>>>> Sorry for the confusion.
>>> There is no confusion and there still isnt. You were and still are just plain wrong.
>> OK, then, instead of your bluster, let's see your evidence.
>>> Yes, that was always clear.
>>>> and, AIUI, that acknowledgement only occurred a few years ago.
>>> And that is where you were always just plain wrong. It happened a LONG time before that.
>> OK, then, instead of your bluster, let's see your evidence.
>> OK, then, instead of your bluster, let's see your evidence.
>>> And he wasnt alone in recognising that at that time. The evidence was very clear.
>> That's not the point.
>>> He didnt even perjure himself.
Do you actually mean anything by that statement? If so, could you tell us
what it is?
I mean, I assume you know what the word "recant" means. Obviously you know
that Galileo recanted, formally, under oath, before witnesses, with a
transcript being taken, the authenticity of which has never been
questioned -- unless you have now decided to question whether he really
said it (in which case it would be nice to know on what grounds you
question it, in opposition to everyone else in the world and every
historian of science that ever considered it).
BTW I am not arguing that the Church didn't recognize the Earth's motion
till the 1990s. After all, when they allowed (in fact, _ordered_) the
publication of Galileo's work undiluted in 1822, it was not because the
Inquisition had been converted into disciples of John Locke with a firm
belief in Voltaire's famous principle which he never actually said, about
defending to the death your right to be wrong. It was because they knew
they looked too damn stupid by then -- just as Galileo had warned their
predecessors, though they were not about to say that out loud. And in only
170 years more, the Church got around to saying it out loud.
This, of course, is a small point in itself; it's just that your
uncompromising and unfounded statements tend to, you know, make it look as
if you don't really know what you're talking about. The senile old farts
at Fordham U (your characterization, not mine; I find a lot of highly
respecatble scholarship in Romish sources) have proved a convenient
reference:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1630galileo.html
"...But since I, after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely
to abandon the false opinion that the Sun was the centre of the universe
and immoveable, and that the Earth was not the centre of the same and that
it moved,... I did write and cause to be printed a book in which I treat
of the said already condemned doctrine... : I have been judged vehemently
suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is
the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth is not the
centre of the same, and that it does move.
"Nevertheless, wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all
faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against
me, I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest
the said errors and heresies...
"I Galileo Galilei aforesaid have abjured, sworn, and promised, and hold
myself bound as above; and in token of the truth, with my own hand have
subscribed the present schedule of my abjuration, and have recited it word
by word. In Rome, at the Convent della Minerva, this 22nd day of June,
1633.
"I, GALILEO GALILEI, have abjured as above, with my own hand."
What part of "recanted" or "abjured" or "under oath" do you not
understand? Or is your claim that he really had joined the senile old
farts in actually *believing* this crap? It would be odd if you were to
say that, considering your assertion (true enough) that there were other
people who knew it was nonsense; this would make Galileo a more senile of
fart than those people. Hence it's hard to figure out what you *do* mean.
