“Even if men and women were removed from the center of the cosmos, this was not necessarily to diminish their status. The center of the geocentric cosmos had not been salubrious. It was the point to which earthly matter fell, the focus of change and impurity, the physical correlate of humanity’s fallen state. To be placed on a planet was to move upmarket. It was to be delivered from a dump that was, in reality, diabolocentric. Galileo was certainly conscious of this, rejoicing that there was an escape from the refuse. Kepler, too, spoke of an enhanced status for the earth. At last it enjoyed legal citizenship in the heavens. Not surprisingly, John Wilkins was to say that a prevalent objection to the Copernican system was not man’s dethronement but an elevation about his true stature.” John Hedley Brooke, /Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives/ (h/t Larry Chapp . . . loving your book)
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 23:01:54 +0000
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