Follow Galileo or Kepler?

Have a great day. Discover something grand!

1 Like

Well, of course - which also shows the absurdity of the myth of the secular scientist boldly opposiing the superstition of religion. Nobody yet realised science was supposed to be secular.

@jongarvey,

But if anything, this “astrology” is part-and-parcel of how Science and Religious views were perceived as a kind of Unity.

For example, Alchemy . . .
[[which most moderns don’t realize was performed with the full expectation that a
righteous practitioner would enjoy the assistance (visible or invisible) of God’s angels!]]
. . . was the synonym for Chemistry, and vice versa.

This can be easily seen by reading the Rosicrucian literature of the early 1600’s

.
.

It was only after the French were able to demonstrate that there were distinct procedures available that were more reliable than “alchemical processes” (e.g., praying to an angel for intervention) that the word “chemical” started to become set apart from Alchemy, so that people could more easily determine what kind of “art” was being practiced!

You are missing the point. Astrology is not superstitious before it was disproven. It was only after the Copernican Revolution that it was abandoned. Now, astrology is superstitious, because it has no basis in current knowledge. That means there is a totally different character to trust in astrology before and after the revolution. it is not the same thing.

No I’m not - my comparison is valid. I referred to the “superstition of religion”, not “of astology” (ironically), in comparison to anachronistic condemnation of astrology as superstition.

Interestingly, your (true) point is the same one that Behe made at the Dover trial, for which he has been mocked by all and sundry since, though he was correct.

I wrote some time ago on the scientific foundation of astrology in Mesopotamia despite the absence even of a concept of nature.

1 Like

I wrote one overview of the heliocentism question here, and a reasonably accurate, if tongue in cheek one here about how religion got us to the moon - the latter of which happens to be one of the few citations of my work in a published book.

@gbrooks9

Quite right, George. As it happens I also wrote a piece on magic and early science here back in 2014.

1 Like

@swamidass

Correct, check out the article “Galileo the Emblem Maker” How different is Galielo’s time regarding scientific funding than today’s?

It always is! I’m not a historian, but something to keep in mind between Galileo and Kepler is that the intellectual soil was very different. Kepler and Brahe, working for and against Heliocentric respectively, were working in relatively protestant countries. Luther’s Reformation was started as a reformation of the university curriculum – Before the infamous “Ninety-Five Theses” were nailed to Wittenberg’s door, Luther nailed the “Disputation Against Scholastic Theology” (1517) to the door, calling for a complete overhaul of the university.

Luther had sowed the seeds of educational reform that thinkers such as Melanchthon, Kepler, and Brahe reaped. Galileo had no such luck or champion in Catholic Italy. He had promises from people in high places to protect him and his ideas, but he was instituting educational revolt against Catholic scholasticism during the counter-Reformation.

In hindsight, Galileo was bound to run into problems where the Protestant countries were given a golden opportunity to flourish. And flourish they did! I’ve even found a dissertation suggesting that places such as Oxford and Cambridge were reaching out to little Wittenberg for insight on Copernican astronomy.

The question that I’m curious about is what happened to Wittenberg that it “lost its way” during or following(?) the age of Lutheran scholasticism (post-reformation) and why has the early Reformation Wittenberg with its high view of scripture and love of the Liberal Arts not been able to be replicated on US soil? Most classical Lutheran liberal arts colleges have moved liberal or fundamentalist. The liberal downplays theology as a vestigial organ of educational evolution whereas the fundamentalist tends toward emotionalism and the circling of wagons – both the very opposites of Luther’s and Melancthon’s Wittenberg.

3 Likes

@swamidass @rcohlers @jongarvey

In evaluating the arguments put forth by Kepler and Galileo, we need to keep several facts in mind.

(1) Kepler wrote about this first. Originally he had intended to put his argument about accommodation into the preface to his first book, Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), but since it was published at Tubingen–where Kepler and Melanchthon had studied (MA) and where M also reformed the curriculum–the theologians disallowed it. Publication had to wait until Kepler got to Catholic Prague, so it appeared in the Astronomia Nova (1609). It isn’t a very long piece, but almost certainly Galileo saw it before writing his letter to Castelli (1613), an earlier version of his much longer Letter to Christina (1615). Galileo likewise used accommodation extensively, and in a similar manner to Kepler, but he went far beyond what Kepler had written, producing IMO the single most important piece on science and the Bible ever written.

(2) Kepler’s intellectual freedom (in Prague) was not at stake. He kept things short and not so sweet, displaying toward those who would toss the Bible in his face the same arrogance that Copernicus had shown in his brief reference to them in the preface to De revolutionibus (1543), which was dedicated to Pope Paul III. Both men just wanted the Bible thumpers to mind their own business. Copernicus advised the Pope to ignore “certain ‘idle talkers’” who are “wholly ignorant of mathematics,” when they “distort the sense of some passage in Holy Writ to suit their purpose.” Kepler advises the devout peasant who ignorantly criticizes him to " to mind his own business and to stay at home and fertilize his own garden," i.e., go pee in your garden, while admiring the beauty of the heavens, the work of the Creator–as Kepler also does. Kepler denies that the Bible is a science book and applies accommodation to its language about nature. He leaves matters there, not developing a sophisticated theory of hermeneutics for passages about nature. He doesn’t need to. The religious concerns pressing down on him are about confessional liberty, not science and the Bible.

(3) Galileo’s situation was almost entirely different. As a devout Catholic in an almost universally Catholic Italy, Galileo isn’t worried about the right to worship God differently. But, he is worried about his intellectual freedom, since the mother of his patron apparently believes that Copernicanism might be heretical–and a Vatican council makes just such a determination the year after he writes his Letter to Christina. Roberto Bellarmino, the chair of that committee, had already responded sternly to a book by a Catholic priest, Foscarini, which argued that the Bible was consistent with Copernicus. Galileo needed to make a lengthy, detailed hermeneutical argument–and he did. As crucial components of that argument, he said these things:

(a) The purpose of the Bible is spiritual, not scientific. It’s the highest authority on the former, but not the latter. Indeed, it would be deleterious for the Bible to lecture ignorant peasants about the real structure of the universe. Since the Earth’s motion is contrary to common sense and ordinary observation, the “rude and unlearned” would be inclined to doubt the truth of the Bible if it addressed such matters in a scientifically accurate manner.

(b) The Bible is written in ordinary human language, aimed at the ordinary person. It’s accommodated to their verbal and conceptual language, regardless of whether they correctly understand nature. This is b/c it’s purpose is to teach salvation, not science.

(c) Nature, however, is not accommodated at all. It’s written (as he says elsewhere) in the language of mathematics. It is to be understood by “sense experiences and necessary demonstrations,” not from biblical texts. I should add that many of the great Christian scientists from the period Copernicus to Newton agreed with this: they did not believe that the Bible should be used to help us understand nature. Thus, e.g., Boyle almost never cited the Bible in his experimental works, even though he wrote 3/4 of a million words about biblical and theological topics. Indeed, the basic problem of the Bible and science in early modern Europe was mainly solved by keeping the Bible out of the way. That wasn’t equivalent to denying the Bible its proper sphere, or its great importance. It was simply continuing the long practice of methodological naturalism.

(d) Thus, what science says about nature is more likely to be true than the literal sense of Scripture. Since God is the author of both “books,” nature and Scripture, they must not contradict. It is therefore the job of the interpreter to keep in mind that mathematics (the language of nature) is not ambiguous, while human language (the Bible) is often ambiguous. If we use the reliable conclusions of science to help us determine the best interpretation of the Bible, we ensure that we do not create errors in the biblical text by taking it too literally in places where that’s not what God intended.

I do not believe that Kepler’s argument is actually better than Galileo’s. Indeed, if Kepler had seen it (Galileo’s letter wasn’t actually published until after Kepler’s death), I imagine he’d have fully endorsed it. Kepler simply didn’t try to say nearly as much as Galileo needed to say. He was absolutely capable of saying a great deal more about this topic–remember that Kepler began his university career as an MA student in theology, not as a student of astronomy and the arts, and that his life’s goal was to be a theologian. It’s simply that he didn’t need to write the lengthy piece that Galileo was forced by circumstances to write, against his own wishes.

5 Likes

@swamidass @jongarvey @rcohlers

When Galileo mentions “necessary demonstrations,” he’s using a medieval and early modern category of knowledge that has no exact modern equivalent. If I may be allowed to fudge things a bit, we could perhaps substitute the words “mathematical proofs” for his term. In his view, consistent with his early Aristotelian education (the standard model then), “science” or genuine knowledge consisted of what could actually be known with certainty, not speculative claims or mere opinions. In his view, natural philosophy could actually achieve such certain knowledge–a view that would have been held also by Kepler, Melanchthon, and many others at the time. Only later on, after his encounter with Bellermino and the Vatican, did Galileo come somewhat to appreciate the hypothetico-deductive nature of scientific knowledge, such that absolute certainty was not a realistic goal for natural philosophy. Even then, in his heart of hearts he believed that natural philosophy ought to aim for the certainty of mathematics: readers of his final great work, The Discourses on Two New Sciences, will see him aiming at that goal often, with his mathematical idealizations of nature that enable him to make demonstrative arguments about the physical world.

Necessary demonstrations for Galileo aren’t ordinary observations. Quite the contrary. Often they contradict ordinary observations. For example, his abstract demonstration that, in the absence of friction, two bodies of unequal weight will fall evenly to Earth. He admired “those who have done such violence to their senses,” as to accept the truth of the Copernican theory–which is flatly contradicted by common sense and ordinary observations.

2 Likes

@swamidass @jongarvey @rcohlers

Yes–if science proves it by “necessary demonstrations,” then it’s a fact to which the interpretation of Scripture must conform. However–and this is a crucial “however”–Galileo did not believe this applied to many biblical claims, including the Resurrection and eternal life and the Trinity. Such things were revealed to us by Scripture and could not be known in any other way (in his opinion). Reason and observation were insufficient to give us knowledge of such things; the Bible’s purpose was to do exactly that.

But, the Bible’s purpose was not (in his opinion, and mine) to tell us true scientific facts about how nature works. I’ve already explained this above. In that limited context, then, we start with nature, not with the Bible, and we need to keep in mind the purpose of Scripture, its intended audience (the “rude and unlearned”), and the fact that its language is necessarily accommodated to that audience. So, indeed, we must prioritize scientific conclusions about nature over biblical statements about nature, which absolutely aren’t intended to explain how nature works down deep.

This is indeed why Galileo ultimately got into trouble with Rome: he was elevating the status of science from that of a mere obedient “handmaiden” to an independent source of truth that was, in its limited sphere, clearer and more reliable than the literal sense of Scripture. That was scary to many people, but in time it became the standard “concordist” model. In that model, scientific conclusions about many things (the age of the earth, the age of the universe, the structure of the universe) are fully accepted as more reliable than the literal sense of Scripture–except biological evolution, which is not seen as a reliable conclusion of science.

2 Likes

Incidentally, some historians believe that Galileo’s reference to the ordinary person as “rude and unlearned” implies that from time to time he had been within earshot of a rock concert. Unquestionably he preferred Giovanni Gabrielli to heavy metal, hands down. After all, his father was a major music theorist (without whom we probably don’t get Bach’s “Well Tempered Clavier”) and lutenist; one of his father’s pieces found its way into Respighi’s “Ancient Airs and Dances.”

2 Likes

The full version of Galileo’s Letter to Christina is here: http://inters.org/Galilei-Madame-Christina-Lorraine

Excerpts are usually helpful, but there’s no substitute for a careful read of the whole thing.

For background, some analysis, and questions to guide your reading, see https://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/galileo-and-other-good-books-about-science-and-the-bible, https://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/galileo-and-the-garden-of-eden-part-1, and https://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/galileo-and-the-garden-of-eden-the-principle-of-accommodation-and-the-book-of-genesis-part-2.

About 18 months ago I gave a lecture, “Galileo and the Garden of Eden,” to an early modern study group at the U of MN. The video is embedded on this page: https://cla.umn.edu/early-modern/news-events/news/galileo-and-garden-eden-lecture-ted-davis. Anyone interested in Galileo’s arguments and their uses by subsequent Christian scientists and theologians is invited to drop in and listen–and raise questions here.

2 Likes

@TedDavis, I look forward to watching the video!

Recently I had someone familiar with the topic of Galileo and his house arrest explain to me that Galileo caused a lot of his own troubles. I found that to be a pretty odd way to address the general issues embraced by Galileo’s experiences.

Naturally, we can all say that “Times were different then.” But is this really a well-tempered approach? Socrates was expected to die because of what he taught his students. And Socrates would, no doubt, have to pay the same price in most Islamic nations of the medieval period - - if not even a few countries right now in 2018!

We can all look to the circumstances of the past and understand how it is that things were different. But nevertheless, we still have to come to a judgment on these matters. If we don’t, then how are we to address issues like Slavery? Do we say: “things were different then” - - and not also conclude that slavery needed to end?

In the case of Galileo, “House Arrest for maintaining a provocative tone with authorities regarding science” is really not “okay”. Sure, we know things were different then. But it was not OKAY for Galileo to be placed under house arrest for what he did.

And while the notorious Bruno wasn’t actually advancing science in the way we understand science today, his being literally burned alive for religious heresy is also not okay.

And the Vatican maintaining a list of banned books - - including scientific works - - 74 years prior to Galileo being condemned in 1633, and sustained for 380+ years, was also not okay - - and represents a rather sustained effort of “not okay-ness” that, fortunately, is no longer an ongoing mark of shame for the esteemed Roman Catholic Church.

[From 1559 to 1948, and formally abolished in 1966]
The Pauline Index [an early version of the banned book index] "… was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, which Paul F. Grendler believed marked “the turning-point for the freedom of inquiry in the Catholic world.” It was “… then replaced by what was called the Tridentine Index (because it was authorized at the Council of Trent), which relaxed aspects of the Pauline Index that had been criticized and had prevented its acceptance. The 20th and final edition appeared in 1948, and the Index was formally abolished on 14 June 1966 by Pope Paul VI.”

Footnotes:
[1] Grendler, Paul F. “Printing and censorship” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, Charles B. Schmitt, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1988, ISBN 978-0-52139748-3) pp. 45–46.

[2] Lenard, M (2007). “On the Origin, Development and Demise of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum”.
Journal of Access Services. 3 (4).

[3] The Church in the Modern Age, (Volume 10) by Hubert Jedin, John Dolan, Gabriel Adriányi 1981;
ISBN 082450013X, page 168.

[4] Cambridge University on Index ( http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/galbooks.html ).

[5] Encyclopædia Britannica: Index Librorum Prohibitorum
( Index Librorum Prohibitorum | Description, Roman Catholic, History, Authors, & Facts | Britannica )

.
.

2 Likes

Thank you @TedDavis, been processing your posts, which are much appreciated. It is possible some of this may make it into my book, so your correction and calibration here is very helpful.

Perhaps, but I’m not sure Galileo was correct.

Yup, a fairly memorable passage, that undercuts @Patrick earlier claim.

But whoever is too stupid to understand astronomical science, or too weak to believe Copernicus without affecting his faith, I would advise him that, having dismissed astronomical studies and having damned whatever philosophical opinions he pleases, he mind his own business and betake himself home to scratch in his own dirt patch, abandoning this wandering about the world. He should raise his eyes (his only means of vision) to this visible heaven and with his whole heart burst forth in giving thanks and praising God the Creator. He can be sure that he worships God no less than the astronomer, to whom God has granted the more penetrating vision of the mind’s eye, and an ability and desire to celebrate his God above those things he has discovered.
A short treatise of biblical exegesis in "Astronomia Nova" | Inters.org

Not exactly “civil.” Though, I still see more care in Kepler’s exegesis than Galileo’s.

I suppose this is making my point. It still seems like Galileo is making the opposite argument (to the same end) as Kepler, and I hope you can show me where I am missing it.

Galileo seems to be arguing that Scripture says the sun stood still (implying that it usually moves), but we know from clear demonstration that this is false. Geocentrism may be what Scripture seems to indicate, but we need to rework our interpretation in light of the demonstration it is false. Ironically (for those who point to him), he uses the word “concord.” He also does not appear to have to the same sensitivity to language as Kepler.

Kepler seem to be arguing that Scripture says that the sun stood still in the sky and remains entirely correct in the language of ordinary perception. Even Copernicans speak of sunrise and sunset, after all. It is not that the interpretation must change, in merely need to be correctly contextually bounded to ordinary perception. Kepler here is making a much more (in my view) grounded and gentle corrective, arguing for what had to be the original meaning of the passage, with high sensitivity to language.

So what am I missing here @TedDavis? I’ve read both Letter to the Duchess and Introduction fully through. I also admit that I’m describing their views to accentuate the difference. Reading the text, it is more subtle. That also might be because of different translators too. So I’m not 100% sure here, and could use your help. Perhaps it is a style or personality difference I am picking up on? Though it does seem like a difference in approach to Scripture. Can you help me figure that out? (maybe @rcohlers can help too)

Which will feed in nicely to the upcoming conversation on @rcohlers

I suppose I’m not entirely comfortable with that deal. For all its flaws, I see wisdom in the Chicago Statements, which appear to draw heavily (though probably unknowingly) on Kepler. Essentially, we can’t a prior keep Bible out of the scientific domain (like NOMA), but we can make careful hermeneutical moves to make sense of science and scripture together.

Except that is not what Kepler seems to be saying. He is arguing for a more literal interpretation, that has no problem with literalism, as long as it is in the context of ordinary perception, rather than extrapolated into non-ordinary context.

You certainly might be right. Any everyone should trust your instinct over my crazy ideas here. Though I’m still seeing a gap between Galileo and Kepler’s argument on ordinary perception. In Kepler, I see a model of engaging Scripture with careful questions. In Galileo, I see him playing a science trump card. What am I missing?


@TedDavis thank you so much for engaging here and helping me make sense of this. Looking forward to ASA too, and perhaps there you’ll set me straight. Peace.

@jongarvey tell us more, on both counts.

Galileo did not have the scientific high ground in his assertion that heliocentrism is correct. Here is my analysis as an astrophysicists (not as a historian, so might get some things wrong):

  1. The orbital data that was available cannot distinguish between heliocentrism and geocentrism. This is exacerbated by Galileo’s insistence that the planetary orbits are circular instead of elliptical.
  2. If indeed the Earth moves, then parallax from distance stars should be observable. This measurement was only made a couple of centuries after Galileo’s death. Back then, it was thought that stars are much closer than they were (Galileo computed the distance to Mizar to be 300 AU, while modern measurements give a number that is ~17000 times further). If the stars were that close, parallax should be readily observable. Galileo had no answer to this missing parallax problem.

So, imagine yourself as a scientist in Galileo’s time. You were given two theories, where

  1. The current observation cannot distinguish between them.
  2. One of the theories have an observational hole in them.

And ask whether Galileo’s insistence that heliocentrism is definitely the correct theory is scientific or not.

2 Likes

Well, on the theory, a page on this link.

.Another source summarises:

Interestingly, Galileo dismissed Kepler’s ellipses because he considered circular orbits to be perfect (shades of Aristotelian aesthetics!), and also dismissed Kepler’s correct idea that the Moon was at least partially the cause of tides. In general, Galileo frequently engaged in heated polemics against those with contrary ideas, which probably contributed significantlyto his later difficulties with the Catholic church.
https://www.astro.umd.edu/~miller/teaching/honr229Xs11/lecture03.pdf

Kepler wrote to Galileo in 1597 admiring his work, and Galileo replied in kind. In 1610, Galileo wrote to solicit an endorsement for The Sidereal Messenger - slightly tricky as Kepler could not confirm his telescopic observations (he was a mathematician more than a practical man like Galileo), but he complied, with a letter he later published. This included what seems like a hint:

I can only ask Galileo insistently that he will continue his observations and as soon as possible inform us of the results. I’m looking forward to the moment when I will try Galileo’s telescope. However, I would change some things: I will increase the number of lenses with perfectly spherical surfaces on both sides. (Reply to Galileo’s request for endorsement of “The Sidereal Messenger”, April 1610).

He subsequently revised the letter and published it, with more hints at the desrirability of collaboration thus:

Such assertions about the body of the moon are made by others on the basis of mutually self-supporting evidence. Their conclusions agree with the highly illuminating observations which you report on the same subject. Consequently I have no basis for questioning the rest of your book and the four satellites of Jupiter. I should rather wish that I now had a telescope at hand, with which I might anticipate you in discovering two satellites of Mars (as the relationship seems to me to require) and six or eight satellites of Saturn, with one each perhaps for Venus and Mercury.

And later in the same:

Would you like me to express my feelings? I want your instrument for the study of lunar eclipses, in the hope that it may furnish the most extraordinary aid in improving and where necessary in recasting, the whole of my “Hipparchus” or demonstration of the sizes and distances of the three bodies, sun, moon, and earth. For the variations in the solar and lunar diameters, and the portion of the moon that is eclipsed, will be measured with precision only by the man who is equipped with your telescope and acquires skill in observing.

Therefore let Galileo take his stand by Kepler’s side. Let the former observe the moon with his face turned skyward, while the latter studies the sun by looking down at a screen (lest the lens injure his eye). Let each employ his own device, and from this partnership may there some day arise an absolutely perfect theory of the distances.

Later that year, in reponse to an unauthorised print of this reply, Kepler wrote again to Galileo, including this:

Yet if I won a lawsuit against the publisher, I would sentence him to the following punishment. He should pay for your work on a good wide convex lens, which would be a part of a sphere twelve feet in radius or its equivalent. For here at Prague I could readily find someone to make a concave lens for me. The difficulty is only in the convex lenses. For with their own equipment they accomplish little, and they pretend to despise my instructions. This, I understand, is their way of eliciting advice. I don’t have the money to build a machine at home, and I am not handy, being given
to speculation only
(Letter to Galileo 1611)

But as far as I know, Galileo never responded to any of these. And that sems to be in keeping with his jealpous guarding of his own reputation - and his own instrumentation.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.