One of the unsurpassed authorities on the history of science (the Cambridge History of Science, vol.3) reckons the modern understanding of the Church’s opposition to Galileo—and thus of Christianity’s historical conflict with science—is basically a myth deliberately constructed in the 19th century. “More than any other single decision made by the Roman church during centuries of symbiotic coexistence with natural philosophy, the rejection of Copernicus and the silencing of Galileo by a judicial act represented the repressive face of the early modern Catholic Church. Thus, the trial of Galileo was transformed from a historical event into a powerful cultural symbol, which loomed large in the 19th-century treatments of Draper and White. However, 20th-century investigations of the trial on the basis of the inquisitorial documents have pointed out the importance of the specific historical and political circumstances in which the trial took place. Without reaching agreement about the causes of the trial, such studies have been effective in eroding, though not erasing, the belief in an inevitable conflict between science and religion that grew out of the 19th-century understanding of the trial of Galileo.” The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 3: Early Modern Science. Cambridge University Press, 2006, 746-47.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 23:01:26 +0000
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