Your Email:

Subject:

Message:
Entry: The Galileo Myth Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_galileo_myth#15695 Post contents: Mr. Spencer is right to question the “Galileo Myth,” but unfortunately his correction of the myth merely substitutes one naïve view for another. It seems to me naïve of Mr. Spencer to assume that modern science is more “open” than was the Church in the Galileo era. For example, the astronomer Halton Arp, who questioned the fashionable redshift theory of galactic distances, had his telescope time removed and had to relocate to Germany in order to practice science. He could not publish his findings in this country, which is under the grip of a scientific elite far more hardened in its mathematized scholasticism than ever were the medieval philosophers. Such mathematical scholasticism, along with the “Big Bang” theory and its make-believe (and not empirically verified) buttresses of “Dark Energy’ and “Dark Matter,” is a great way to erect barriers against common sense and thus, in a manner of speaking, keep the masses in their place. It has been acknowledged by scientists that Einstein’s relativity theory grants legitimacy to geocentrism, in the sense that it is equally true to say that the heavens revolve around the earth or the earth revolves around the sun – which is revolving in the heavens. Any point can be considered the center and the mathematics has to work out from which ever point is chosen. Both Fred Hoyle and George Ellis, among others, have acknowledged that it is for philosophical reasons that modern cosmologists prefer the heliocentric version. As Robert Sungenis has argued in his magisterial “Galileo Was Wrong,” modern science has preferred heliocentrism because otherwise it might have to acknowledge the role of the Creator. The Church had sound reasons for opposing heliocentrism, and such reasons were not only theological and moral but also had to do with the nature of scientific theory. Spencer’s gratuitous swipe at Islam was inappropriate and unnecessary. Muslim science has traditionally favored geocentrism for the same reason that the Catholic church defended it. Mr. Spencer needs to write less and learn more. Sent at: 2008 12 02