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To: curiosity
If the Church were dogmatically opposed to heliocentrism, why didn't it burn Copernicus when he presented his model in Rome? And no, he did not wait until his death to present it.

Copernicus presented only a mathematical model. No problem. Galileo had some very persuasive evidence.

39 posted on 02/04/2006 5:05:28 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Copernicus presented only a mathematical model. No problem. Galileo had some very persuasive evidence.

Yes, but no one started giving him trouble until he started saying that the Bible had to be reinterpreted in light of his evidence.

Even after his trial, and the placing of his book on the index, no one was prohibited from doing further research into the Copernican model. The reading of Galileo's books was even allowed, so long as the edition was modified to express the Copernican model as a hypothesis, and his evidence as less than definitive (which it was).

And I might add, Copernicus did not think his model was just a model. He thought it represented physical reality.

Again, I'm not defending Galileo's treatment (or the actions of the Congregation on the Index in 1616). At the very least, the placing of Copernicus and Kepler on the index was aboslutely indefensible.

I'm just pointing out that the historical reality is different from what most people think it is.

40 posted on 02/04/2006 5:14:47 PM PST by curiosity
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To: PatrickHenry
Copernicus presented only a mathematical model. No problem. Galileo had some very persuasive evidence

Oh, and BTW. Bruno didn't have any evidence either. It was just a model, and the same as Copernicus. That pretty much rules out the hypothesis that he was burned for challanging geocentrism.

41 posted on 02/04/2006 5:16:52 PM PST by curiosity
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