He writes, bitching about The Left, Science, The Earth Centered Universe, Climate Change, and all that:
People tend to think that proponents of an Earth-centered solar system were nothing but intransigent religious fanatics. In fact, they included scientists of Galileo-level genius, like Ptolemy and Aristotle. When their theories were weakened and their opponents’ strengthened, they switched sides — and the “scientific consensus” changed.
From wiki:
Aristotle, 384–322 BC
Claudius Ptolemy, c. AD 100 – c. 170
Galileo Galilei, 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642
Aristotle and Ptolemy couldn't "change sides", Josh. They'd been dead over a thousand years.
way to blow a theory BCL, now Sciency guy will have to revamp his works....
ReplyDeleteWhy does everyone talk about Galileo without a decent grasp of the problem! At least, Gelernter seems to have some grasp of the problem at Galileo's hearings but Galileo's real problems were a) An increasing paranoid Pope thought that Galileo was libelling him---or perhaps more accurately---lampooning him, b) his theory did not work.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the Pope was a political blunder. Who knows he might have managed to get around it
The fact that his theory did not work was a bit more serious. He was correct in embarassing a heliocentric model but the existing science was just as supportive of an earth-centric model and his theory suffered from, among other problems, the fact that it predicted one tide per day.
Church officials from the Atlantic coast, Spain, Portugal, France, among others, probably were laughing like mad at the "theory".
He was so badly treated that he was sent home (officially under house arrest) and only managed to publish one or two more books. Mind, he did take care to publish in the Netherlands not Rome or other states in Italy. For someone in their mid-sixties, blind or going blind, and suffering from severe arthritis I am not sure that he was badly punished.