sun did not match observations, and was therefor rejected. This was until Kepler in the 17th century managed to discover that if an ellipse was chosen instead, the observations finally fit the calculations. This tangents the development here, and might possibly be mentioned as another example of how those resisting change did so since the Ptolemaian model fit the data better than the Copernican model. Who would support a model that did not fit the observations?DanielDemaret 12:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Galileo Article

The part concerning this affair often seems better detailed the Galileo article, than in this one.DanielDemaret 08:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Calendar Reform

There are numerous problems with the text added by 216.243.118.82 in revisions 131972707 of 19:45, May 19, 2007 and 131972755 of 19:46, May 19, 2007. I have moved the text here, and point out the problems below.

"The problem was the Aristotle cosmology that had been used had become so complicated that no one really knew what the date was. Because it was critial to know what date it was so the right religious rites could be performed on the right day the Council of Trent had ordered calendar reform. What they got in 1543 was Copernicus and his sun centered universe which the Church accepted as a "mathematical convenience"[1]"

Problems:

  • The reference cited to support the claims made in the text is an episode of a TV documentary series by James Burke. Unfortunately, many of the items Burke presents as facts in the program are contradicted by numerous highly credible sources on the history of astronomy.
  • Before Copernicus, the astronomical model used almost universally, for calculation at least, was essentially unchanged from the one presented by Ptolemy in his Almagest of the second century[2]. According to most scholarly accounts, it was slightly simpler than Copernicus's[3].
  • While the Council of Trent apparently did discuss Calendar Reform, it did not start meeting until 1545, so it is a nonsensical anachronism to say that "what they got in 1543 was Copernicus and his sun-centered universe..."
  • The calendar reform which was eventually adopted by Gregory XIII was based on the Ptolemaically derived Alfonsine tables, not on those derived from Copernicus's model[4] (although the values for the lengths of the year and the month for the two models are so close that it wouldn't have made much difference anyway).
Further reading[5] indicates that the situation is not quite so clear cut as my above remark suggests. Apparently not all reputable scholars agree on whether the values for the lengths of the month and the year used in the Gregorian reform were taken from the Ptolemaically derived Alfonsine Tables or the Copernican derived Prutenic Tables.
David Wilson 18:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
"[Galileo was required to recant his heliocentric ideas, declaring the immobility of the sun to be "absurd in philosophy and formally heretical", and the mobility of the earth "to be at least erroneous in faith";] (which ignored the fact the Council of Trent had accepted said ideas some 90 years before)."
  • None of the formal declarations of the Council of Trent had anything whatever to say on the issue of Copernicanism, let alone accepting it, even as a mathematical convenience. But even if it had decided that its use as a mathematical convenience was acceptable, there is nothing in the Church's later pronouncements to justify the claim that it was ignoring that alleged decision. The Church never made any pronouncements against the use of a heliocentric mathematical model purely as a calculating device.
Notes and references
  1. ^ "Infinitely Reasonable" The Day the Universe Changed
  2. ^  Gingerich, Owen (2004), The Book Nobody Read, William Heinemann, London.
  3. ^  E.g. Linton, C.M.(2004), From Eudoxus to Einstein, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, footnote 11, p. 125.
  4. ^  Moyer, Gordon (1983), Aloisius Lilius and the "Compendium Novae Rationis Retstituendi Kalendarium"', in Coyne, G.V. et al eds, Gregorian Reform of the Calendar, Specola Vaticana, Vatican City, p.182
  5. ^  North, J.D (1983), The Western Calendar, in Coyne, G.V. et al eds, Gregorian Reform of the Calendar, Specola Vaticana, Vatican City, pp.98,112

David Wilson 18:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Silly talk

There is much silly talk about Gustavus Adolfus in the article. All the founders of Protestantism attacked Copernicus by name and I do not think that they were frightened of the Mighty Swede. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.98.128 (talk) 04:28, August 17, 2007

[edit] Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon

See the main "Galileo" article, where citations are given, showing Luther and Calvin attacking Copernicus. Melanchthon called for coercion in the suppression of Copernicanism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 08:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bellarmine's view

The sentence "the heliocentric idea was purely a hypothetical." is not grammatical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 14:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restoration of citation

Some recent edits had removed a couple of citations on the alleged grounds that the references cited were in Italian, and that the affair was already well-covered in English. However, one of the deleted references is not in Italian. It is an English translation (Turning Point for Europe?) of the book of Ratzinger's in which his speech was published. The English translation was published by Ignatius Press in San Francisco, with an imprimatur from the appropriate Catholic authorities. Its citation was replaced by one to an article on the web-site of the National Catholic Register. While there is nothing wrong with the National Catholic Register's translation, it's also accompanied by an editorial commentary on criticisms of the Pope which does not appear to me to be at all unbiassed. It seems to me, therefore, that a citation to the authoritative English translation of Ratzinger's speech is preferable, and I have therefore restored it.

Note also that the word "Church" is capitalised in both translations. Since we are giving a direct quotation this capitalisation should be retained.

I have also amended the following text:

Ratzinger did not indicate whether he agreed or disagreed with Feyerabend's assertion about the verdict being "just", ...

back to its original form. The grounds given for limiting the statement to the assertion about the verdict's being just was that "it is really the latter assertion about it being "rational and just" where there is disagreement". This rationale seems rather dubious to me. In their letter, the academics also quoted part of the first sentence of Ratzinger's quotation ("The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself") and gave every indication that their objections applied just as much to that sentence as to the one about the verdict's being rational and just. In any case, Ratzinger gave no indication in his speech whether he agreed or disagreed with any of Feyerabend's assertions, so there is neither any need nor any point in limiting the application of the statement to only the last sentence of the quotation. —David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)