4/4/2023 0 Comments And yet it moves galielo![]() ![]() The evidence would have refuted Aristotle’s theory that the Moon was a perfect sphere and made his position as Professor of Aristotelian Philosophy at the University, untenable.Ĭremonini was later quoted as saying “I do not wish to approve of claims about which I do not have any knowledge, and about things which I have not seen … and then to observe through those glasses gives me a headache. When Galileo announced he had seen mountains on the Moon, Cremonini and others denounced the claim but refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth.Ĭesare Cremonini, was a friend and rival of his colleague Galileo Galilei at the University of Padua, Italy. My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. Galileo complained to Kepler that some of the philosophers who opposed his discoveries had refused even to look through his telescope. Galileo Galilei, like Kepler, was a mathematicus, (a term used for a mathematician, astrologer and astronomer). Philosophers who refused to look through Galileo's Telescope Frankly, it was more than Cremonini's job was worth to endorse Galileo because it would have refuted Aristotle. It's clear that Cremonini did look through the telescope long enough to give himself a headache but could not see what Galileo could. Quoted in a letter from a mutual friend to Galileo, Cremonini says of the telescope. The first concerns Cesare Cremonini, a good friend of Galileo and a Professor of Aristotelian Philosophy at the University of Padua. There are three pieces of evidence that have gone into the construction of the legend, as far as we can tell. Who Refused to Look through Galileo's Telescope? ![]() This is the pope who declined to look through the telescope and forced Galileo to recant his claims. But, Galileo fell afoul of Vatican politics and lost Barberini as an ally after he became pope Urban VIII. Why wouldn’t the pope look? Galileo developed the ideas of Copernicus about the solar system, with the cautious backing of cardinal Barberini. Yet, from a Biblically based Hebraic perspective the moral of the story is turned upside down or, rather, put right-side up. The pope declined to view evidence that not everything in the universe revolves around the earth. The pope refusing to look though Galileo’s telescope at the moons of Jupiter is an icon of humanism: science v religion (or ‘blind’ faith). People tend to refuse to consider evidence-if what they might discover contradicts what they believe. When the truth contradicts what people believe, they tend to abandon the truth. What members of a culture believe-and what is actually the case-may be different. Refusing to look through Galileo's telescopeĮveryone in a given society may be wrong. It seems that the Sun is revolving around the Earth. What one sees and what is true may be entirely different. The case of Galileo is quite instructive. Enter your email to receive the Library of Social Science Newsletter: Galileo and Truth ![]()
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