[js1138]

...so maybe you are not wrong about those things.

I have had to eat my words on these threads a couple of times, so I appreciate anyone who engages in an actual discussion.

Someone has pointed out to me that Galileo did not have the technology to make precise measurements of gravitational acceleration. There is no doubt that he made measurements.

Newton was one of the brightest men who ever lived, and his work is brilliant, but he built a cosmology out of a few data points. He no more observed the workings of the cosmos than Darwin witnessed dinosaurs mating.

Science is about building explanitory theories and looking for evidence to confirm or refute the expectations of theory.

[Ichneumon]

Newton was one of the brightest men who ever lived, and his work is brilliant, but he built a cosmology out of a few data points. He no more observed the workings of the cosmos than Darwin witnessed dinosaurs mating.

He also wasted a great deal of his talents on alchemy, and an idiosyncratic theology.

[PatrickHenry]

Someone has pointed out to me that Galileo did not have the technology to make precise measurements of gravitational acceleration. There is no doubt that he made measurements.

I think he used an inclined plane to make round things "fall" slower, and he measured the time with his pulse. Not terribly precise, but it was sufficient to observe that heavy objects fall no faster than light ones.