Movie

This movie really didn't sit well with me at some parts. It painted a very different picture than what I read. First off, the whole telescope incident in the beginning really through me off. I knew he didn't invent the telescope, but the way the movie presented it he looked like a crook the way he took credit for it. i just didn't imagine Galileo doing something like that. However, the overall work seemed to be accurate enough. It just seemed to not go into the detail we are used to, and there were some inaccuracies, i.e. the daughter thing.

The one recurring part that confused me was the 3 choir kids. I just didn't get what was with them and why they were though. I know it was just part of the movie, but why 3 little kids singing. I don't know, it was just a really weird part of the movie.

Overall the whole thing seemed to work well, but many of the small or medium sized elements weren't so accurate. To us this matters because we have read a lot, but to others many would go unnoticed.

Rehabilitation.

I was a little surprised by what Sharratt had to say. There were a few things I didn't know, mainly concerned with Pope John Paul. It seems that Sharratt really likes Pope John Paul and most of what he did. However, the only part he didn't like was how "Pope John Paul's address eludes the crucial distinction between hypotheses as mere calculating devices and hypotheses as conjectures that could eventually be shown to be true." Other than that the, I would have to agree with Sharratt in saying that Pope John Paul was very good. Also, Sharratt seems to go so far as to say that he really is one of the few to realize what Galileo has done for the Church, and more people need to see that. Even though he wasn't a theologian, his contribution was great. I also like how Sharratt shared some information about the Galileo situation I didn't know about, like how the Inquistion didn't even look at his scientific case. That just amazed me.

Beginning of the Affair

Its amazing how much censorship was going on, and mainly over small things. Phrases that were "bad-sounding" were thrown out of books because they might hurt the Church. As I was reading I was stunned that the Church went through such measures.

One of the big focuses of the reading I feel was the fact that only somethings were condemned at first. The Copernican idea was fine with the Church it seemed. That wasn't were the issue was. The real problem was when people tried to say that it could go with the Scripture. It was like the Church allowed the belief to exist and talked about, but as soon as someone said its possible it was censored. It almost doesn't make sense to me why they only corrected parts that suggested it can work with the scripture, and yet didn't take up too much issue with the idea at first.

Also, I never heard about the three propositions by Galileo: "God is not a substance but an accident, that God is sensuous, and that the miracles of the Saints are not true miracles." It seems so irrelevant to everything it confused me. Like, how did that end up in Galileo's astronomy talk.

In regards to someone trying to get Galileo in trouble with the Church, I feel it wasn't so personal. It seems to me it was more of lets get the Church more powerful and flex our muscles. Obviously Galileo was targeted, but he was just an easy target and prime for a fight.

Galileo's Letter

I feel that the two main themes of Galileo's Letter are that scripture and observations can be rectified together and that scripture is not a factor in determining validity of science. These two points are intertwined together and go together very well.

Galileo is in firm agreement with Augustine in believing that the Bible pretty much concerns itself with matters of salvation and not of scientific inquiries. Augustine says that the Bible "did not want to teach men these things which are of no use to salvation." Obviously, whether or not the sun moved or the earth moved has nothing to do with reaching salvation, which most people acknowledge. So therefore, the bible shouldn't have a hold over whether or not Copernicus is right, since the Bible deals with something entirely different. A very witty line i like was that "the intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven and not how heaven goes." It really sums up how Augustine, Galileo, and many others felt about the interpretation and purpose of the Holy Scripture. Also, the Bible was written "to accommodate the belief of the people." It would just go along with what people would naturally think, not going out of its way to state the explicit truth when not necessary. Since perception seems to show that the earth is still, the Bible might just go along with that just for the sake that it is unnecessary to explain how you are wrong.

The second main theme of Galileo's letter is the fact that science and religion really don't contradict each other and go quite well together. "And so one must search for the correct meaning of Scripture with the help of demonstrated truth, rather than taking the literal meaning of the words." The demonstrated truths being observations. Basically, observations are made and those are truth. Then, the scripture must be read and interpreted in order to agree with the recordings. Since observations and scripture are both true, neither can contradict each other, so only the interpretations must be altered.

One part I feel I disagree with is the line "whoever is supporting the truth can have many sensory experiences and many necessary demonstrations on his side, whereas the opponent cannot use anything but deceptive presentations, paralogisms, and fallacies." In many cases, false theories have perfectly reasonable evidence on their side. For example, the belief that the earth is still has evidence that is perfectly reasonable. If its moving so fast, how do we not feel it and how are we not thrown because of the speed. Also, sometimes the truth seems to have deceptive methods. For example, Galileo's telescope was used to prove his ideas and some people were not too keen on the telescope in fear of being tricked. You would see nothing with just your eye, but yet the telescope showed another image. That can seem deceptive even though it is the truth.

Finocchiaro's Introduction

This post will be concerned with the anti-Catholic and anti-Galilean extremes section.

To be honest, I really don't get Finocchiaro. I understand what he is trying to say, but at the same time I don't. First off, he says "a balanced approach to the study of the Galileo affair must avoid the two opposite extremes." Well thank you Maurice, because otherwise I would have never known that when you study things you shouldn't look at the extremes. This is what you always have been taught and what you always do. It just seems to me that that is an obvious thing to do. Also, he seems to be blowing a lot of smoke about the whole extremes, but he doesn't really back it up. He talks about them, but nothing major.

Also, to me he contradicts himself in the beginning. First he acknowledges that "Galileo's visit on that particular occasion thus had the status of improsenment, a priveleged imprisonment to be sure, but a forced residence nonetheless." He then goes on to mention a column in the road that reads "it was here that Galileo was kept prisoner by the holy Office, being guilty of having seen that the earth moves around the sun." Finocchiaro says that this expresses the myth of the Galileo affair, but what myth is that? That he was held prisoner? That's not a myth. He just said that it was true a few sentences beforehand. If he is contesting the validity of the prisoner part, then he is infact one of the "extremes" which he despises because he holds that statement as truth beforehand.

If Finocchiaro doesn't like the part about being guilty because he saw that earth moves around the sun, tough luck. That's obviously why he was found guilty. If he didn't see the earth move, would he have gotten in trouble. No. Of course not. So it all goes back to Galileo seeing the earth move.

He also says that Galileo turned out to be right about how the Bible doesn't talk about natural science. Finocchiaro's reasoning is that the Church officially declared that to be true. The Church has declared a lot of things over the years, and that doesn't make them true. The Church declared the earth the center of the universe for goodness sake. Theres just something iffy to me about Finocchiaro.

I do like the point he makes about the difference between factual correctness and rational correctness. There is a major difference as noted by Finocchiaro. Just because a statement is true doesn't mean the rationale behind it is also true. For example the conclusion that we are in Hamilton,NY is a true statement, so it has factual correctness. If the reasoning however is that wherever you are in the world is Hamilton, New York is not true, so no rational correctness. Just because the conclusion is true, doesn't make the premises true. And the same goes vice versa.

Kepler

Koestler doesn't seem to love Kepler, but he doesn't dislike him as much as Copernicus. Its a much different tone than before. Also, I found it weird how Koestler was almost poking fun at the fact that Kepler was always sick and stuff. I mean, it's kind of unnecessary and doesn't really shed any new light on Kepler. Also, it was funny to read about how Kepler was all into astrology and the positions of stars. He made predictions depending on where the stars were when conception was made, and I just didn't expect that from him. When you think of scientist like him, you don;t usually associate it with astrology and arts of that form.

To end, here's a song inspired by Kepler and his writings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NszUiuooRs

Copernicus

I can't decide whether Koestler respects Copernicus or if he totally dislikes him. At some points, he talks about him being uncreative and not doing a lot of work. At the same time though, he points out that if it was so easy, why hadn't others done it. Also, he points out that many have not fully read his works, so many comments are unfounded possibly.

Koestler calls Copernicus unoriginal and basically he studied the ancients more than he did the stars, and his work was based on the past. Kepler summed it up in his quote that "Copernicus was interpreting Ptolemy rather than nature. It would seem that Copernicus should being doing a lot of nature studying, but rather the bulk of the work was already done. Koestler seems to back Copernicus up in the face of that form of scrutiny. "If it was really as simple as that, then the equally simple question arises why nobody before him had worked out a heliocentric system?" Its a very good question because people seem to hark on him for not doing a lot of work and such, but if it was so easy, how come so many people before him failed to do what he did. People criticize him, but yet not many could have done what he did.

I found it amazing that so many historians are incorrect on parts of Copernicus's beliefs. If people are to pass judgment, it would seem logical that they must have read Copernicus and understand it. Yet, many of them have clearly not, and that baffles me. It is just unfair to hold such negative thoughts and not even have read them. It humored me when Koestler said Copernicus's system "uses altogether forty-eight epicycles - if I counted them correctly."

Also, the fact that there is no summary really seemed to hurt Copernicus. I guess he wrote so ambiguously that people had a hard time determining what he meant. It is suggested that summary would have cleared so many things up, but it was left out. Koestler mentions that Copernicus said there would be a summary, but that it never came through.

I would also just like to say that I really like how Koestler words things and relates different things. "He spent the rest of his life trying to fit into a medieval framework based on Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic wheels. It was like trying to fit a turbo-prop engine on a ramshackle old stage-coach"