Why Galileo was Wrong, Even Though He was Right

The Galileo affair was one of politics rooted in the 30 year war. It came right smack in the middle of it. There are three half hour lectures on it by the Teaching Company. It had nothing to do with science or religion but politics. Galileo published his treatise under the auspices of Duke of Tuscany who was trying to depose Urban VIII and made Urban look the fool in this treatise. That was the origin of Urban's supposed cry of betrayal. Galileo made him look like a fool in a publication by his enemy. Galileo was treated with kid gloves by the Inquisition. We had a long discussion of this two years ago. Here is the reference https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/epistemology-its-what-you-know/ jerry

Dr. Hunter, I think the most important thing in the whole Galileo affair, is not the indiscretions of the misinterpretation of evidence, and scripture, that occurred, but is that of the take home message of the mediocrity of man. A persistent message of the worthlessness of man that reached its zenith, for all to see, in the supposed science of Sagan's movie "Pale Blue Dot". A wanton belittling of man that had been forced on the collective western mind. An unwelcome intrusion into Judeo-Christian society, as it was, that was derived directly, not so much from the Galileo affair itself, but from the actual acceptance of earth's "non-centrality", hence non-specialness, in the cosmos in the first place. Yet it is this very principle of mediocrity that has now been severely shaken with the privileged planet principle: The Privileged Planet - video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5488284265590289530 But more importantly the principle of mediocrity has been completely overthrown with the "quantum centrality" of the "observer" in the universe. The Known Universe http://www.amnh.org/news/2009/12/the-known-universe/ I think the preceding video is wonderful. If any materialist ever tries to sell Sagan's outdated view of the cosmos to me again, I will simply ask him to view the video and then have him try to explain, in detail, the centrality we find for earth in the cosmos in the video. bornagain77

Heliocentrism challenged geocentrism, the religiously motivated idea that a stationary earth was at the center of the universe.

That is incorrect. Geocentrism was the scientific proposition of the time. See Ptolemy. He was following Aristotle's lead. From Answers in Genesis:

The Galileo canard In the middle ages and well into the Renaissance, the Roman Catholic Church did teach geocentrism, but was that based upon the Bible? The Church’s response to Galileo (1564–1642) was primarily from the works of Aristotle (384–322 BC) and other ancient Greek philosophers. It was Augustine (AD 354–430), Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274) and others who ‘baptized’ the work of these pagans and termed them ‘pre-Christian Christians’. This mingling of pagan science and the Bible was a fundamental error for which the Church eventually paid a tremendous price. Confusion persists to today in that nearly every textbook that discusses the Galileo affair claims that it was a matter of religion vs science, when it actually was a matter of science vs science. Unfortunately, Church leaders interpreted certain Biblical passages as geocentric to bolster the argument for what science of the day was claiming. This mistake is identical to those today who interpret the Bible to support things such as the big bang, billions of years, or biological evolution.11 Therefore, any evangelical Christian misinformed of this history who opines that the Bible is geocentric is hardly any more credible a source on this topic than an atheist or agnostic.

Joseph

The standard story is indeed incorrect, and the actual issues involved with the Galileo affair were scriptural interpretation and church politics, not "science versus religion." See the series here for more detail. jlid

I deal with this topic in the first part of this paper: Intelligent Design - The Anthropic Hypothesis http://lettherebelight-77.blogspot.com/ Selected excerpts: in what I consider an absolutely fascinating discovery, 4-dimensional (4D) space-time was created in the Big Bang and continues to "expand equally in all places". i.e. The universe is not expanding into anything outside of itself. Thus from a 3-dimensional (3D) perspective, any particular spot in the universe is to be considered just as "center of the universe" as any other particular spot in the universe is to be considered "center of the universe". The Known Universe - Dec. 2009 - very cool video (please note the seeming centrality of the earth in the universe) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4240304/the_centrality_of_earth_in_the_universe_cosmic_microwave_background_radiation/ On top of this "4D expanding hypersphere geometry", and of much greater interest to us, the primary reason the CMBR forms a sphere around the earth is because quantum wave collapse, to its "uncertain" 3D particle/state, is dependent on "observation" in quantum mechanics; i.e. 3D reality does not truly "materialize" until a observer is present (A. Aspect). Moreover, this wave collapse, to its "uncertain" 3D particle/state, is shown by experiment to be instantaneous , and is also shown to be without regard to distance. i.e. It is universal for each observer. As well, CMBR ultimately indicates that information about all points in the universe is actually available to each "central" observer, in any part of the 4D expanding universe, simultaneously. i.e. The CMBR will form a sphere around any observer in the universe, no matter where they are in the universe, because quantum waves will collapse instantaneously, and universally, to each and every individual observer in the 4D expanding universe. "It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 of note: The only way to "geometrically" maintain continuous 3D spherical symmetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, within the "3D universe", from radically different points of observation in the universe, is for all the "higher dimensional" quantum waves of the universe to collapse to their "uncertain" 3D particle state, universally and instantaneously, for/to each individual conscious observer in the universe. Thus as far as 3-dimensional reality of this universe is concerned, conscious life is now found to be central to the universe: The Center Of The Universe Is Life - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3993426/the_center_of_the_universe_is_life/ bornagain77