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Galileo's Mistake: A New Look at the Epic Confrontation Between Galileo and the Church
A provocative examination of the 1633 trial of Galileo by the Inquisition contends that Galileo incited the opinions of his prosecutors by arguing against spirituality and that the disagreement was more about the nature of truth than about religious differences. Reprint.
320 pages, Paperback
First published August 4, 2001
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105 people want to read
About the author
Wade Rowland
16 books2 followersWade Rowland is the author of more than a dozen books, including Galileo's Mistake, Spirit of the Web, and Ockham's Razor. He is a former holder of the Maclean Hunter Chair of Ethics in Communications at Ryerson University in Toronto and currently lectures in the social history of communications technologies at Trent University in Peterborough. He lives near Port Hope, Ontario, with his wife, Christine.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 25, 2014
Galileo's Mistake is essentially two books spliced into one. These books alternate back and forth between each other throughout the book. The first book is a sometimes intriguing exploration of the philosophical issues that were at stake in Galileo's heresy trial. This book is serviceable. The second book is a series of fictional dialogues between the author, an atheist, and a Catholic nun. This book is awful.
The first book's virtues can be addressed briefly. There are some fascinating discussions of the Medieval theology on the intersection of reason and faith that provides a background for fully understanding the stakes involved in Galileo's trial. The author covers them ably and accessibly, providing ample quotes from the primary sources to back up his interpretation. My compliments to the author for his ability to read lots of books and summarize them.
This brings us to the second book involving a fictional dialogue between a nun, an atheist, and the author. The author's goal to fight the scientific method's demands for evidence-based reasoning and defending a “spirituality” which he never quite gets around to defining. In these dialogues he and the nun easily win every round. They win because they are fighting a straw-man atheist. In a surreal moment of unintended irony the atheist grumbles “You've given me all the crummy lines.” This is unfair, the author gives his side crummy lines too, though he doesn't seem to be aware that they are crummy. Dealing with all of them would make a small book so I'll stick to two of the particularly bad ones.
One argument from the author and his fictional nun is that Galileo overstated the certainty we can derive from scientific models, and that science are only partial explanations about the natural world. Therefore, God must exist. What God must exist is unclear; the author vacillates between "God", “something very much like [God]”, “the spiritual”, or “a higher truth” without getting into any details. In any case, this line of argument assumes that an argument against one position the same as an argument in favor another position. It's an argument from ignorance. Also known as a logical fallacy. Also known as a thing you should have learned is not a valid argument in freshman philosophy class.
Another major argument is that the scientific process is based on faith just like religion. Therefore, religion and science are on exactly the same playing field and therefore faith is just as valid as science as a means for arriving at truth. In fact, says the author, we use faith all of the time! After all, he observes, our money doesn't have anything backing it up but our faith in the government issuing the currency.
This argument fails because it attempts to conflate faith with trust. To stick with the author's money example, institutional finance does not have the same sort of faith about money that institutional religions have about their gods. Recent political history illustrates this. Faced with evidence that the United States government might not be able to pay off their debts during the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, Standard and Poor's downgraded the credit score of the United States government from an A to an A-. They changed their level of trust (or “faith”, if you insist) based on evidence to the contrary. It is impossible to imagine a religious person downgrading God's “credibility score” when a natural disaster occurs, or when their child dies of cancer, or any other type of tragedy that life hands us.
In contrast to institutional religion, the scientific community behaves much more like Standard and Poor's did when faced with the dysfunction of the American federal government. The story of the development of relativity in physics provides a solid example. Like Standard and Poor's, physics had a similar crisis of confidence in their investment in Newtonian mechanics after scientists made empirical observations that Newtonian mechanics couldn't account for. Keeping with the financial analogy, the physics community diversified their portfolio by investing in Einstein's theory of relativity because of its ability to provide stable predictions that Newton's framework couldn't explain. Unless we're talking about polytheism (which the author never advocates for), one does not generally see believers worshipping a new gods when another god fails to deliver all the goods.
These very obvious objections are not mentioned once by the atheist character. Rather, when faced with these half-baked arguments, the atheist character pouts, slouches, and complains that Stephen Hawking's popular science writing is “incomprehensible” (because, if there is one thing atheists hate, it is books about science). In contrast, the author fawns over the fictional nun character mentioning her perfect Italian-inflected English, noting her impeccable table manners, and praising her ability to quote Augustine from memory (you might say it's almost as if someone outside the book is dictating it to her). The nun returns the favor to the author by telling the author how super impressed she is by his (mis)understanding of quantum mechanics. The author might have been better served by running his argument by a real physicist rather than a fictional nun, but the response from a real physicist would not have been as warm.
In the part of the book dedicated to historical analysis, the author praises Galileo for not only fairly presenting his opponents' arguments, but presenting them better than his opponents did. It is a shame this author did not extend the same courtesy to his opponents. No amount of historical insight can compensate for such slovenly, uncharitable, and ill-reasoned philosophical argument. This book was a disappointment.
The first book's virtues can be addressed briefly. There are some fascinating discussions of the Medieval theology on the intersection of reason and faith that provides a background for fully understanding the stakes involved in Galileo's trial. The author covers them ably and accessibly, providing ample quotes from the primary sources to back up his interpretation. My compliments to the author for his ability to read lots of books and summarize them.
This brings us to the second book involving a fictional dialogue between a nun, an atheist, and the author. The author's goal to fight the scientific method's demands for evidence-based reasoning and defending a “spirituality” which he never quite gets around to defining. In these dialogues he and the nun easily win every round. They win because they are fighting a straw-man atheist. In a surreal moment of unintended irony the atheist grumbles “You've given me all the crummy lines.” This is unfair, the author gives his side crummy lines too, though he doesn't seem to be aware that they are crummy. Dealing with all of them would make a small book so I'll stick to two of the particularly bad ones.
One argument from the author and his fictional nun is that Galileo overstated the certainty we can derive from scientific models, and that science are only partial explanations about the natural world. Therefore, God must exist. What God must exist is unclear; the author vacillates between "God", “something very much like [God]”, “the spiritual”, or “a higher truth” without getting into any details. In any case, this line of argument assumes that an argument against one position the same as an argument in favor another position. It's an argument from ignorance. Also known as a logical fallacy. Also known as a thing you should have learned is not a valid argument in freshman philosophy class.
Another major argument is that the scientific process is based on faith just like religion. Therefore, religion and science are on exactly the same playing field and therefore faith is just as valid as science as a means for arriving at truth. In fact, says the author, we use faith all of the time! After all, he observes, our money doesn't have anything backing it up but our faith in the government issuing the currency.
This argument fails because it attempts to conflate faith with trust. To stick with the author's money example, institutional finance does not have the same sort of faith about money that institutional religions have about their gods. Recent political history illustrates this. Faced with evidence that the United States government might not be able to pay off their debts during the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, Standard and Poor's downgraded the credit score of the United States government from an A to an A-. They changed their level of trust (or “faith”, if you insist) based on evidence to the contrary. It is impossible to imagine a religious person downgrading God's “credibility score” when a natural disaster occurs, or when their child dies of cancer, or any other type of tragedy that life hands us.
In contrast to institutional religion, the scientific community behaves much more like Standard and Poor's did when faced with the dysfunction of the American federal government. The story of the development of relativity in physics provides a solid example. Like Standard and Poor's, physics had a similar crisis of confidence in their investment in Newtonian mechanics after scientists made empirical observations that Newtonian mechanics couldn't account for. Keeping with the financial analogy, the physics community diversified their portfolio by investing in Einstein's theory of relativity because of its ability to provide stable predictions that Newton's framework couldn't explain. Unless we're talking about polytheism (which the author never advocates for), one does not generally see believers worshipping a new gods when another god fails to deliver all the goods.
These very obvious objections are not mentioned once by the atheist character. Rather, when faced with these half-baked arguments, the atheist character pouts, slouches, and complains that Stephen Hawking's popular science writing is “incomprehensible” (because, if there is one thing atheists hate, it is books about science). In contrast, the author fawns over the fictional nun character mentioning her perfect Italian-inflected English, noting her impeccable table manners, and praising her ability to quote Augustine from memory (you might say it's almost as if someone outside the book is dictating it to her). The nun returns the favor to the author by telling the author how super impressed she is by his (mis)understanding of quantum mechanics. The author might have been better served by running his argument by a real physicist rather than a fictional nun, but the response from a real physicist would not have been as warm.
In the part of the book dedicated to historical analysis, the author praises Galileo for not only fairly presenting his opponents' arguments, but presenting them better than his opponents did. It is a shame this author did not extend the same courtesy to his opponents. No amount of historical insight can compensate for such slovenly, uncharitable, and ill-reasoned philosophical argument. This book was a disappointment.
May 19, 2020
It has been a wonderful book for me, in my life, by giving way to thoughts that act as altered states of consciousness. A different way of interpreting a historical event whose blood is that of philosophy, with an emphasis on ‘learned ignorance.’ It is not for us to know the mind of God, or the true nature of reality. The wisest man knows that he knows nothing. A gift for thought that this narrative could have us view a story not just of the triumph of truth over belief, but also of the relationship between truth and belief. It is one that currently elicits an excitement of potential into the frontier of my mind. I enjoyed the socratic dialogues, romanticized paragraphs of the various historical sites that read like a prose travel essay, and notes on events that were unknown to me. I imagine this book is something perhaps for the metaphorical family and friends of the author, kin and kindred to his mind and thoughts. And for those of you out there, I am certain you will find joy within its pages.
July 2, 2011
This book provides a corrective to the commonplace idea that the Catholic Church took a blind and staunchly adversarial position against science during the 17th century. Looking at the documentary evidence and exploring the relationship between Galileo and the popes and cardinals of his day, Rowland takes a more sympathetic attitude towards the Church's position than do most historians and commentators. He argues that Galileo's heresy was not to claim the truth of the Copernican view of the cosmos. The Church was more than willing to accept the sun as the center of the solar system as a working hypothesis (but not as a fact). Galileo's mistake was to support a mechanistic approach to matter and motion that depended on mathematics for their foundation. The Church leaders correctly understood that a mechanistic explanation relegates God to the sidelines in contradiction to scriptural revelation and Aristotelian (and Platonic) "common sense". The Church wasn't categorically opposed to a mechanistic explanation. It opposed that sort of explanation as being the only explanation. The Church could accept Galileo's view so long as Galileo accepted that there are other ways of knowing and realms of reality beyond what can be measured mathematically. This was the view that Galileo admitted in front of the Inquisition in 1633. And, indeed, Rowland argues at the end of the book that the discoveries of quantum mechanics in the last hundred years support the Church's pluralistic position regarding knowledge and science, a position that many scientists and philosophers would undoubtedly dispute. The book is intellectually stimulating without wearing its erudition on its sleeve.
May 3, 2010
Pathetic. Replace science with faith as the only means to knowledge? Which of the 10000 religions will be THE fountain of knowledge? He also does not know much, if anything, about science.
November 13, 2022
Charitably interpreted, this book could be summarized as the following:
https://twitter.com/iconawrites/status/1589692938912935936
The book goes well beyond a retelling of the trial of Galileo, but it does contain that as well. It is written as a dialogue, similar to Galileo's own style to make his own points. What is the point? What was Galileo's mistake?
It wasn't that the Sun is the center of the solar system. The author is too sophisticated to suggest that. Galileo's mistake is philosophic in nature. Kind of? Perhaps more of a character flaw. The thing Galileo was wrong about is that science can't answer all questions, even if it wants to be. Science can't be a final authority.
And I can appreciate that. I find it to be a very wise observation, and one I would ultimately agree with. But there are two or three things that I found wrongheaded throughout the book. The first is how the author paints science with a very broad brush, attributing to "science" a hubris I don't think is there to the extent the author tries to place it. The second is the lack of a clear alternative to a world where science and secular society in general gives us a shared space in which to operate in. The third is a false face as a neutral arbiter in a historical debate on the front of things, when this reads like apologetics for the Catholic church. Torture? That was merely a formality. I can agree to an extent that many of these were historical and can't be attributed only to the Catholic church.
I found this Tweet a fitting response:
https://twitter.com/jonmsweeney/status/1591451000392617984
The author views Galileo's sin as causing a philosophical crisis that broke the relationship between faith and reason. St. Thomas had tamed the last challenge in the form of Aristotelianism:
Galileo and the novel blend of old and new ideas he represented brought upon the Church its third and most profoundly dangerous philosophical crisis. This time, though many tried, no philosophical prodigy was able to save the day by reconciling the old and the new. The world, it seemed, was determined to become modern, at any cost.
It reads like a yearning for a lost Eden, and Galileo was the one that broke everything. While American conservatives yearn to go back to the days of the founding fathers, this guy outdoes them all, yearning to go back to the good old days when the Church was in control.
Rowland argued that before science insisted on breaking from faith, morals and science were made of the same fabric. And he wants to bring that back:
"He'd say that the problem is that we've lost track of the proper motive for doing science." "Which is?" "Which is the promotion of human happiness."
But is it? Some scientists would disagree. This reminded me of Haidt's argument that the telos of a university, to use a word that Rowland would like, is the pursuit of truth, not happiness. In fact, Haidt argues that many of the symptoms of present-day universities is because others are seeking to replace that telos with something else.
If the telos of a university is truth, then a university that fails to add to humanity's growing body of knowledge, or that fails to transmit the best of that knowledge to its students, is not a good university... There are alternative candidates one might propose for the telos of a university. Perhaps the most common alternative is something about progress, change, or making the world a better place. Karl Marx once critiqued the academy with these words: "The philosophers only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." Some students and faculty today seem to think that the purpose of scholarship is to bring about social change, and the purpose of education is to train students to more effectively bring about such change.
Rowland makes a similar argument at the conclusion of his book that science should be morally informed:
That would mean incorporating nonquantifiable considerations such as goodness and morality into physical science. It would mean building a teleology, a moral goal for science, so that it could begin to consider where it is going and where it is taking the rest of us. We have the opportunity to reconnect moral and natural science in a way that would be beneficial to modern society.
October 12, 2022
How many people are curious about the arguments about the nature of reality?
How much of my life have I been struggling to get a handle on what is real and what is a persuasive but false narrative. Was I a good son or a lousy son? Was I a good husband or a lousy husband? Was the Catholic Church out of bounds when they arrested Galileo or did they maybe have compelling reasons even though we now think of Galileo’s observations as totally correct. Most people won’t waste any brain cells on such questions but they matter to me. Based on that fact, this was a very good read for me. I’m glad I found it and waded through.
How much of my life have I been struggling to get a handle on what is real and what is a persuasive but false narrative. Was I a good son or a lousy son? Was I a good husband or a lousy husband? Was the Catholic Church out of bounds when they arrested Galileo or did they maybe have compelling reasons even though we now think of Galileo’s observations as totally correct. Most people won’t waste any brain cells on such questions but they matter to me. Based on that fact, this was a very good read for me. I’m glad I found it and waded through.
December 10, 2022
Galileo challenged the teaching of the church and paid a great cost for it. While the church leaders believed something, the position of the earth, to be true, it was questioned and angered those that didn't want to believe they were wrong.
This is a history and a personal story of examining the conflict between the beliefs and teaching of the church and science. Examining how decisions are made and why there is conflict between the church and science is a part of this story.
This is a history and a personal story of examining the conflict between the beliefs and teaching of the church and science. Examining how decisions are made and why there is conflict between the church and science is a part of this story.
November 21, 2019
The above synopsis provided by Goodreads pretty much sums up the content.
I'm not sure I can follow the authors argument on the faith/reason interface completely but it is a very interesting concept. To give this book one star you have to have a significant bias against faith/religion.
I'm not sure I can follow the authors argument on the faith/reason interface completely but it is a very interesting concept. To give this book one star you have to have a significant bias against faith/religion.
February 14, 2013
The author breaks down the controversy between Galileo and the Catholic Church as a dispute between the scientific method and theology. He places Galileo's life in chronological order.
May 16, 2015
A great look at a controversial issue. Interesting writing style, but very informative. Glad that I read it.
September 4, 2015
Fascinating account of the trial and the Vatican's attempt to 'frame' Galileo in order to cling to a lie and the power of the Roman Catholic church.
November 25, 2008
A very intersting perspective on the Galileo trial.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews