Re: Evening Wanderers

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:59:07 UTC, Quadibloc <jsavard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 24, 1:31ÿpm, oriel36 <kelleher.ger...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Whyt not take Galileo's word for it,the guy who actually popularised
telescopes and discovered the moons of Jupiter should be promoting his
telescopic discoveries like you are doing now but Galileo did not,he
did the opposite ÿ-

SAGR. 0 Nicholas Copernicus, what a pleasure it would have been for
you to see this part of your system confirmed by so clear an
experiment!

SALV. Yes, but how much less would his sublime intellect be celebrated
among the learned!

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632

I thought Galileo rooted for Sagredo rather than either Salviati or
Simplico.

No; or only officially! Sagredo was the highly intelligent layman who
listened without bias to both sides: Salviati, who spoke for Galileo and
was right; and Simplicio, who spoke for the older beliefs (including those
of the eminent Roman philosopher Simplicius) and was wrong.

Officially, Galileo was on the side of the impartial questioner Sagredo.
He had to be, or get in deep trouble with the Inquisition. He didn't
really fool anybody, and got in deep trouble with the Inquisition.

This is a gross oversimplification of a complicated and controversial
history, but I like it because it's short and easy and more accurate than
any other simplification of the case.


John Savard


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Dan Drake
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