Galileo had spoken of these ideas with the pope (who was a friend) previously and the pope was somewhat amenable to them, but still preferred geocentrism. The pope thought that Galileo should write up his ideas about heliocentrism, but asked that he include the arguments in favor of geocentrism as well. Galileo then wrote his work as a conversation consisting of two intelligent men, one who favors heliocentrism and a neutral arbiter, along with a slow-witted character appropriately named "Simplicio," who gives ridiculous arguments in favor of geocentrism. It was no mystery that Simplicio was a stand-in for the pope.
I really can't blame the guy. Imagine the evolution vs creationism "debates" of the 21st century and the creationists asking for "the other view" to be represented in public schools when we know for a fact that life and speciation didn't just appear ex-nihilo.
Honestly, I think someone needs to ridicule the ridiculous.
Even the most astute student of science would have to admit that the concept of where life began on Earth isn't proven. It's just a theory. We've seen evidence of evolution, so we know evolution exists. However, there is no second successfully reproduced experiment of Earth to see if the theory is correct. We keep finding potential candidates, but none have proven the theories yet.
At this point, the omniscient creator is not any less provable. While it might sound ridiculous, there's no more proof for other ideas. After all, even if you subscribe to the Big Bang, where did all of that mass that went Bang! come from?
> Honestly, I think someone needs to ridicule the ridiculous.
Imagine thinking that Galileo was pushing a remotely modern model of planetary motion when the Copernican model still had crystal spheres and perfect circles due to lack of several centuries of research into matters like gravity.
There where easily observable flaws on both sides of the argument.
