andrewcriddle

Servetus was killed because the church objected to his views on the Trinity.

I am not aware of any evidence that his persecutors cared one way or another about his anatomical researches.

Andrew Criddle

spin

Sorry, I'll withdraw the Servetus comment.

lpetrich

First off, I ran that Giordano Bruno quote through an auto-translator, and I can't tell what he was blathering about. And Bruno's slamming of "mathematicians" is rather strange, because mathematics is absolutely crucial to understanding the Universe. Galileo himself said something about how the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.

How is it a case of "our idiocy and slowness"? Couldn't it be that it's just damn difficult? Try learning the mathematics necessary to understand relativistic quantum field theory, for example.

Some discoveries seem very easy after they are made, but are apparently very difficult to make. "How stupid of me not to have thought of that!" Thomas Huxley allegedly said after reading about natural selection in Darwin's Origin of Species. Consider:

Writing was independently invented at most four times in humanity's history (Sumer, Egypt, China, and Central America), though it has readily diffused, and the invention of some systems has been provoked by stimulus diffusion. The mere awareness that it is possible to write has induced some people to invent writing systems.

Mathematicians in India discovered and understood zero and negative numbers long before European mathematicians did, and European ones had difficulty in accepting their legitimacy, despite some obvious geometrical and commercial interpretations. If going right is positive, then going left is negative. If an asset means a positive amount of money, then a debt means a negative amount of money. In fact, those Indian mathematicians called positive and negative numbers asset and debt numbers.

Natural selection itself.

And about "blaming God", an omnimax entity would be omni-responsible, by by commission and omission, like it or not.

That's a strange argument, because conservatism means a reluctance to accept new ideas.

Lafcadio

Some people in this thread do need to learn what science (natural philosophy) is.

spin

It might help to be able to read the guy, if you want to comment.

Autotranslators are good perhaps for tech stuff, but shit for most else.

spin

Lafcadio

And it seems Bruno was not the only jester

spin

Buridan

Providing quotations in languages you know few if any understand, is difficult to view as anything other than a cop out...

Please translate so we can see if you here have a piece of Bruno that utilises a sound (geometrical or quantifiable) scientific argument, showing that he - at least in this text - was a "stark advocater" of science and not mainly of his religious philosophy.

And not (as in "THE FOURTH PROPOSITION OF NUNDINIO" in Cena) to argue for stars (like the earth ) moving because they in Bruno's animistic view (represented by "the Nolan") are intelligent and have souls:

The earth moves and so do the other stars, according to their proper local differences, in virtue of an intrinsic principle which is their proper soul. Do you think (said Nundinio) that this soul is sensitive? Not only sensitive (replies the Nolan) but also intelligent

Otherwise, I'm not much interested:snooze:

Lafcadio

What is the difference between the last quote brought up by Buridan and spin's quotes? How many people here know that both (false -> false) and (false -> true) are valid inferences?