Pre-Owned Galileo's Mistake: A New Look At the Epic Confrontation Between Galileo and the Church (Hardcover) 1559706848 9781559706841

The modern understanding of the notorious 1633 trial of Galileo by the Inquisition is that of Science and Reason persecuted by Ignorance and Superstition -- of Galileo as a lonely, courageous freethinker oppressed by a reactionary and anti-intellectual institution fearful of losing its power and influence. But is that an accurate picture of what actually happened? The disagreement between Galileo and the Church seemed to center on Galileo's belief in the Copernican theory, which holds that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun -- something we know to be true today. But was the debate really about the Copernican theory per se? If so, why was Copernicus never condemned? And why did the Church not bring to trial the other leading astronomers of the day who shared Galileo's Copernican views, some of whom were Jesuits in the Vatican? If the debate was not about this revolutionary theory of planetary motion, then what was it about? In his provocative reexamination of one of the turning points in the history of science and thought, Wade Rowland contends that the dispute concerned an infinitely more profound question: What is truth and how can we know it? Ingeniously using the Socratic method -- a method Galileo himself employed -- the author demonstrates that in the epic confrontation between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church at the dawn of the Scientific Revolution, Galileo's mistake was to insist that science -- and only science -- provides the truth about reality. The Church rejected this idea, declaring that while science is valid, it provides mere models for reality, models that enable people to better understand and manipulate the world around us. Truth is a metaphysical issue -- beyond physics -- and it involves such matters as meaning and purpose, which are unquantifiable and therefore not amenable to scientific analysis. In asserting the primacy of science on the territory of truth, Galileo strayed from purely scientific inquiry into the theological realm, an act that put him squarely on a warpath with the Church. The outcome would change the world. Wade Rowland's intelligent, erudite, and thoughtful exploration of an event that would forever define the modern era promises to disarm the most stubborn of skeptics and make for scintillating debate. Book jacket.