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Ummm......

Giordano Bruno! If interested then google him!!

Giordano Bruno is sometimes said to have been executed for the 'heresy' of Copernicanism. It's worth pointing out that some historians challenge that claim; they say he was put to death for theological heresies rather than the new science that was emerging in the 16th century.

There's no need to call Helio a heretic!

:-)

#2 Sorry didn't see the n't at the end of the was! must clean my glasses. But this is not how the science community does things- the only heat they would be subjected to would be metaphorical.

If Giordano Bruno doesn't fit the bill then he would come pretty close, in my opinion:



Had Galileo persisted in his quest he definitely would have ended up with the same fate.

Also, I'm sure I heard a story a while back (I think it might have been on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World service) that a statue of Nicolaus Copericus was was errected recently to Poland (I think in the last couple of decades) and the local Catholic church boycotted the ceremony. I've tried searching for source of this story on the internet but can't find anything but I'm positive I heard it.

AiG (and similar groups) would of course deny that this conflict is the same as the YEC one with modern science. However, I see great similarities. As in the case of Galileo, truth will win in the end.

Interesting comments Peter. I think it's fair to say that historians in recent years have also revisited the issues at stake in the Galileo affair as well, with some surprising outcomes. This affair is often mis-characterised as a simple church-v-science dispute. In fact, it was as much about old theology versus new theology.

I LOVE the Galileo story. It serves as such a wonderful illustration to contemporary church people in discussions about science AND theology.

Btw William, does your Mac try to inform you that you've spelt 'Galileo' wrong? Mine does.

John I think you need to add Galileo to the spellcheck :)

Oooh! A thread all for little old me? How touching!

Will, here's the problem. Science has always metastasised into realms that were once considered the preserve of theology. Science causes theological fault-lines, and it is no wonder that the holders of theological power perceive that as a threat. It is a threat; it should be a threat.

It is also no wonder that scientists and freethinkers have developed other views that are perceived as a threat by the religious "authorities" - we are talking about intelligent people here, who take a broad view. Such people are dangerous, but it does make it easier for trumped-up charges to be levelled at them, and for the net to be widened to include "heresies".

Ironically, it is only solid adherence to a secular ideal of state that can protect both freethought *and* religion - many more people were burned at the stake for purely religious views that were as stupid and superstitious as the medieval catholicism that held the firecoals.

Bruno was not condemned for Heliocentrism - rather his heretical views. It is also worth noting that such executions were often excused under "public" rather than "spiritual" criteria. The idea was that the Spiritual and Moral social fabric needed to be preserved. (I'm not sure if this principle was invoked ecplicitly at Bruno's trial).
It is worth keeping this in mind when we read arguments that promote Religion as a source of social cohesion, and a solution to civil strife - whether by Roger Scruton or the Daily Mail.

GV

Is Freudian psycho-analysis pseudo-science? Is it harmful? Can we restrict this discussion to the conflict between ideas held for religious reasons and the scientific consensus?

G Veale

Don't let this discussion die. I'm busy with a School play, but I love the story of Galileo and the Churchmen.
One fact that is often overlooked is that Galileo did not have the necessary evidence to establish Heliocentrism available to him *at the time*.
Another fact, of vital importance, is the role Galileo played in establishing that Mathematics could reveal the structure of the universe. Also, he established that the human faculties needed to be tested by experiment. That's a view that imples that human rationality is fallible, but not so fallible that it cannot correct itself. He also helped establish that inference and induction can lead to knowledge as valuable as the knowledge provided by deductive philosophy.
(It's worth noting that a very subtle view of human rationality underpins these views. We take it for granted - but at the time it was far from the norm.)
And Galileo helped establish all this by losing a trial and writing a book. Incredible.
(His theology wasn't bad either).


G Veale

Graham, good point, although I think some people would take issue with the notion that G didn't have his evidence at the time of his trial, when he had detailed info on the motions of the planets and the timing of "epicycles" which could really only be resolved by a heliocentric model.

But leaving that aside, the important issue is this: when a scientific finding raises a theological problem, historically it has ALWAYS been the theology that has had to shift. Lesson: in the "science versus religion" notion, science wins every time. Whether it's the causation of the weather, shape of the planet, evolution of species - science wears the trousers. Religion, if it is to survive, has to get used to that.

Will was nicely reminded of that fact (I thought, anyway!) by Marcus du Sautoy in the recent interview. The entire concept of "god" is an ill-defined nonsense, so extending that concept into the physical realm is entirely unwarranted. If people want to pursue NOMA, they need to be aware that it cuts both ways, and science recognises no boundaries.

-H

i dont know what you mean heliopolitcan about science wearing the trousers and marcus du sautoy. du sautoy was all over the place in that interview on Sunday, and he is certainly no dawkins. he didnt even seem to understand what the word metaphyical means!

H

A) On Galileo
1) Aristotle had an explanation for the motion of stellar bodies. Galileo had a set of predictions - and inaccurate ones at that, as he believed the motion of the planets must be circular. Furthermore, his model predicted stellar parallax, which he could not detect.
2) Cardinal Belleramine was explicit in his letter to Foscarini - he would accept Heliocentrism if Copernicans could present the necessary evidence. The source of tension lay in the fact that Galileo was usurping the Churches authority to assess the Scriptural and Theological evidence.
3) Bellarmine had a typical view of Mathematics - that it was useful for making predictions, but not for telling the truth about the universe. This was what Galileo, unintentionally, challenged. So he felt that the Church had a right to assess the "scientific" (an anachronistic term for this period, but what the hey) evidence. There was a social challenge here, mainly to the Aristotlean and Scholastic scholarship.

B) As for your wider points about the retreat of Theology before Science.
1) I'm not sure that purely scientific accounts of free-will, morality, the origins of religion, consciousness, aesthetics, and knowledge can claim superiority over religious or metaphysical accounts. Human nature aside, purely scientific accounts of order, beauty and existence do not seem to be obviously superior to religious or metaphysical accounts.
2) The suggestion that Science inevitably triumphs, so we should always back Scientific over other explanations, seems to overlook several problems. (i) It is made prior to investigating the nature of what we are trying to explain. Perhaps what we are investigating does not suit scientific methodology. (ii) It is an enumerative inductive argument, and these are always weak inferences. (Every student I have taught is shorter than me, therefore all students I teach will be shorter than me). (iii) I can immediately think of one scientific hypothesis that was not considered suitable to theism - steady state cosmology - which has susequently been abandoned.
3) Du Satuoys comments are illuminative. He prefers mathematics as it deals with the abstract and the clearly defined. But this is not how we encounter the world. We can abstract from experience to conceptual generalities, but we encounter particulars.
4) Apart from anything else this makes room for literature and art. They seem better suited to capturing the peculiarity of our experiences, and the insights that attend these experiences.
5) But when it comes to science, Du Satuoy needs a rethink. The definition of "mass" has changed. Where Einstein and Newton talking about different things? We mean something different by "water" (H20) than Galileo. Again, were we talking about different things. That seems absurd. Yet if Science deals in rigorous definitions, this is what follows. If he wants to say that it isn't the definition but it's referent that matters then his (and your) objections to God-talk vanish.
6) In any case God - "unlimited power with intentionality". Will that do? Of course you can keep asking the question what does that definition mean, and what does the defintion of the definition mean ad infinitum. But that is the case with every definition.

Nice to bang heads again

G Veale

Hi Graham,
Well, we'll let Galileo stew for now, other than to point out that the "church" has no right to be authoritative on any damned thing at all (maybe I'm turning into a Unitarian!), so Bellarmine gets off no hooks in my book, and remains a "baddie".

But I sure as heck don't see how "theological" explanations of morality, beauty, order etc provide any sort of explanation *at all*! Indeed, if you're invoking them as explanations, you are automatically trying to enter the scientific arena. Such metaphysical "explanations" are merely stories whereby humans get their heads around certain concepts - they are not in reality "explanatory" at all. They're myths; nice stories, but they do not provide actual understanding.

If you're defining "god" as "unlimited power with intentionality" then you do need to accept that other characteristics such as "good" or "holy" are merely behavioural labels applied to how it *behaves*, rather than representing any actual "attributes". I suggest this makes the whole of religion a bit of a nonsense.

Am I correct in thinking that some of the ancient Greek philosophers (so often derided by Ham and his YEC cronies) favoured a heleocentric solar system rather than geocentric one ?

I find it amazing that they (the Greek philosophers) not only disproved a flat Earth (and accurately calculated the Earth's circumference into the bargain) but also worked out the distance from the Earth to the sun (using Parralax) to within a couple of milliion miles, quite an amazing feat given the limitations of their instruments at the time.

As for science and the church in general, wasn't Darwin reluctant to publish the Origin of species for fear of the church at the time (possibly he was thinking of the Galileo affair) ? It was only when Afred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea that he was forced to go to press. I'm certain that even if the church had succeeded in repressing Darwin and Wallace someone else would have put forward a similar idea.

"A reader of Will & Testament asks: "Has anyone ever been burnt at the stake for claiming the earth wasn't at the centre of the universe?""

In earlier centuries when nothing was known about the true nature of the universe, such a theory might have gotten someone burt at the stake physically because it was religious heresy. Today when something is known about the universe, that theory would get them burnt at the stake metaphorically because it is incorrect science.

Peter
Pythagoras (sort of- the sun itself orbits around a "central fire"). And Aristarchus of Samos (who identified the Sun with the central fire). But I think his theory caused as many prblems as it solved.
There is a theory that the Inquisition suspected that Galileo was a closet Pythagorean, and that explains their hostility in 1632/33. Some also think that his useof Democritus' atomism would undermine transsubstantiation. I think it much simpler to focus on the fact that Galileo put the Pope's opinions in the mouth of Simplicio, the idiot, when he wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. And the Pope was a political ally.
G Veale

Helio
1) I'm with you on Belleramine.
2) I'm not sure that you've thought through my critcisms of the "science always wins" approach. At the very least you haven't answered them.
3) By theological explanations I mean something more akin to philosophical accounts than "origin" stories. So I'm not pitting a literalistic account of Eden against the "Descent of Man" or "Consilience". Rather I'm pitting the view that humans have an immaterial component, have a genuine need for transcendence, genuinely have failed to meet real moral standards etc etc.
4) I don't think Genesis 1-3 was ever meant to be read as a literal history. But that's another matter.
5) Are you prepared to accept unlimited power with intentionality as meaningful enough to do explanatory work? In other words, is it at least possible that such a being could explain the universe?
6) Would you agree with my point about literature? That of necessity there are insights that Science misses?

G Veale