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Entry: The Galileo Myth Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_galileo_myth#15601 Post contents: Dear Robert Spencer, Interesting article. I think there are some other examples that are used to "prove" that the Church was against science, like the case of Giordano Bruno. Notwithstanding that it was entirely wrong to execute him, this is also a misconception, since Giordano Bruno was not really a scientist (actually, if one excepts Feyerabend's 'anything goes' definition of science than he may qualify). Another interesting point is that the idea that the Earth does not move was, however unlikely, but still a tenable hypothesis until the Michelson-Morley experiment was explained by relativity. The experiment can be rationalized by assuming that the Earth is stationary in the ether (and light travels relative to the ether, hence it would be constant as long as the experiment is performed on Earth), and since special relativity came almost two decades afterwards, strictly speaking, there was no consistent theory to refute that hypothesis for that time. Galilei's case has been analyzed by Feyerabend, and it is one of his crucial examples to point out that science proceeds without method. Many of Galilei's conclusions are questionable, since he did not have a thorough enough handle on details (for example optics was at a rather premature stage). These conclusions turned out to be true afterwards, but often for reasons different from his claims, so to claim that they were proven, as Galilei has, was not in line with any criteria for scientific method (not even Feyerabend's). Werner Heisenberg (along with Schrodinger and Dirac), who can be credited with proposing quantum mechanics in a complete form, makes the claim that modern science,and even the atheism that is often the consequence of it, is a characteristic unique to the Christian world (Heisenberg: The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics, Daedalus, 1958). A passage in this article even warns against the separation of faith and science and agains being to self-insured about "scientific knowledge" which is ultimately also based on belief. Sent at: 2008 12 02