It’s a marvel I can take it for granted the Earth rotates and orbits the sun. I take it such for granted that I deride groups like the flat-earth society or any sort of esoteric group that scoffs at “the maths.”
When Galileo Galilei first supported the Copernican idea that the Earth moves around the sun, he had to fight similar taking-for-granted. People jeered at a Copernican model the way we jeer at Ptolemy’s earth-centered universe. Galileo had many difficulties to overcome before convincing a populace that the earth did not belong in the center of the universe. Several stood out to me in reading his Dialogue Concerning Two Chief World Systems.
First, he had to overcome an entirely different concept of motion. The developed philosophy and science of motion prior to Galileo and Newton was very different, pulled from the pages of Aristotle and his interpreters.
Second, he had to overcome a body of scientific evidence, or at least the perception of scientific evidence, that supported the Aristotelian system and contradicted his own. Several experiments conducted supposedly showed that the earth did not move. Galileo had to convince people that his experimentation contradicted these other experiments–and thus that nobody probably bothered to conduct the other experiments. One such experiment involves dropping an object from the mast of a ship while it is docked (and stationary) versus while the ship is in motion. The Aristotelian experiment stated that an object dropped would fall straight down and fall a ways from the mast, whereas Galileo shows that the object would actually drop at a velocity consistent with the ship if the ship traveled at the same velocity. He further shows that if people were in, for example, a railway car that had no windows and no way to perceive what was outside the car, no experiment conducted on the inside of the car could prove whether the car was traveling at a consistent speed or stationary on the tracks. Galileo’s contemporaries would view this concept of motion as completely contrary.
Third, Galileo had to opposed a vast, interconnected, all-encompassing philosophy. The Aristotelian system had sprouted centuries upon centuries prior to Galileo, and had developed into a rigorous and robust philosophical system. Galileo wanted to tear apart its entire foundation in observing that it did not accord with the evidence.
Fourth, Galileo had to sever the way philosophy and science were tied to religion. Galileo warned against declaring a heliocentric model heretical, because such a view may become orthodox in a later age. Galileo contended that the Christian church religion would work just as well, no matter where humanity should find the earth.
This is connected to a fifth problem: authority. Not just religious authority, but intellectual authority. Galileo got in trouble by going against papal declaration, but he also got in trouble for going toe-to-toe against Aquinas and Aristotle. The outlook of the intelligentsia concerning the proper conduct of learning and study was vastly different than our own today. Prior to the scientific revolution, only occasionally did piercing intellects such as Plato, Aristotle, or Aquinas appear onto the scene. They spent their lives perceiving great truths and declaring them to the world. The subsequent generations would then study the works of (or interpretations of) the great intellects.
And it took great merit, indeed, to establish oneself as an intellect worthy of saying something new. Aquinas–later named the doctor of the church–never achieved such veneration during his lifetime. In an academic milleiu concerned about human perfection and spiritual development, and considering the sparsity of great intellects, a person attempting to enter the stage as a great intellect would much more likely be vaunted only by his or her arrogance or ignorance, rather than the merit of any ideas he or she had. When a thinker achieved a status of a great intellect in the academy, however, a person would commit academic suicide by disagreeing with such a thinker. Galileo challenged this culture of academia by emphasizing, in a special, strong way, the importance of theory’s corroboration with the evidence.
That Galileo was wrong about a lot didn’t help. His errors are understandable, and I cannot critique his brilliant perceptiveness, because he did not have a developed scientific physics to work from–a development that Newton helped bring. Newton’s description of the laws of physics, heating and cooling, and gravity are essential to making sense of a Copernican system.
In a way, it’s probably a good thing that Galileo didn’t devise an entirely new system, free of immediately-perceived error, otherwise the intelligentsia may have proceeded to venerate him as a great intellect. Instead, Galileo proposed an imperfect demonstration of the truth of the Copernican model, and encouraged thinkers to continually look to see if a touted theory accorded with the available evidence. We should forever be in his gratitude.
Here’s a link to the book, iff’n you want to give it a read.
Posted by napkinini 
Posted by napkinini 
Posted by napkinini 
