
Discovery of Galileo’s lost letter shows he edited his ideas to fool Inquisition - snake117
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06769-4
======
ilove_banh_mi
Giordano Bruno should also be remembered as a hero of science. He was _burnt
at the stake_ by the Inquisition in Rome because he upheld the heliocentric
model and cosmic pluralism, a mere 13 years before Galileo wrote this re-
discovered letter.

 __ _[added in response to multiple skeptic comments about Bruno 's heroic
role for science]_ __

The Inquisition jailed and tried him for 7 years before burning him; of course
they had time to question him about religious, doctrinal issues so they could
damn him without referring to any of the philosophical and scientific
principles he held. Promoting the Inquisition 's recorded accusations against
him, and pretending that he was no friend of science, is not very... inspiring
(to be polite). And if you are going to denounce him because of his interests
in the magical, what is your opinion of Isaac Newton and his lasting interest
in alchemy? scientific genius and admirable hero, or somehow a buffoon not
worth a footnote in the epochal battle between science and religion?

Bruno was a proud defender of free-thought, freedom of inquiry, and freedom of
expression -- all central keys to the development of modern science. He wrote
scientific works arguing for the Copernican model, published in 1584, years
before Tycho Brahe for instance. He anticipated some of the arguments of
Galilei on the relativity principle, as well as using the example now known as
Galileo's ship. He was the first person to grasp that stars are other suns
with their own planets.

~~~
bobthechef
Calling Bruno a scientist, or saying he was killed for doing science, is quite
a fantastic stretch. And where this article is concerned, the Galileo affair
stretched something like 20 years and his house arrest in the papal
apartments, overlooking the Vatican gardens, was largely the result of decades
of political intrigue and him having accrued enemies.

Sadly, these Protestant and Enlightenment myths persist to this day. Ignorance
at best, bigotry and intellectual laziness at worst.

~~~
EthanHeilman
Bruno was killed for freely inquiring into the nature of our universe. In a
time such as it was that included religious and philosophical speculation as
religious and philosophical ideas formed much of the foundation of how people
understood the world. I think it is fair to view him as a hero of science
however since he lived in an unscientific time it does not make sense to call
him a scientist.

>And where this article is concerned, the Galileo affair stretched something
like 20 years and his house arrest in the papal apartments, overlooking the
Vatican gardens, was largely the result of decades of political intrigue and
him having accrued enemies.

That Galileo's enemies were able to use his scientific views against him is
not evidence that he was not persecuted for his scientific views. It is merely
evidence that it is possible a more nimble or charismatic political player may
have avoided such persecution.

------
saalweachter
Galileo didn't really have to "fool" the Inquisition.

By producing a softer version of the letter and claiming it was the original,
Galileo was bowing to the authority of the Church. He knew it, they knew it,
and everyone important watching knew it. That was the important thing for the
Church, and by accepting the softer version as the original, whether or not
they believed it, the Church sent the message to everyone watching in return:
don't challenge our authority, and we'll leave you alone.

~~~
acqq
> Galileo didn't really have to "fool" the Inquisition. > .. > producing a
> softer version ... Church sent the message we'll leave you alone

No. Because even after he produced the "softer" version and claiming that the
other harsher version was "fake" he was in 1633 officially "sentenced to
formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition." The relevant quote
from the very sentence, written addressing Galileo Galilei:

"We order that by a public edict the book of DIALOGUES OF GALILEO GALILEI be
prohibited, and We condemn thee to the prison of this Holy Office during Our
will and pleasure"

He remained in the house arrest for the next 9 years, until he died in 1642.
Yes, he actually died while still being in the house arrest. The book remained
officially banned for the next 200 years (the Church published the list of
banned books which it regularly updated, but it took that much for his
uncensored book to be removed from that list).

And that is after he "bowed." Do investigate what would have happened had he
not. So he personally surely _had_ to do "fool" them: the alternative outcome
for him was much worse.

Edit: a typo corrected, thanks astine. Also added a quote from the original
sentence.

~~~
nonbel
Galileo was friends with the pope, but then called him an idiot in one of his
books (named a character "the idiot" that used the Pope's arguments). That is
why he got imprisoned.

~~~
acqq
> Galileo was friends with the pope, but then called him an idiot in one of
> his books (named a character "the idiot" that used the Pope's arguments).
> That is why he got imprisoned.

No. That would be just blaming the victim.

1) The character was named "Simplicio" as "simple", but it didn't really
represent the pope:

>
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Ch...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems)

"Simplicio is modeled on two contemporary conservative philosophers, Lodovico
delle Colombe (1565–1616?), Galileo's opponent, and Cesare Cremonini"

2) Being friend with the Pope earlier just _protected_ him from Inquisition
between 1616 and 1632. But even as Galileo was in better relations he was
already in danger. In 1632 the trial depended on the statement that Galileo
was already "ordered" in 1616, that is, 16 years earlier:

"... to abandon completely... the opinion that the sun stands still at the
center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or
defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing"

So once Galileo lost the support at the highest level the Church did what it
did.

I don't understand why there are even today so much people trying to defend
the Catholic Church of these times. The facts are plain and clear. To compare
with more modern times, the leader on Nazi Germany also intervened to protect
one Jew from Holocaust (Ernest Hess) but it doesn't make any argument that
Nazism or the "Leader" were otherwise not mass killing Jews by a clear policy.
Or that those who were killed somehow caused it themselves by lacking social
skills.

~~~
nonbel
How is this defending the church? It was clearly a totalitarian organization
where if you pissed off the wrong person they would find an excuse to imprison
or torture you.

~~~
acqq
The defending is by these that claim that Galileo apparently wouldn’t have any
problem without the weakening of his once good relations with the pope.

------
Theodores
Seems to me that Galileo had a problem of proving 'stellar parallax' to his
peers and that our convenient history stories overlook this little detail.

Darwin was also deferential to the church. It does not pay off long term.

~~~
michaelsbradley
It's not a "perfect" essay — the author seems to be a bit confused about the
nature of parallax — but I think it's quite interesting and helpful
nonetheless.

[http://nautil.us/issue/60/searches/the-popular-creation-
stor...](http://nautil.us/issue/60/searches/the-popular-creation-story-of-
astronomy-is-wrong)

Also helpful:

[https://www.quora.com/Why-did-science-make-little-real-
progr...](https://www.quora.com/Why-did-science-make-little-real-progress-in-
Europe-in-the-Middle-Ages-3)

~~~
Theodores
The Nautilus article is really helpful, seems everything we work out as humans
is a discourse between writer and readers, getting there in the end. But we
need our heroes and, here as well as with Darwin, there are precedents that
don't make it into the history books.

------
nonbel
You see this all the time. People will write stuff like "Crispr/cas9 is
really, really awesome so dont think we're saying its not but we found out its
toxic in this new way"

Or "Global warming is a huge problem and we need to do something about it for
sure but..."

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Absolutely. I wonder if we will ever live in a time when these sort of games
are not necessary. There's the old saying that _" Science progresses one
funeral at a time."_ The problem is that scientists are even more receptive to
'less than popular' ideas than the masses are. And by 'old' that statement was
from Max Planck, who died in 1947.

~~~
ars
If anything I think it's gotten/will get worse. Because people have to
specialize so much these days they get VERY wedded to their ideas, and much
more resistant to change.

Back when you could know all of science, someone could change one part or
another and it was just one more thing - not the core of what you do.

For example say "there is no dark matter" \- every single person who studies
dark matter (and nothing else) is going to be virtually impossible to convince
- and yet those are EXACTLY the people who have the expertise to verify such a
claim.

------
wohlergehen
I am very sorry, but not mention or discussion of Galileo on this site is
complete without a mention of the great ptolemaic smackdown [1]. If you have
about 4 hours worth of your time (even in installments) it is deeply
recommended.

1: [http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-
smac...](http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-
smackdown.html)

~~~
acqq
And this "4 hours" will be wasted. The author of that text intentionally
misleads his readers.

The author claims:

"the reaction at the time was "WTF? Which heresy are you talking about here?"

But the exact heresy was explicitly and very clearly stated both in the
sentence by the Inquisition:

[http://hti.osu.edu/sites/hti.osu.edu/files/documents_in_the_...](http://hti.osu.edu/sites/hti.osu.edu/files/documents_in_the_case_of_galileo.pdf)

"the above-mentioned Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and
confessed by you as above, have rendered yourself according to this Holy
Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a
doctrine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: that
the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and
the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and
defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary
to Holy Scripture."

And in Galileo's Abjuration:

[http://www.creatinghistory.com/galileo-galileis-
abjuration-2...](http://www.creatinghistory.com/galileo-galileis-
abjuration-22-june-1633/)

"after having been judicially instructed with injunction by the Holy Office to
abandon completely the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world
and does not move and the earth is not the center of the world and moves, and
not to hold defend, or teach this false doctrine in any way whatever, orally
or in writing; and after having been notified that this doctrine is contrary
to Holy Scripture; I wrote and published a book in which I treat of this
already condemned doctrine and adduce very effective reasons in its favor,
without refuting them in any way."

The premise of the whole "4 hour" series by that author is also wrong,
approximately, that because the parallax of the stars wasn't observed until
around 1750 Galileo "couldn't prove" in 1633 that the Earth is not standing
still, therefore the Church was "right" and it wasn't a matter of faith but "a
personal thing." It's obviously a completely invalid argument. Because the
reason why Galileo was convinced about the wrongness of the heliocentric
theory was the simple fact that he was really _the first human in the world_
who saw the moons around other planet, not accidentally called "Galilean
moons":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons)

He didn't have to "prove." He was really sentenced only for "having held and
believed a doctrine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy
Scripture." It's explicitly stated in the official document.

That something like that is a reason enough for a condemnation by the
religious authorities, even in much more recent times, can be obvious to
anybody who tried to read the source text of the condemnation to murder of the
author "along with all the editors and publishers aware of its content" of the
book "The Satanic Verses" in 1989. I won't link to that, intentionally, but
there's enough details to... check the original sources!

Additionally, not only Galileo's but the Copernicus' book too remained _banned
by the Church for the next 200 years after Galileo was sentenced,_ in spite of
all the scientific discoveries in these 200 years that made these texts less
unique. And the discoveries... there were many of them. Starting with the
publication of Newton's "Principia" ‎in 1687, only 50 years after the
sentence. Newton was, of course, out of the reach of the Catholic Church,
thanks to the lucky coincidence of him being born in "a political system found
on the family values of Henry VIII."

It's always more worth checking the original sources instead of believing in 4
hours of text of somebody who intentionally avoids quoting and discussing
these very sources. A lot of false claims can be constructed by omitting the
evidence, the original sources and inventing the interpretations of the actual
events. It's a very dishonest approach and should not be supported.

------
yters
People make a great deal about these "science martyrs". But, from a more
disinterested perspective, one cannot entirely blame the Catholic Church's
approach.

None of the martyrs had clear evidence they were correct, and were often
pursuing a larger agenda of undermining the Church's authority and the general
spiritual worldview.

Was the Church right to imprison and kill these people? Probably not. But, was
the Church wrong in its concerns? Considering the untold millions of killings
of the past couple centuries that resulted from scientism and naturalism, the
Church's concerns about the so called heretical scientists may not have been
entirely unfounded.

~~~
krapp
> Considering the untold millions of killings of the past couple centuries
> that resulted from scientism and naturalism, the Church's concerns about the
> so called heretical scientists may not have been entirely unfounded.

But the Church of the day had no problem with killing - in fact, they were
quite enthusiastically into it, when it came to heathens, Muslims and Jews.
And eventually Protestants.

I mean, it's only because of scientism and naturalism that mass murder in the
name of God is even considered immoral nowadays, much less illegal.

~~~
yters
There were certainly wars during that time, but is it true the Church engaged
in the mass genocides like the atheist regimes of the past couple centuries?
I'd like to see proof of this.

~~~
krapp
> but is it true the Church engaged in the mass genocides like the atheist
> regimes of the past couple centuries?

Surely, mass murder is mass murder, regardless of the label you apply to it.
You're dismissing things like the Crusades and the Church's attempts to
convert the New World by force.

One could possibly claim that modern "atheist" regimes were capable of mass
murder at a greater scale than the Church due to the effect of
industrialization ... certainly the Holocaust might not have been as effective
as it was had the Nazis been limited to pen and paper, horseback and swords.

But, I don't see evidence for the implication that non-theocratic governments
or societies are inherently more violent than theocratic ones, rather I see a
lot of evidence to the contrary, that unchecked religion permits unchecked
violence, because you can argue with a secular authority, but if you believe
in God, you can't argue with God.

I mean, you _can_ , but if your government claims authority by divine right,
then doing so is a threat to the state and it probably won't end well for you.

But my point was that, whatever concerns the Church might have had about the
effect of heretical ideas, the possibility of violence was not one of them.

~~~
yters
They of course did not foresee the French Terror, Communist revolution, Pol
Pot's killing fields, Mao's Great Leap Forward, and the Holocaust. But, they
did realize the implications of believing man was only matter and that there
was no moral order. Christianity was formed in the midst of societies that had
very little regard for human life, and stood out for protesting the oppression
of their day.

------
Razengan
Reading about these people who were persecuted and _murdered_ for advancing
human knowledge, and seeing the current state of the world where even our
leaders still rail against vaccination, climate change, human rights, the moon
landing and other facts, is anyone else bemused by what a _self-defeating_
species we are?

If you placed humanity next to other hypothetical species and looked at us
from a detached point of view, what would be our defining characteristic?

~~~
antidesitter
What makes you think those other species would be better?

~~~
Razengan
That is very interesting, because I don't think the constraints of natural
selection and competition for resources are going to be the same in every
environment on every planet. Most of what we are is determined by our biology.

Take ants or bees or termites. They have conflict between different colonies,
but cooperation within a colony is guaranteed.

~~~
antidesitter
One could argue that our _lack_ of cooperation/cohesion has been partly
responsible for our scientific, technological, and even social progress.

