> On Tue, 2 Sep 2008 14:49:55 UTC, Jerry Kraus yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>

>> Modern scientists tend to misinterpret the recent rehabilitation of
>> Galileo Galilei as indicating that Church admits that they were wrong
>> to prosecute him, at the time.  This is most certainly not the the
>> case.  All the Church is saying is that Galileo was not a bad person,
>> and that his writings, even his satires of the Church,  no longer pose
>> any social threat.

>
> I presume this is why Pope John Paul II declared that Galileo understood
> the theological questions better than the contemporary theologians had.
>
> You're right, though, if you are trying to say that the official response
> was inadequate, with its wishy-washy postion on some "misunderstandings"
> behind which we find no human actor who's admitted to have done wrong.
> This case has been argued strongly by some Jesuits disappointed in the
> result, despite their almost fanatical loyalty to the Pope. (No pretty red
> uniforms, though.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

>>http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801299.htm

>

>> ...
>> Jesuit Father Sabino Maffeo, the Vatican Observatory's vice director
>> for administration, told CNS that Galileo ran into trouble with the
>> Holy Office because he did not have proof for his claims.

>

>> "Not having proof ... (the Holy Office) was forced to hold on to the
>> centuries-old concept" that saw Earth as the center of the cosmos, he
>> said.

>

>> If he had had proof, which did not come for another 100 years with
>> discoveries made by Isaac Newton, Galileo's fate could have been much
>> different, Father Maffeo said. He added that Italian Cardinal Robert
>> Bellarmine, who was part of the 17th-century Vatican commission that
>> admonished Galileo not to hold or defend the Copernican theory, had
>> told Galileo "the day in which you bring a demonstration then we will
>> have to look at how sacred Scripture gets interpreted differently,
>> but
>> as long as there is no proof, we will continue to interpret
>> (Scripture) literally as we have all along."

>

>> ...

>

>> What would have happened if the Church had not prosecuted or censured
>> Galileo?  Would Newton have had the same incentive to develop his
>> comprehensive Copernican explanation of the Universe?

>
> Sigh. You really haven't the foggiest notion of what science is and why
> people do it, have you? Are you in management, or a management expert and
> trainer? I don't know any other class of people so utterly clueless about
> getting people to do something fascinating and challenging without a
> neatly defined incentive of the sort that they (managers) can understand.
>
>   Would society
>

>> have been destabilized by lack of faith in the Church and conventional
>> social order?

>
> Who could possibly think such a thing?  Certainly not anyone who read what
> Galileo wrote (not to mention what Saint Augustine had said, which one
> should do to make sure Galileo was quoting him accurately). This question
> of astronomy had nothing to do with the truth or falsity of Christian
> doctrine, but was just an opportunity for fools to make Christianity, and
> Catholicism if you make the distinction, and Italy (if you make the
> distinction) look really dumb for hundreds of years.
>
> Well, I don't think anybody really made Italy look dumb until Mussolini;
> but a lot of Italians have been concerned about it, and maybe they know
> better.
>
>
>

>> What implications does this example have for modern Church criticisms
>> of scientific theories such as Evolution and the Big Bang?

>
> Simple: Shut up. Telling scientists what they should believe about science
> is an idiot's and a tyrant's game. Harping on religion this way just makes
> it look like a religious matter, distracting attention from idiots and
> tyrants like Stalin.

>>  Does the
>> Church, or other social institutions have some role in integating
>> scientific concepts into the broader social perspective?

>
> Sure, of course. Just, please sir, don't drag me to Rome in chains (and
> bill me for the chains*) if I have a different idea of how (or whether)
> the concepts should be integrated.
>
> (*) They didn't really do that; just formally threatened to if he didn't
> stop messing about with ill health and crap like that when they wanted him
> NOW in Rome. After which they had him sit there for weeks while they
> figured out what to do next. BTW, please try not to do that to
> distinguished old scientists, either, after making them take a long
> journey in primitive conditions in mid-winter; it makes you look
> unnecessarily stupid and malicious among the vulgar mob who don't
> understand these things. People will go on misunderstanding for centuries!
>
>  Was Galileo
>

>> a kind of idiot-savant, not understanding how to fully develop his own
>> ideas?

>
> No. This has been brought to you by Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
> Should you wish me to elaborate, I might proceed as follows:
>
> Look here, you blithering freaking idiot, what have you ever done in your
> wasted life half as good as a dozen of the lesser things Galileo did? Wow,
> he didn't go on to invent Newtonian physics by himself, leaving Newton to
> do it thanks to standing on the shoulders of giants, and you call him an
> idiot savant? Ok, if you insist on it, Mr. idiot idiot.
>

>>  Is this a common problem among scientists in general, who are
>> not holistic thinkers, however skilled they may be in their own
>> speciality?

>
> Does "not holistic thinkers" mean that they bury themselves in a specialty
> and ignore the rest of the world? Or that they don't think the things you
> want them to think?  
>
> --
> Dan Drake
> d...@dandrake.comhttp://www.dandrake.com/
> porlockjr.blogspot.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -