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Vatican should learn from Galileo mess, prelate says
newsdaily ^ | 2009/07/02 | Philip Pullella

Posted on 07/07/2009 8:24:48 AM PDT by JoeProBono

The Catholic Church should not fear scientific progress and possibly repeat the mistake it made when it condemned astronomer Galileo in the 17th century, a Vatican official said on Thursday in a rare self-criticism.

Galileo, who lived from 1564 to 1642, was condemned by the Inquisition in 1633 for asserting that the earth revolved around the sun.

Known as the father of astronomy, he wasn't fully rehabilitated by the Vatican until 1992, nearly 360 years later.

At a news conference presenting a new volume of documents on the Galileo case, Monsignor Sergio Pagano, head of the Vatican's secret archives, said today's Church and Vatican officials can learn from past mistakes and shed their diffidence toward science.

"Can this teach us something today? I certainly think so," he said, in a rare display of self-criticism for the Vatican.

"We should be careful, when we read the Sacred Scriptures and have to deal with scientific questions, to not make the same mistake now that was made then," he said.

"I am thinking of stem cells, I am thinking of eugenics, I am thinking of scientific research in these fields. Sometimes I have the impression that they are condemned with the same preconceptions that were used back then for the Copernican theory," he said.

The Inquisition, which sought out heresies, condemned Galileo for backing a theory of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus because it clashed with the Bible which said: "God fixed the Earth upon its foundation, not to be moved forever


TOPICS: Astronomy; Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: apologia; apologists; astronomy; science; vatican; xplanets
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To: campaignPete R-CT

Planetary physics 101. The Earth is in orbit around the Sun.

And no reason to be childish.


21 posted on 07/07/2009 7:11:57 PM PDT by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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To: allmendream

no, bringing the Galileo stuff is childish

galileo claimed the sun was stationary. FALSE
he claimed that planets revolve around the sun
in circular orbits. FALSE

Scientists knew that if the Corperican model were correct, that they would observe a parallax effect when viewing stars, yet they did not. Why was that?


22 posted on 07/07/2009 7:38:15 PM PDT by campaignPete R-CT
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To: allmendream

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2253681/posts
“At the same time, instead of keeping the debate on a theoretical plane involving mathematics, astronomy and observation, Galileo entered the murky post-Reformation waters of theology and Scriptural interpretation. His theory was that nature cannot contradict the Bible, and if it appeared to do so it is because we do not adequately understand the deeper biblical interpretation.

This sounds pretty much like a Catholic understanding of the role of faith and science. How did he get into so much trouble? Essentially, Galileo slipped into trouble on three accounts. First, he was teaching Copernican theory as fact, rather than hypothesis, when there really was no scientific fact to back it up. Second, the popularity of his writings brought an essentially philosophical discussion into the public arena, requiring some sort of church response. Third, by elevating scientific conjecture to a theological level, he was raising the stakes enormously. Instead of merely scientific disputation, Galileo was now lecturing on Scriptural interpretation. Galileo could have avoided trouble if he presented his work as theory and if he had stuck to science rather than elevating the whole issue to a theological dispute over the meaning of Scripture.”
YOU’VE HAD 400 YEARS TO LEARN THERE ARE NO CIRCLES, DUDE. STICK TO YOUR OWN FIELD, PLEASE.


23 posted on 07/07/2009 7:45:01 PM PDT by campaignPete R-CT
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To: allmendream

“Most of the early scientific progress, particularly astronomy, was rooted in the church. Galileo would not so much “discover” that the Earth revolved around the sun, but attempt to prove the theories of a Catholic priest who had died 20 years before Galileo was born, Nicholas Copernicus.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2253681/posts


24 posted on 07/07/2009 7:48:01 PM PDT by campaignPete R-CT
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To: allmendream

“The myth we have of Galileo is that of a faithless renegade attacked by a church afraid of science. It’s false on all counts. Galileo was a traditional believing Catholic — his daughter was a devout nun — who saw no contradiction between his science and his faith. He had begun to study and write on the Copernican theory and was recognized as the leading astronomer of his day. In 1611, he was honored in Rome for his work, receiving a favorable audience with Pope Paul V, and became friends with Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII, who would celebrate the astronomer with a poem.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2253681/posts


25 posted on 07/07/2009 7:49:07 PM PDT by campaignPete R-CT
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To: campaignPete R-CT

Galileo was correct that the Earth is in orbit a around the Sun, this is because the Earth (a rather tiny object in comparison) is held in the gravitational orbit of the Sun (a massive object).

Any model that has the Sun circling the Earth is ludicrous.

What force do you think could move the Sun around the Earth while leaving the Earth motionless?


26 posted on 07/07/2009 8:29:47 PM PDT by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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To: allmendream

Galileo knew nothing about gravity as one of the forces in physics. That is why he scoffed at the tides being related to the moon. You are confusing him with Newton.


27 posted on 07/07/2009 9:43:21 PM PDT by campaignPete R-CT
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To: campaignPete R-CT

Not in the slightest. Galileo had the observations and the more correct model that put the Earth in orbit around the Sun rather than the opposite. It was Newton who provided the theory that explained the observation; that theory being the universal gravitational attraction of mass.


28 posted on 07/08/2009 6:45:35 AM PDT by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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To: KevinDavis; annie laurie; garbageseeker; Knitting A Conundrum; Viking2002; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ...
 
X-Planets
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·
Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

29 posted on 07/08/2009 5:27:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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