It was also personal and political, not just scientific or religious. There were, of course, people that were opposed to Galileo publishing because of his models (whether for religious or scientific reasons), but there were also (and perhaps more critically) people that were against his model being published because of Galileo.
Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
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Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#12This is basically the thesis of Paul Feyerabend who used it as his main argument against there being a scientific method. His book "Against Method" is one of the best works on Philosophy of Science I've read during my university education.
I came here to say the same thing. People really should read more Feyerabend, it's fascinating.
Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#13Earth-Centric model was actually scientifically better at that time. With Occam's razor you would prefer it. - Even church agreed that Earth is not static, but is rotating. - Nobody observed star parallax, major proof for Copernican model was missing until 19th century. - Ptolemaic model with its epicycles provided better predictions. - Copernican model is also wrong, planets are orbiting around center of gravity, wh…
>planets are orbiting around center of gravity, which is outside of sun.. The only planet with a barycenter with the sun outside it's radius is Jupiter. And that only slightly. (with an altitude of 0.07 of the sun's radius) The earth-sun barycenter is 0.0006 times the sun's radius from it's _center_
Heresy! There is only one true barycenter in solar system! :-)
Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#14Earth-Centric model was actually scientifically better at that time. With Occam's razor you would prefer it. - Even church agreed that Earth is not static, but is rotating. - Nobody observed star parallax, major proof for Copernican model was missing until 19th century. - Ptolemaic model with its epicycles provided better predictions. - Copernican model is also wrong, planets are orbiting around center of gravity, wh…
Just to be pedantic, the barycenter of the Solar System [0] is "sometimes" outside the Sun, but is also often within the limb of the Sun. [0] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_system_barycen...
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Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#15There is no question that there was religious opposition to Galileo within the Catholic church. However, it was not unanimous, and there were some notable exceptions. José de Calasanz (saint), the founder of the Piarist order, was a friend of Galileo, and had some of the teachers of his congregation study with Galileo, so that the science they learned could be taught in his schools. Moreover, when Galileo fell in dis…
It is also worth noting that Galileo had a very big mouth and had many enemies. The publishing of this work was a perfect opportunity for them to pounce. It wasn't so much the church hating science as much people hating Galileo and using the church to an end.
Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#16I watched a course on Coursera and it made similar argument regarding opposition to Galileo by Church. I think it makes very important point and is noticeable everyday where deeply political arguments are passed off as scientific or logical.
But it was logical.
Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#17Earth-Centric model was actually scientifically better at that time. With Occam's razor you would prefer it. - Even church agreed that Earth is not static, but is rotating. - Nobody observed star parallax, major proof for Copernican model was missing until 19th century. - Ptolemaic model with its epicycles provided better predictions. - Copernican model is also wrong, planets are orbiting around center of gravity, wh…
> With Occam's razor you would prefer it.
> - Ptolemaic model with its epicycles provided better predictions.
These two statements are contradictory.
Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#18I watched a course on Coursera and it made similar argument regarding opposition to Galileo by Church. I think it makes very important point and is noticeable everyday where deeply political arguments are passed off as scientific or logical.
Not just where arguments are deeply political, but when we seek to punish people for simply saying or thinking things we don't agree with.
Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#19The idea that science and religion are distinct spheres, or even things that might be in opposition to each other, has been so thoroughly established in our modern consciousnesses that it's easy to forget that in the past they didn't really make such a distinction.
Re: Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
#20This is basically the thesis of Paul Feyerabend who used it as his main argument against there being a scientific method. His book "Against Method" is one of the best works on Philosophy of Science I've read during my university education.
"Against Method" is freely available here: http://mcps.umn.edu/assets/pdf/4.2.1_Feyerabend.pdf