On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:05:34 UTC, John Fields
austininstruments.com> wrote:
> On 27 Aug 2008 19:22:11 GMT, "Dan Drake"
dandrake.com> wrote:
> >>On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:40:03 UTC, "Rod Speed"
gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>>>> John Fields
austininstruments.com> wrote>>>> Rod Speed
gmail.com> wrote>>>>> John Fields
austininstruments.com> wrote>>>
>>>>>> And only a few years ago admitted that Geocentrism was wrong.
>>>
>>>>> No they didnt. They actually admitted that they treated Galileo badly at that time.
>>>
>>>> At the heart of the bad treatment was Galileo's recalcitrance
>>>> in recanting his support of Copernicus' heliocentric system.
>>>
>>> Yes, but even those fools had managed to work out that the
>>> earth did indeed revolve around the sun LONG before that
>>> most recent admission of how badly Galileo had been treated.
>>>
>>>> In the end, though, the church broke him and he did recant, so
>>>> their recent admission of guilt in treating him badly was tantamount
>>>> to their accepting Copernicus's geocentric system as true.
>>>
>>> Yes, but even those fools had managed to work out that the
>>> earth did indeed revolve around the sun LONG before that
>>> most recent admission of how badly Galileo had been treated.
>>
>>It was not in dispute in 1822, when they *finally* *completely* cleared
>>Galileo's work for unrestricted publication; before that, when they made
>>some moves in that direction, it's much less clear, despite frequent
>>claims that hte Church had it all settled in 1700-whatever.
>>
>>Department of satirical prophecy: Galileo wrote a note in the margin of a
>>copy of the Dialogue that the theologians should take care, because later
>>on it might be decided that Earth really does move, and then the ones
>>holding to the old view might have to be persecuted as heretics! So, in
>>1822, there was a stubborn censor who would not clear the work for
>>publication, and the Holy Office (Inquisition) had to threaten him!
>>
>>[Sorry about the two screamers, but this is just too much fun.]
>>
>>See Annibale Fantoli, "Galileo: For Copernicanism and for the Church", p.
>>357. Published by the Vatican Observatory, by the way.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>> And didnt have the balls to even mention Bruno.
>>>
>>>> Not true.
>>>
>>> Fraid so.
>>>
>>>> From:
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Four hundred years after his execution, official expression of
>>>> "profound sorrow" and acknowledgement of error at Bruno's
>>>> condemnation to death was made, during the papacy of John Paul II."
>>>
>>> That wasnt when they fessed up to the fools they had made of themselves over Galileo.
>>
>>Has anybody read what they actually *said* in their formal statement (plus
>>other pronunciamenti at the time)? I haven't, so it would be nice to hear
>>specifics from someone who had. The text that happens to reside in a
>>WIkipedia article at any given time is, sadly enough, not an authority
>>anyone could rely on.
>
> ---
> If you haven't read what they actually *said* in their formal
> statement (plus other pronunciamenti at the time) you might want to,
> in order to determine whether the text, which you're condemning as not
> being authoritative, really wasn't. :-)
>
> JF
Ah, I begin to understand now. You simply don't know what sources are, and
what "authoritative" means.
Wikipedia is frequently right. It is frequently wrong, though by and large
this is less prevalent.
P is for Pedant, a man who cares whether what he says is right.
-- Bertrand Russell, _The Good Citizen's Dictionary_
A pedant will not accept a statement on the say-so of Wikipedia, since the
probability of its being partisan nonsense is too high. That's what I
meant. You will certainly have noticed that I didn't deny the claim or
state that it was probably wrong; I just was asking for a claim that would
carry some weight of evidence.
If independent and reliable information established that Wikipedia was
right on this point, that would have a negligible effect on whether I
believed the next thing cited as fact on the basis of Wikipedia. Oddly
enough, your own say-so concerning the Church's statement tends to carry
more weight than a quote from Wikipedia (unless, perhaps, I were to dig
through the archives and find out *who* wrote that in Wikipedia), because
it at least has an identifiable source. Though that weight tends to change
when you start simply blustering and asserting nonsense (e.g., in replying
to the claim about Galileo's perjury in recanting his beliefs).
