> On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:35:53 UTC, Jerry Kraus yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>

>> On Aug 28, 5:51ÿpm, thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

>>> : Jerry Kraus yahoo.com>
>>> : Galileo was not presenting an alternative conception of the universe.
>>> : He was attacking the existing one,

>

>>> So you admit it had nothing to do with whether he had evidence or not.
>>> Since (you now claim) he didn't present any alternative (eg, didn't
>>> present a heliocentric alternative). ÿIf he wasn't presenting a position,
>>> lack of evience for his position can't haee been an issue.

>

>>> : As such, he was a major threat to social stability.

>

>>> I thought you said it was because he was obnoxious about it. ÿSo now
>>> you're changing the motivation on the fly here? ÿPerhaps you could take a
>>> moment to get your story straight. ÿAre you advocating locking people up
>>> for lack of evidence, being obnoxious, recommending the overthrow of the
>>> government, or what exactly? ÿWho, specifically, today, would you throw
>>> in jail, and why. ÿNo sweeping generalizations which you seem to shift
>>> each post; some specific person with an associated specific thoughtcrime.

>

>>> Wayne Throop ÿ thro...@sheol.org ÿhttp://sheol.org/throopw

>

>> Well, let's take a look at what was done to Galileo in the context of
>> the times, and in terms of what he was trying to do.  Bear in mind, in
>> the seventeenth, and even the eighteenth centuries, children were
>> still being hung for stealing a loaf of bread.  Galileo was imprisoned
>> for a time, and humiliated.

>
> For a time, meaning the rest of his life. You say, house arrest isn't
> imprisonment? Hmm, tell that to anyone who's fighting the dictatorsthip in
> Cambodia. But anyway, he was never imprisoned in a dungeon or any formal
> prison; just, as you might say, detained. You can't have it goth ways.
>

>>  He continued to publish.

>
> Yeah, continued to publish, against the Church's decree and by stealth, in
> a Protestant country! Once the Two New Sciences came out and was sneaked
> into Italy and was read by everybody who mattered, the Inquisition was,
> indeed, sweet enough not to enforce its earlier decree against anything he
> might ever write in the future on any subject. And that's better than
> burning the book and its author, but let's not misrepresent the case, ok?
>

>> His work
>> effectively ridiculed the entire Aristotelian world view advocated by
>> the Church and the scientific community, without presenting an
>> effective alternative.

>
> Actually, he argued against the old views, pretty much case by case, and
> sometimes used ridicule, generally against arguments that really were
> ridiculous.
>
> (He observes mountains on the Moon, contradicting the idea that everything
> in the Heavens is perfect and perfectly spherical? Well! The true surface
> of the Moon is perfectly smooth and spherical, and it's also perfectly
> transparent and invisible, so you see those buried mountains underneath!
> Galileo did ridicule this. If you or I wouldn't, it's most likely for lack
> of his sharp wit.) (What he said: Ok, I'll grant you the invisible shell,
> if you grant me that the surface of that shell is covered with invisible
> mountains ten times as high as the ones I've observed. It's no wonder some
> people didn't like him.)
>
>  This was certainly not "thoughtcrime".  The
>

>> Church clearly was not reacting to what Galileo was thinking.

>
> That, I suppose, is why they called it heresy and plainly false and all
> that sort of stuff? And forced him to recant all those *beliefs*? Because
> they really didn't care about what he was thinking. I get it.
>
>   It was
>

>> reacting with concern to a highly disruptive propagandist, from its
>> point of view.  What Galileo was doing might be considered somewhat
>> analogous to denying the Holocaust, in our own times.  Something which
>> will certainly get you locked up, in Europe, if you are persistent and
>> public about it.  Seventeenth century society was based and structured
>> on a world view deeply influenced by the Church and tradition, much as
>> our society is based on a desire to avoid genocidal tendencies.
>> Galileo appears to have been rather insensitive to this structure, in
>> a way that Isaac Newton certainly was not.  That is the fundamental
>> difference between them.

>
> Oh. right. You're aware, of course, that Newton really was a heretic.
> Knowing about this, the authorities turned a blind eye to the requirements
> for orthodoxy in Newton's professorship. Slight difference in treatment
> there; almost seems to matter what jurisdiction you operate under.
>
> But then, Newton never got in personal disputes or insulted anybody or
> anything. (Though, while I'm up: that modern story about the
> "shoulders of giants" quote being an insult appears to be entirely false.)
> Or contradicted the vastly important classical world view, like, you know,
> the Sun being stationary in the center of the Universe.
>
> --
> Dan Drake
> d...@dandrake.comhttp://www.dandrake.com/
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