wilmott.com

The reason I mentioned Galileo is that I've read 3 historians now who contend that the "Trial of Galileo" was an urban myth. Further that no schism between theology and science was created by Galileo.

A 4th book contends that rather than a schism between theology and science, a schism was created between science and philosophy as it was philosophers of the day who were attacking Galileo's work not theologians.

I state this as assertion only, and as partial justification for going back in the time machine to 400 BC before all of this started so we can get our bearings and frames of reference.

In short ...Galileo's early works were read avidly by Maffeo Barberini when he was a young Cardinal. Barberini became Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Urban took a great interest in G. and they went for a walk in the gardens of the Vatican where they had a now celebrated conversation in which Barberini warned Galileo that he could discuss the Copernican cosmological system, as long as he treated it as a hypothetical. Unfortunatly Galileo decided to put this argument in his next book, in the mouth of Simplicio. Bad idea! Urban was furious and in his rage called the inqiusition. Here we get to all sorts of myths, ideas, theories about what happened. Mine is that the Pope was a Jesuit, but most of the powerful cardinals (especially thos on the Inquisition) were Dominicans. Power struggle - the Dominicans jumped at the chance to take out Galileo, and would have been quite happy to see the Pope also destroyed in the scandal. They didn't much care for Copernicanism and had been arguing against G for some time. There is some evidence that the Pope did his utmost to pull strings, realising his mistake in calling in the Inquisition. He got all the jesuit members to vote for Galileo. But the Dominicans won the day. However the Popes intervention got him a pretty leniant house arrest - he managed to write another book while there! ->> political manipulation, not science-religion schism!! But of course it was a convenient excuse for future scientsts trying to make a point, and did put a dampner on Copernicanism for a hundred years. I don't deny that!If you're interested read books by Stillman Drake, Mario Biagioli, Richard S Westfall, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Michael Sharratt. (There are probably other good authors, but there are also a lot of dubious books, often by well known people - scientists are often bad at history!)Sharratt - good biographyFinocchiaro - book on trial (reprints the conversation in the garden)Drake - lifelong G scholar who died recentlyWestfall - good for the period and later (Newton et al.)regardscharliePS: I did some extra History of Science courses at Uni, with Galileo being my favourite subject. Hence OTT enthusiasm!!Galileo museum in Italy which is quite fun

Charlie,Thank you very much! Yes, I was perusing Drake the other day. I am rather amazed at how much more 3 dimensional life and history becomes upon further examination. The 2 dimensional version which has become popular discourse is disturbing to say the least.

I think Galileo should have accepted the offer that Harvard made him. He needed to get away from it all.