Happy 400th Birthday Modern Astronomy!

[Ed Hudgins]

Happy 400th Birthday Modern Astronomy!
By Edward Hudgins

On August 25, 1609 Galileo first demonstrated the telescope to Venetian officials and then proceeded to point it at the night skies in order to study rather than speculate about what the heavens hold. He saw mountains and what looked like seas on the Moon. He saw the planet Venus going through phases like our Moon does. He saw the disc of Jupiter and four small satellites circling it.

These and other observations allowed him to prove, contrary to the Ptolemaic theory and Catholic Church doctrine, that the Earth is not the immovable center of the solar system and that the Sun holds that place. Galileo was also the first great experimental physicist. He ushered in the age of science in which we seek knowledge by starting with the evidence of our senses and rejecting unsupported dogma.

It is said that some religious clerics looked through his telescope and, rather than admitting that their dogmas were wrong, simply said, "I see nothing." The Inquisition eventually tried Galileo and, under threat of torture or death, forced him to declare that he rejected his prior beliefs. On leaving the trial for house imprisonment for life, he supposedly remarked, concerning the Earth, "But it still moves."

Whether these stories are apocryphal or not, they highlight the age-old struggle between those who use reason to gain objective knowledge of reality and those who reject reason in favor of a subjective feeling that reality can be whatever one's ignorance wants it to be.

The science of astronomy since the time of Galileo has given us knowledge of the nature of the universe and continues to make more mind-expanding discoveries. So let's remember that it takes a brave mind like Galileo's to open new human horizons which are as large as our universe!
----
Hudgins is director of advocacy and a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.

For further reading:

*Edward Hudgins, "Why We Watch the Skies." May 9, 2003.

*Edward Hudgins, "A Singular Creature: Review of The Ascent of Man, TV Series, by Jacob Bronoski." The New Individualist, May 2007.

[BaalChatzaf]

It is said that some religious clerics looked through his telescope and, rather than admitting that their dogmas were wrong, simply said, "I see nothing." The Inquisition eventually tried Galileo and, under threat of torture or death, forced him to declare that he rejected his prior beliefs. On leaving the trial for house imprisonment for life, he supposedly remarked, concerning the Earth, "But it still moves."

Fra. Christopher Clavius, a Jesuit who worked in Rome accepted many of Galileo's findings. At some point the two men, Galileo and Clavius got along and had respect for each other.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Ed:

Thank you so much for this post. "But it still moves!" Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

Adam

[Selene]

I found this tonight by pure chance. I believe what is noted in red is close to identically comparable to how Ayn is non-received in the alleged "institutions of higher learning" what a cataclysmic contradiction today.

The blemishes on the sun was news to me...highlighted in blue. I found this article quite enlightening.

Galileo Quadricentennial

<h2 class="subtitle"> Myth vs fact</h2>

Image Wikipedia.org

Galileo Galilei

by Jonathan Sarfati

Published: 9 July 2009(GMT+10)

This year is the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin (1809–1882), and it's no accident that assorted atheists are making sure that everyone knows that. But they have some competition from those wanting to name 2009 as the "International Year of Astronomy", because it's the quadricentennial of the first use of the telescope by Galileo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (1564–1642), usually known by his first name only. Not to be outdone, the atheists have long used Galileo as a story of "science versus religion". So what are the facts?¹

Not science vs religion, but science vs science

Many historians of science have documented that the first to oppose Galileo was the scientific establishment, not the church. The prevailing 'scientific' wisdom of his day was the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic theory—an unwieldy geocentric system, with the earth at the centre of the universe and other heavenly bodies in highly complex orbits around the earth. And it had its origins in a pagan philosophical system.²

There existed a powerful body of men whose hostility to Galileo never abated: the Aristotelians at the universities—Arthur Koestler

Galileo challenged all that, when he promoted Copernicus's earlier idea that the Earth moved around the sun, i.e. the heliocentric or geokinetic theory.³ And much like the evolutionary establishment today, the Aristotelian establishment reacted furiously. As Arthur Koestler wrote:

"But there existed a powerful body of men whose hostility to Galileo never abated: the Aristotelians at the Universities….

Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse. The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius

… It was this threat — not Bishop Dantiscus or Pope Paul III — which had cowed Canon Koppernigk [i.e., Copernicus] into lifelong silence.

"The first serious attack against Copernicus on

religious

grounds came also not from clerical quarters, but from a layman — none other than delle Colombe, the leader of the [ardent Aristotelian] league."

4

The Church was at first quite open to Galileo

Image Wikipedia.org

Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621)

To show that it was not mainly "religion vs science", an example of the Church's early attitude was shown by their top theologian, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. He said it was "excellent good sense" to claim that Galileo's model was mathematically simpler, and:

"…

If there were a real proof

that the Sun is in the centre of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion false which has been proved to be true. But I do not think there is any such proof

since none has been shown to me.

"

5

Actually, Galileo had not proven his case at the time—indeed, his best "proof" involving the tides is now known to be wrong. It is unfair to judge the church according to knowledge they couldn't have possessed at the time.

Galileo's own part in his undoing

You cannot help it, Mr. Sarsi, that it was granted to me alone to discover all the new phenomena in the sky and nothing to anybody else. This is the truth which neither malice nor envy can suppress.—Galileo

Unfortunately, Galileo was largely a victim of his own arrogance and insulting writing style, as well as his unfortunate friendships. Galileo was once a close friend of Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII (1568–1644), who was a great admirer of this work, and shared his high self-opinion. But this mutual adulation came to a bitter end when Galileo wrote his classic 1632 book, The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo). This was an imagined debate about the geocentric v geokinetic systems. The former was defended by the character "Simplicio", who was made to look foolish, and Urban recognized his own arguments in Simplicio's mouth. Urban was outraged at the seeming betrayal by his close friend, and he was the one who initiated the trial while the Inquisitors were apparently indifferent.

Furthermore, Galileo's own arrogance towards other astronomers didn't help, e.g.:

"You cannot help it, Mr. Sarsi, that it was granted to me alone to discover all the new phenomena in the sky and nothing to anybody else. This is the truth which neither malice nor envy can suppress".

The Church's blunder

Unfortunately, the church was led astray by the scientific establishment, so tried to read the then current model into Scripture, although, as shown below, the Bible doesn't teach it. So they actually made the same mistake as the churches that now try to read the modern "scientific" fads of evolution and long ages into the Bible.⁶

This including hijacking the Psalms and reading the establishment model into them. But the Psalms are clearly poetic (not historical like Genesis), so were never intended to be used as a basis for a cosmological model.⁷

The Bible was simply using the earth as a reference frame, just as we do today. Even a modern astronomer will say, 'Look at that beautiful sunrise (or sunset)' rather than, 'Look at the way the earth has rotated to place its curvature directly in the light path of the sun.'

Take Psalm 93:1–2: "The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved." The next verse says that "[God's] throne is established of old." Here the same Hebrew word (כון kôn) is translated "established" [i.e., stable, secure, enduring, not necessarily stationary, immobile]. Also, the same Hebrew word for 'moved' (מוט môt) is used in Psalm 16:8, 'I shall not be moved.' Surely, even skeptics wouldn't accuse the Bible of teaching that the Psalmist was rooted to one spot! He meant that he would not stray from the path that God had set for him. So the earth 'cannot be moved' can also mean that it will not stray from the precise orbital and rotational pattern God has set for it.

Furthermore, there is no error in physics either. All motion must be described with respect to a reference frame. And you can choose any one you like. The Bible was simply using the earth as a reference frame, just as we do today. Even a modern astronomer will say, "Look at that beautiful sunrise (or sunset)" rather than, "Look at the way the earth has rotated to place its curvature directly in the light path of the sun." And we always talk about a "stopped" car, meaning stopped relative to the ground. Only a pedant would point out that it's travelling at about 1670 km/h due to the earth's rotation on its axis,⁸ and orbiting 108,000 km/hr around the sun, as well as 900,000 km/h around the galaxy. Speed limits are likewise set relative to the ground.

Earth-centred arrogance?

Many antitheists praise Galileo for removing man from the centre of the universe, supposedly curing man's arrogance. Typical is physicist Lawrence Krauss, "Galileo removed us from the centre of the universe: how much greater a fall could we have?"⁹

However, this shows complete ignorance of the historical context. The old geocentric view, i.e. with Earth at the centre, was not at all edifying. For much of church history, the centre was regarded as the lowest place to be. At the lowest was Hades at Earth's centre, and the abode of man on Earth's surface was the next worse, quite corrupted compared to heavenly perfections. The further away from the centre, the closer to heaven you were thought to be.

Image Wikipedia.org

Sunspots imaged on July 22, 2004

The moon, as fairly close to Earth, was regarded as a transitional place. The sun was in a higher plane, planets were pretty good, in their spheres made of the imperishable fifth element (quintessence), but not as exalted as the distant fixed stars, while the firmament was depicted as beyond even the stars, and God's realm was further beyond that.

So moving the earth away from the centre was, in the context of the middle ages, actually exalting it.¹⁰ Rather, what really upset the establishment was Galileo's discovery of blemishes on the sun (sunspots), precisely because it undermined the idea of perfect heavenly bodies.

Galileo never abandoned his faith

Even the antitheistic publication New Scientist admitted, "Galileo's Catholic faith was completely unshaken by his discovery," and wondered whether this counted against his greatness. Furthermore, he was merely building on the thoughts of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), a Canon in the church. Johannes Kepler¹¹ (1571–1630) made Galileo's theory match observations when he worked out that the planets move in ellipses, and famously said his scientific research was "thinking God's thoughts after Him." Sir Isaac Newton¹² (1643–1727), who worked out the laws of motion and gravity to explain all this, wrote more to defend the Bible's history than he did about science. Note also, all four were young-earth creationists!¹³

^*

Conclusion

Dr Thomas Schirrmacher summarized in an excellent article in our Journal of Creation:

"Contrary to legend, Galileo and the Copernican system were well regarded by church officials. Galileo was the victim of his own arrogance, the envy of his colleagues, and the politics of Pope Urban VIII. He was not accused of criticising the Bible, but disobeying a papal decree."

14

Further, the difference between the two systems was merely a matter of reference frames, as Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) affirmed:

The relation of the two pictures [geocentricity and geokineticism] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation, and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view. … Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is 'right' and the Ptolemaic theory 'wrong' in any meaningful physical sense.

15

Finally, the claim that Galileo humbled Earth by removing it from its central position is diametrically opposite to how everyone thought

References

1. Another book with a good discussion on the Galileo affair, as well as many other attacks on Christianity, is Carroll, V., and Shiflett, D., Christianity on Trial: Arguments Against Anti-Religious Bigotry, ch. 3, Encounter Books, 2001; see review by Hardaway, B. and Sarfati, J., Journal of Creation 18(3):28–30, 2004 <creation.com/trial>. Return to text.
2. For a biblical and scientific critique of absolute geocentrism, see Faulkner, D., Geocentrism and Creation, Journal of Creation 15(2):110–121, 2001; <creation.com/geocentric>. Return to text.
3. The planets and the sun actually orbit the centre of mass of the solar system. For most purposes, this is close enough to planets orbiting the sun, but an observer outside the sun would see a 'wobble' and know that there are planets orbiting. This is a major way that astronomers detect extra-solar planets. And the sun itself is in orbit around the galaxy's center of mass. So a more precise term than "heliocentric" (sun-centred) is "geokinetic" (moving earth). Return to text.
4. Koestler, A., The Sleepwalkers: a history of man's changing vision of the universe, pp. 427, 431, Hutchinson, London, 1959. Return to text.
5. Koestler, Ref. 4, p. 448. Return to text.
6. Grigg, R., The Galileo Twist, Creation 19(4):30–32, 1997; <creation.com/gal-twist>. Return to text.
7. Sarfati, J., Refuting Compromise, Master Books, 2000; Boyd, S.W., 'A Proper Reading of Genesis 1:1–2:3'; in DeYoung, D., (editor), Thousands … Not Billions, pp. 157–170, Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, 2005. This sampled 47 narrative and 49 poetic passages as well as Genesis 1:1–2:3. Return to text.
8. Depending on the latitude of course—multiply by the cosine. Return to text.
9. Cited in Brooks, M., The years of thinking dangerously, Darwin or Galileo: Who did most to cut us down to size? New Scientist 200(2867/8):70–71, 20/27, 2008. Return to text.
10. See Hannam, J., God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science, 2007; <http://jameshannam.com/Godsphilosophers.pdf>. The author, James Hannam, has a Ph.D. on the History of Science from the University of Cambridge, UK. Return to text.
11. Lamont, A., Johannes Kepler: Outstanding scientist and committed Christian, Creation 15(1):40–43, 1992; <creation.com/kepler>. Return to text.
12. Lamont, A., Sir Isaac Newton: A Scientific Genius, Creation 12(3):48–51, 1990; <creation.com/newton>. Return to text.
13. See also Sarfati., J., Newton was a creationist only because there was no alternative? <creation.com/newt-alt>, 29 July 2002. Return to text.
14. Schirrmacher, T., The Galileo Affair: history or heroic hagiography, Journal of Creation 14(1):91—100, 2000; <creation.com/gal-affair>. Return to text.
15. Hoyle, F., Nicolaus Copernicus, pp. 87–88, Harper & Row, NY, 1973. <a href="http://creation.com/galileo-quadricentennial#txtRef15">Return to text.

* http://en.wikipedia....rth_creationism <<<< Wiki on young earth creationists which is similar to the "scientific creationists" that are quite strong today.

[Ed Hudgins]

Adam – Good post on Galileo! The situation was indeed complicated, with some in the church initially sympathetic to Galileo. (See the Ascent of Man episode that covers his trial. My review of the entire series is here: Ascent .)

Actually, the Copernican/Galileo approach, which treated planetary orbits as circles, didn’t quite fit the observations though they did a better job than the system of Ptolomy. Tycho tried to explain the motion with epicycles, having the planets do little ballets in their orbits in order to keep the Earth at the center of the Solar System. It was Kepler, who rightly understood the orbits to be ellipses with the Sun at one foci, who finally made theory match observation. And Newton’s theory of gravity gave a deeper understanding of planetary motion.

[BaalChatzaf]

Adam – Good post on Galileo! The situation was indeed complicated, with some in the church initially sympathetic to Galileo. (See the Ascent of Man episode that covers his trial. My review of the entire series is here: Ascent .)

Actually, the Copernican/Galileo approach, which treated planetary orbits as circles, didn't quite fit the observations though they did a better job than the system of Ptolomy. Tycho tried to explain the motion with epicycles, having the planets do little ballets in their orbits in order to keep the Earth at the center of the Solar System. It was Kepler, who rightly understood the orbits to be ellipses with the Sun at one foci, who finally made theory match observation. And Newton's theory of gravity gave a deeper understanding of planetary motion.

Kepler really did not understand the orbits either. He got ellipses to fit Tycho Brahe's number in a brute force manner (it took him eight years of bone breaking calculation to do it). However once he did get the fit he understood that the motion of the planets in their orbits was not uniform (i.e. constant velocity). His most important law relating the periods to the the major semi-axis of the ellipse gave Newton the initial clue that led to the inverse square law. Kepler was trying to get at a notion of force, but he did not quite get it. Newton finally provided the correct dynamics to account for the motions, not only of the planets but of any masses in free-fall including fruit falling from the tree at his farm.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ed Hudgins]

Ba'al - Quite right. And it's even more interesting since Kepler was a mystic who really wanted to fit the universe into Platonic-like forms or whatever. But ultimately he refused to turn his back on the evidence represented to him by the universe and thus came up with his three laws.