Planets, Priests and a Persistent Myth

The Wall Street Journal ^ | May 21, 2015 | Stephen Barr and Dermott Mullan

[presidio9]

Last week NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, after a voyage of about eight years, captured incredible video of two bright spots on Ceres. Ceres has an interesting history, labeled for decades a planet, then an asteroid (or minor planet), and most recently a dwarf planet, a category that includes another erstwhile planet, Pluto. Ceres was discovered through the dedication of a Catholic priest, Giuseppe Piazzi (1746-1826), who obtained the best astronomical instruments of his day, and positioned them where they could be used to best effect.

When he was 19, Piazzi joined the Theatine Order of clerics, which supported his doctoral studies in philosophy and mathematics. At 34, -SNIP-

Most news accounts don’t mention that Piazzi was a Catholic priest. In fact, the remarkable story of the Catholic clergy’s contributions to science is one of the best-kept secrets of scientific history. The exception is Gregor Mendel; it is widely known that the science of genetics began with the experiments of the Austrian monk.

But it is the rare person who knows that the big-bang theory, the central pillar of modern cosmology, was the brainchild of the Belgian Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître. In the 1920s, Lemaître showed that Albert Einstein’s equations of gravity allow space itself to expand and, connecting this to observations that distant galaxies were flying apart, he formulated his famous theory of how the universe began.

The Jesuits have an especially rich scientific tradition. In the 16th century, the Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius developed

-SNIP-

[presidio9]

ping

[presidio9]

Final paragraph of this article:

Ask a Catholic audience whose name they associate with the Catholic Church and science. “Galileo!” they shout. Ask them about Lemaître, Grimaldi, Stensen, Secchi—or Piazzi—and you get blank stares. Is it any wonder the science-religion warfare myth persists?

[nickcarraway]

That’s messed up about Pluto.

[presidio9]

Blame Neil deGrasse Tyson for that screw-up. Coincidentally, I love the guy but it's still fair to point out that he is our culture's biggest purveyor of the "Catholicism against Science" myth.

[sparklite2]

Or ask them about the priest Giordano Bruno, burned to death by the church for, among other things, postulating the universe as we know it today.

[presidio9]

Not that I agree with anyone being put to death of heresy, but you have your facts wrong about Bruno. His execution had nothing to do with his scientific theories.

Thanks for making both of my points for me.

[presidio9]

CAtholic Encyclopedia - Giordanno Bruno:

"Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc. "

[sparklite2]

I was careful to say, “among other things.”

though scholars emphasize that Bruno’s astronomical views were at most a small part of the theological and philosophical beliefs that led to his trial. Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

[presidio9]

I was careful to say, “among other things.”

Right, just like Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for littering, among other things.

Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences.

Only because many on the left, and more who have other issues with the Catholic Church would like to make it so. Unfortunately, there's no there there. As I said, the idea of executing someone for disagreeing with the Church on spiritual matters like transubstantiation or the Virgin Birth is barbaric in its own right. But there is about as much evidence that astrology had anything to do with Bruno's execution as there is that Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown for being black.

[sparklite2]

Uhm, astrology? Heh. Did you just make your own point?

[presidio9]

Thank God for typos. If it weren’t for them, ignorant newbies might have to admit that they were wrong occasionally.

[sparklite2]

“Tihs” is a typo. Mistaking astrology for cosmology is a sign of dubious intellect, compounded in this case by use of “newbiness” to avoid admission of error.

[presidio9]

Listen, man: You are a newbie because you signed up to this website less than six months ago, and you still haven't grown out of the awkward phase of posting stupid things in an attempt to make strangers believe you are as smart as you think you are.

Case in point: Why would anyone who knows who Giordano Bruno was not know the difference between astrology and astronomy? Then again, it is pretty clear that everything you know about the man you either just learned from me or from watching a short cartoon biography on Cosmos.

Don't bother answering the question.