Galileo’s reputation is more hyperbole than truth

https://aeon.co/opinions/galileo-s-reputation-is-more-hyperbole-than-truth

by Hooke • 10 years ago

12 9 10 years ago

javajosh2• 10 years ago

Dear Thony Christie, author:

500 years is a long time to wait before publishing a hit-piece like this. That "astronomy would have proceeded fine without Galileo" doesn't matter. With two (Newton, Einstein), possibly four (Lavoisier, Maxwell) exceptions, that could be said of any scientific discovery. What's next - will you degrade Niels Bohr for his childish characterization of the atom? Was Milliken's or Rutherford's work obvious to their contemporaries and so obviated their work?

Please, allow me to quote from another group of obvious, undeserving creative people, those who work at Pixar:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

Yours Truly, Josh

duaneb4• 10 years ago

Galileo made non-trivial advances in science. He's also famous for his house arrest. Neither imply he deserves the reputation of "greatest scientist ever"—admittedly, not a reputation I'm familiar with. Even in his time period, Kepler probably deserves at least equal recognition.

javajosh2• 10 years ago

Kepler (and don't forget Tycho Brahe) get quite a lot of recognition, specifically as precursors to Newton.

brg• 10 years ago

There is a very long list of greatest scientist ever, but being on the list doesn't take away from others on the list. Just off the cuff, any list much consider

* Aristotle

* Archimedes

* Kepler

* Galileo

* Newton

* Faraday

* Gauss

* Maxwell

* Einstein

Retra• 10 years ago

Before Copernicus and Galileo, most of European 'academia' was holding steadfast to the ideas proposed by Aristotle and his legacy. The heavens where unchanging and divine - as clockwork, engineered in such a way that the divine human capacity for logical thought could understand it and predict it. And Earthly life was chaotic, dirty, and transient, with all regularity and flux a side-effect of heavenly or humanly processes: the divine.

Galileo's telescope showed these people a supernova. Moons around jupiter. Sunspots. Galileo proved that the heavens were changing, which did a lot to upset this worldview, and paved the way for people like Newton to do work independent of the Aristotelian world-view, and assert that the same laws that govern us on Earth also govern the heavens. (Let's also not forget that he correctly disagreed with Aristotle on the behavior of objects under the influence of gravity.)

Kepler deserves equal recognition, and he probably gets it. But really, they're both dead, so the important thing is for us to recognize what works and what doesn't. Not who found out what works.

Ellahn• 10 years ago

Had to stop reading at "...largely mythical war between science and religion..."

History, countries, continents were shaped by religion persecuting shit. Paganism was burned at the stake, and herbal medicine in European cultures is almost inexistent when compared to Asian and (Native) American cultures. Religion wages war on everything, which is epitomized by the crusades.

Galileo was persecuted because he voiced uncomfortable truths. Much like Einstein and many others, he wasn't the only one who knew those truths. And much like Einstein, he had the passion and the guts to pursue his path and voice his findings.

This is his merit, and calling it Hyperbolic to recognize the worth of someone risking their life for something shows at the very least a very poor understanding of history.

A good way to criticize history would be to focus on the "History is written by the winners" though.

Galileo’s reputation is more hyperbole than truth

Related Stories