Toto

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion (or via: amazon.co.uk)

An excerpt is available here.

The contributors include "agnostics, atheists, and Christians."

The chapters are:

• Myth 1. That the Rise of Christianity Was Responsible for the Demise of Ancient Science, David C. Lindberg
• Myth 2. That the Medieval Christian Church Suppressed the Growth of Science Michael H. Shank
• Myth 3. That Medieval Christians Taught That the Earth Was Flat Lesley B. Cormack
• Myth 4. That Medieval Islamic Culture Was Inhospitable to Science Syed Nomanul Haq
• Myth 5. That the Medieval Church Prohibited Human Dissection Katharine Park
• Myth 6. That Copernicanism Demoted Humans from the Center of the Cosmos Dennis R. Danielson
• Myth 7. That Giordano Bruno Was the First Martyr of Modern Science Jole Shackelford
• Myth 8. That Galileo Was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicanism Maurice A. Finocchiaro
• Myth 9. That Christianity Gave Birth to Modern Science Noah J. Efron
• Myth 10. That the Scientific Revolution Liberated Science from Religion Margaret J. Osler
• Myth 11. That Catholics Did Not Contribute to the Scientific Revolution Lawrence M. Principe
• Myth 12. That René Descartes Originated the Mind- Body Distinction Peter Harrison
• Myth 13. That Isaac Newton’s Mechanistic Cosmology Eliminated the Need for God Edward B. Davis
• Myth 14. That the Church Denounced Anesthesia in Childbirth on Biblical Grounds Rennie B. Schoepflin
• Myth 15. That the Theory of Organic Evolution Is Based on Circular Reasoning Nicolaas A. Rupke
• Myth 16. That Evolution Destroyed Darwin’s Faith in Christianity—Until He Reconverted on His Deathbed James Moore
• Myth 17. That Huxley Defeated Wilberforce in Their Debate over Evolution and Religion David N. Livingstone
• Myth 18. That Darwin Destroyed Natural Theology Jon H. Roberts
• Myth 19. That Darwin and Haeckel Were Complicit in Nazi Biology Robert J. Richards
• Myth 20. That the Scopes Trial Ended in Defeat for Antievolutionism Edward J. Larson
• Myth 21. That Einstein Believed in a Personal God Matthew Stanley
• Myth 22. That Quantum Physics Demonstrated the Doctrine of Free Will Daniel Patrick Thurs
• Myth 23. That “Intelligent Design” Represents a Scientific Challenge to Evolution Michael Ruse
• Myth 24. That Creationism Is a Uniquely American Phenomenon Ronald L. Numbers
• Myth 25. That Modern Science Has Secularized Western Culture John Hedley Brooke

I bet Bede is jealous.

The book appears to try to be fair and balanced, with both Christian and anti-Christian "myths" debunked - including the "myths" that Christianity destroyed ancient science and that Christianity was responsible for the scientific revolution. It has a 4 star review on Amazon from a conservative Christian engineer.

No Robots

Bruno was burnt, yes, but for heretical theological beliefs not for his scientific ones. Leaving aside the impression one gets that our author seems to think it acceptable for people to be burnt for any of their beliefs, the point now is that Bruno's scientific beliefs supported, though they did not entail, his theology.--Review

Toto

With a little help from the John Templeton Foundation. . . .

Thanks for that review. It seems that Templeton money can get to Harvard.

premjan

Galileo was under house arrest for much of his later life wasn't he?

avi

The last ten years, approximately, as noted here

Here's what is of interest to me, from this link above, --not Galileo's trial for supposed heresy, under the Inquisition, nor for that matter, relating to the subject of the OP, whether or not (in my view NOT) it is mythical to accuse the poor besieged Catholic Church of somehow violating Galileo, but rather this interesting quote, which I believe to be true, but for which I have absolutely NO DATA:
I believe this to be true, not mythical, but, my belief corresponds to faith, the method of the mythical types, because I cannot trace the evolution of thinking in the biblical sources. Specifically, we tend to accept, on my part, uncritically, the notion that Plato and Aristotle devised Geocentrism perhaps around 350 BCE.

First question then, did this false theory of Geocentrism exist BEFORE Plato?

Second question: We know that Ptolemy, (a distant descendant of the founder of Alexandria, General Ptolemy, who had accompanied Alexander of Macedonia,) performed experiments designed to demonstrate the validity of the Geocentric theory. But, HOW were Ptolemy's writings or Plato's/Aristotle's for that matter, translated into WHICH volumes of the NEW or OLD testament? In other words, HOW did Plato's theory of Geocentrism come to appear as "God's word", at least in the eyes of the catholic church? Do the folks at this symposium, noted in the OP, address this issue, in attempting to exonerate the wretched villains of the Inquisition, by insinuating that Galileo's life was not in jeopardy? I firmly believe, that had Galileo not been the world's foremost scientist and mathematician, he would have met the same fate as William Tyndale. It was absolutely not a myth, to smell the burning flesh of that era. Shame on those who would dare to offer some revisionist nonsense about the Inquisition and its treachery.

The third question relates to Aristarchus of Samos, who lived roughly the same time as Aristotle, and whose theory of heliocentrism, (repudiating Aristotle's Geocentrism) based upon mathematics and optics, led to his condemnation by Cleanthes the Stoic. Of course, we all know that Copernicus studied Aristarchus' writings, and based his own writings on acceptance of the latter's experimental observations. Copernicus had seen a copy of Aristarchus' research that had been carried preciously to Italy, in the 1470's after the fall of Constantinople, by Greek monks. Copernicus had been studying Medicine in Italy in 1500, before the Inquisition destroyed the final extant copies of Aristarchus' research.

We also know that the original text of Copernicus' Latin manuscript, not the first published edition, but the edition which preceded that, provided attribution to Aristarchus--attribution removed, deliberately in the final text that went to print. What we don't know, hence this third question, is why Galileo did not seem to know anything about Aristarchus. Evidently, Copernicus had succeeded in preventing anyone from knowing that he had employed a heretic's research--at least, Galileo seemed unaware of Aristarchus' research.

There must have been, at the time of the trial of Galileo, DOCUMENTS which the Inquisition employed to demonstrate the validity of Geocentrism. Which documents, or references to the Bible, are these? Who authored them? These are not ANCIENT papyrus, difficult to locate. They must exist in the vaults of the vatican. What do they communicate?

Atheos

Nearly every biography I've ever read about Galileo includes his house arrest for heresy. I wonder what sources were used to debunk that claim.

The claim certainly sounds reasonable on the surface. Period artwork depicts god living "above", the earth being flat, and hell being below. The Genesis creation myth places such huge emphasis on the labor expended creating our planet while all the billions of stars, galaxies, etc., in the universe were tossed in with a quick flourish on the 4th "day" after Yahweh had created the two "great lights" (Sun and Moon). Many passages in the bible depict stars being cast down to the earth. A beast in Revelation even slings 1/3 of the stars down to the ground with his tail and then stomps on them with his feet.

People who believed the bible to be scientifically accurate in its portrayal of the order of creation and the place of our planet in the scheme of things would have a hard time not coming to the conclusion that the Earth was the center of the universe. They believed that the sun and moon travelled through the sky and that it was a simple thing for Yahweh to hold the sun in place for a few hours so Israel could have plenty of daylight to finish off an enemy in battle. They believed that the creator of the universe was so intently interested in the activities of the inhabitants of this planet that he was angered by our behavior and sent a flood to destroy all animate life.

I'm not likely to read this book, but I'm curious as to whether or not its author downplayed the extent of the Inquisitions and the political power wielded by the church during that period.

lpetrich

Geocentrism and flat-earthism were almost universal premodern cosmological beliefs, and the beliefs of the writers of the Bible were no exception.

Robert J. Schadewald discussed Biblical cosmology in detail in The Flat-Earth Bible. The writers of the Bible did not concern themselves very much with cosmology, so one has to work out their cosmological beliefs from off-hand remarks like

"O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." (Joshua 10:12)

The Hellenistic-Jewish book 1 Enoch goes into a lot of detail about cosmology, and Biblical cosmology closely parallels it. The Earth is a flat disk with the sky being a hemispherical vault overhead. The Sun, Moon, planets, and stars move on the inside of this vault, entering and exiting it through doors at its base. When a celestial body sets, it moves along the edge of the vault to where it will rise.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

I remember reading a lot of material from the John Templeton Foundation about 15 years ago. It seemed to me then, that it was pseudo-scientific trash with the ultimate goal of saying that science is religion and religion is science, thus erasing 800 years of history and returning us the outlook of medieval times.

The myths that are debunked are not the same types or on the same level at all.

For example, Myth 19. That Darwin and Haeckel Were Complicit in Nazi Biology, is probably believed only by a few hundred believers in creation science. On the other hand, "Myths" #1 and 2 are probably believed by 98% of hundreds of thousands of scholars who have studied the actual facts about science and Christianity.

This seems to be a sophistical trick. You attack facts that you don't like by associating them with myths and calling them all myths.

It is rather like someone saying I am going to debunk two common myths: 1. that alligators live in toilets and 2. That God doesn't exist. In order to discredit a reasonable belief, you associate it with a ridiculous belief and then label both as equally ridiculous.

It seems that the editors are trying to appear evenhanded, but only to disguise their religious agenda.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Bullmoose Too

So what are you trying to say? That this book is a work of historical revisionism?

Bullmoose Too

Are you saying that this book is a work of historical revisionism?