Who attacked Galileo, scientists or "skeptics"?

Question

Did the scientific community persecute Galileo? Or was it ignorant "skeptics"?

Answer 1

Since you asked twice, I will answer twice. There were no "scientists" that weren't approved by the church. There is no correlation to people that are rightly skeptical of alarmist and their view that harmful warming is necessarily happening. In my opinion, the skeptics are closer to Galileo, doubting the religious orthodoxy of devout AWG alarmists.

Answer 2

Galileo was persecuted by the Church, the political authority of the a day, because his views on scientific matters did not conform to the "accepted" mainstream view.  Sound familiar?

As for that fiction about the Islamic scholars, their only contribution was to preserve knowledge that was discovered by the Greeks.  Scientific and technical progress in the Arab world ground to a halt in the sixth century.

Answer 3

Ecclesiastical authorities

Answer 4

Good question - I guess I'd say neither, though of course as you point out leaders of the church were "skeptical" for various reasons.

A lot of folks in Answers particularly the "anti-humans- contribute-to-global-climate-change" crowd like to call themselves skeptics and set themselves up as opposed to scientists failing to realize that ALL credible scientists are skeptics by nature.

Answer 5

The church attacked Galileo,

There was not really a scientific community as yet

There were Alchemists

,but they generally were considered

Magicians or witches

the Church was never very big on Knowledge

So what does that make the church???

Ignorant or Skeptic

or both???

or were they just trying to keep the rest of the world that way

Are they still trying?????

Answer 6

wow tuba, thats interesting, thanks. i always wondered why they found him such a big threat.

heres a greek machine for calculating eclipses, it would have to assume heliocentric solar system or it wouldnt work?

The "Antikythera mechanism"

http://technology.newscientist.com/artic...

Answer 7

The church.  

Once again, some people feel threatened by the truth.  They'll believe what they choose to believe, ignoring all evidence.  Their position is faith-based, not science-based.

Answer 8

Scientists have known about the heliocentric solar system and the round earth since about 500 BC.  Galileo's contemporaries published about it (more cautiously) as did some of his predecessors.

That wasn't really what the fuss was about.  Aristotle had taught that man's intellect was so powerful that the scientific truth could always be determined by pure reason and nothing else.  Aristotelian thinking was Incorporated into the early church, mainly through St. Thomas Aquinas.  Their fundamental proofs and arguments for their doctrine were based on it.  Galileo advocated using experiments instead of reason to determine how things work.  In doing so he toppled dozens of beliefs long held by the general populace, including the church who supported the Aristotelian method.  An example would be, the conventional wisdom said an iron sewing needle could not float on the surface of a glass of water, only lighter materials could do that.  Galileo showed that an iron needle could easily float in a glass of water unless it had enough weight to break through the surface tension.  This caused the church officials to believe that if Galileo's "scientific method" of determining the truth were to come into general use their theologic teachings would fall as easily as Aristotle's scientific teaching.  This placed their claims of divine infallibility in jeaprody.  Galileo was therefor made to recant his discoveries.

Both the Church and the citizenry taught by them were skeptical of beliefs held by the scientists for many centuries.  Their refusal to accept Galileo's  findings was based on the fact he refuted the validity of the way they thought, not for his discoveries themselves.

edit

Little Robber Girl-- precisely!

And notice the parallel with all these people who "think for themselves" and use "common sense".  Aristotle would have been so proud!

Answer 9

everybody, b/c what galileo was saying at the time was basically considered blasphemy.

Answer 10

Actually there was not a "scientific community". The "skeptics" were just ignorant religious orders. The scientific philosophy and methodology were just being formulated. The last real "scientific community" before the "re-formulation" was the Islamic scholars, sometimes referred to as the Arabic scholars. Their works on anatomy, medicine, mechanics, optics, mathematics, etc. were destroyed by the waves of barbaric Huns and Crusaders. The last enclave of scientists was destroyed with the fall of Alexandria and burning of the books there.  michael

Answer 11

It was a commission of theologians who said Galileo was wrong (and called him a heretic), and the Catholic Church which persecuted him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_aff...

http://astro.wcupa.edu/mgagne/ess362/res...

Pope John Paul II once apologized for "the crusades, the massacre of French Protestants, the trial of Galileo and anti-semitism."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/mar...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/...

Answer 12

This is really an interesting parallel!  Galileo had a dilemma: he wanted to proclaim his discovery, the truth, which was in the perception of the "scientists" and religious/political leaders, in conflict with culture and teachings of the time.  Oh, what light a few centuries bring to a dark subject!  Galileo would likely be considered to be an ignorant skeptic by today's in-vogue "scientists".  Stick to your guns, doubters of the AWG religion.  Truth will prevail.  Viva Galileo!

Answer 13

religion 1st (containing many skeptics and those that feared the Church) , followed by "semi-educants" (or people who decided to follow-up on some of his claims , to dis-prove Him and then found they knew , ......nuthin`!) and then a much "Latter-day" Scientific Community .....until they `discovered` that he was Correct in very much of his Thesis....!

we were pretty "cluey" a couple of Hundred years later , weren`t we?

Answer 14

Galileo never once said - trust me, we know more about this than you.  The committee has reached a consensus.

His approach to science was that he didn't claim things that an independant researcher couldn't verify.  He didn't reject any data that he didn't like the look of.  He wasn't passionately trying to prove some preconceived notion.

I know you AGW believers passionalty want to save the world, but that doesn't make for good science.

Answer 15

The church.