MRC_Hans
Penultimate Amazing
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Balancing Skepticism and Faith
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David Mo
Philosopher
I'm not interested in the labels that people give themselves or the medals you wear around your neck. I'm interested in what they say. And what you and Numbers say is exactly what Christian apologetics says. Strange atheism.
For example, in Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs, numbers devotes the first pages to showing that "Christianity encouraged the search for natural explanations".
The argument is very weak for several reasons. The first is that it does not explain what this supposed "incentive" is based on. The second because is based on a quite elementary sophism. Numbers is dedicated to place the adjective Christian in all philosophers and scientists who defended a certain -relative- independence of science and concludes that since all are Christians Christianity encourages the independence of science from the Midle Ages to Newton. The list includes Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and some others who were persecuted from Christian courts or had to flee in exile.
Numbers forgets a small detail: Christianity was the only thought in Europe for centuries. All intellectuals were Christians by conviction or fear. An atheist philosopher, a Muslim or a Jew would have ended up at the stake or in exile, as in fact some did. Of course, he would never have been able to publish a line in a Catholic country. That is why until the Enlightenment all musicians, painters, philosophers, poets and were Christians in Europe. How could an illustrious historian like Numbers not have realized such a basic fact? Was he blinded by his "atheism"?
It is also easy to offer some counterargument that refutes Christian exegesis.
If Christianity is so inspiring of the independence of science it is not understood that during the centuries that Christianity was overwhelmingly dominating, --the High Middle Ages--, all free and independent thought of the Church was wiped off the map. What is more, everything that was not adulation of God and Christian kings was forced to disappear. In the High Middle Ages there were no great painters, great philosophers, great poets and no more music than strictly religious. Isn't it strange? Where was the incentive power of Christianity?
I could give other reasons, but I don't want to lengthen the comment. These are enough to prove that Numbers is a strange atheist. Not only does he repeat a typical Christian apology argument, but he does it so badly that you don't know where he got his prestige as a historian.
By the way, I am basing my comments on Johannes Hemleben, Thomas S. Kuhn, Hans Reichenbach, Lewis W. H. Hull, Marx. W. Wartowfsy and others. If they are not experts in the history of science, I no longer know what you are talking about. Do you know?
(By the way, the defense of the no ovelapping thesis is rather better defended by Stephen Jay Gould. I recommend you Rocks of Ages, for example, which you will certainly like. I don't. But it's more serious).
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TimONeill2
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"You and numbers both say grass is green. Yet I've also heard NAZIS say grass is green! Therefore you and Numbers are Nazis!"
Great "logic" you have there.
Please write to the Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and let him know. I'm sure the George Sarton Medal winner and editor of the Cambridge History of Science will be devastated to learn his reasoning has been undone by a random internet nobody.
"By the way I am gesturing vaguely to Johannes Hemleben, Thomas S. Kuhn, Hans Reichenbach, Lewis W. H. Hull, Marx. W. Wartowfsy and others to try to make it look as though I know what I'm talking about."
Fixed that for you.
David Mo
Philosopher
"You and numbers both say grass is green. Yet I've also heard NAZIS say grass is green! Therefore you and Numbers are Nazis!"
Great "logic" you have there.
Please write to the Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and let him know. I'm sure the George Sarton Medal winner and editor of the Cambridge History of Science will be devastated to learn his reasoning has been undone by a random internet nobody.
"By the way I am gesturing vaguely to Johannes Hemleben, Thomas S. Kuhn, Hans Reichenbach, Lewis W. H. Hull, Marx. W. Wartowfsy and others to try to make it look as though I know what I'm talking about."
Fixed that for you.
If what I write bothers you so much, why do you read it? If you don't know what to say why you answer?
You seem to have a problem.
Thor 2
Philosopher
@ TimONeill2
I have been watching this stoush between you and David and feel David has the better of you. Your credibility would be enhanced significantly if you were to refrain from comments such as these:
I have been watching this stoush between you and David and feel David has the better of you. Your credibility would be enhanced significantly if you were to refrain from comments such as these:
attempt5001
Muse
I agree with Thor2. These sorts of comments severely diminish, rather than strengthen your position.
Zivan
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All the insults and name calling just sound like an immature schoolyard bully. Completely out of place for an intellectual discussions.
David Mo
Philosopher
Thank you for your attempts to normalise the debate. I hope that you will be successful and that we will continue to discuss things. The subject seems to me very interesting and very illustrative of the attitude of certain "atheists" who try to reduce the debate by siding with the supposedly moderate sectors of the Church.
I apologize for my English. Reviewing what I had written, I realize that it gets worse when I write long comments. I hope what I say is understood, at least.
GDon
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Where do you feel that David Mo has the better of Tim O'Neill? Can you point to an actual argument where you see David Mo has the stronger side? Say, for example, on Copernicus?
Thor 2
Philosopher
You misunderstand me. I cannot claim any expertise on the subject matter but am just commenting on the manner the argument was being conducted. I read a good deal of it and gained the impression that David presented his argument well, whereas Tim resorted to name calling.
Marcus
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Tim did resort to name calling, however, he clearly has a more comprehensive grasp of the subject matter. I'm not at all convinced that his arguments amount to Catholic apologetics.
David Mo
Philosopher
I think it's the other way around. O'Neill knows things but integrates them poorly into a theory because of ideological biases. What I call the “negationists” thesis is to deny that there was a religious conflict between the Church and Galileo and to try to present it as a scientific conflict. I think they have several important conceptual flaws. Even the data they provide act against them if they are not misinterpreted. In my opinion these are the flaws:
-They present Aristotelian science as an independent knowledge of ideology and religious institutions.
-They equate Aristotelian-metaphisical science with the New Science. They pretend that the two have equal arguments, although themselves give the elements to think otherwise.
-They present the conflict as multifaceted. It includes political, scientific, personal aspects... This is true -and nobody denies it-, but it does not justify ignoring the conflict between religion and science that is at its centre.
-Finally - and this is the most serious thing for me - they try to justify the action of the Church (the Inquisition). The problem for them is that Galileo did not have sufficient arguments to defend that his theory was true and that he should have submitted to the Church instead of provoking it.
David Mo
Philosopher
Copernicus is probably the least I know of the three authors we've discussed.
But in Galileo the theory of Tim and the other negationists sinks to the bottom. Is there anything I said that doesn't convince you? Do you think there wasn't a science-religion conflict between Galileo and the Church?
GDon
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A lot of it is you misreading Tim O'Neill's points, and responding so broadly that you are strawmanning his point. For example, you write just above:
O'Neill knows things but integrates them poorly into a theory because of ideological biases. What I call the “negationists” thesis is to deny that there was a religious conflict between the Church and Galileo and to try to present it as a scientific conflict.
Did O'Neill ever deny that there was a religious conflict there? I'll quote him from an earlier post:
This acknowledges incidences of conflict between science and religion (e.g. elements of the Galileo Affair or some of the reaction to Darwin), but shows that the relationship between religion and science can't be reduced to simplistic black-and-white generalisations about either wholesale "conflict"/"retardation" or "harmony"/"encouragement". History isn't that simple.
Can you quote O'Neill to the effect that he denies that there was a religious conflict between the Church and Galileo, please?
I have more, but lets start with that one.
GDon
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I think Copernicus and the treatment of his "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres" is an important test case. O'Neill has provided a wealth of information, both in this thread and on his website. But let me use Wiki as a starting point so you don't think me biased on this point. You can tell me if anything seems incorrect.
From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus#Heliocentrism
Some time before 1514 Copernicus made available to friends his "Commentariolus" ("Little Commentary"), a manuscript describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis...
About 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn "to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses."[65]
In 1533, Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter delivered a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus's theory. Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals heard the lectures and were interested in the theory. On 1 November 1536, Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua, wrote to Copernicus from Rome:
The immediate result of the 1543 publication of Copernicus's book was only mild controversy... Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo.
In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds of ensuring that Copernicanism, which it described as a "false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture," would not "creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth."[139] The corrections consisted largely of removing or altering wording that the spoke of heliocentrism as a fact, rather than a hypothesis...
The corrections to De revolutionibus, which omitted or altered nine sentences, were issued four years later, in 1620.
About 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn "to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses."[65]
In 1533, Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter delivered a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus's theory. Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals heard the lectures and were interested in the theory. On 1 November 1536, Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua, wrote to Copernicus from Rome:
Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you... For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe... Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject ...[71]
The immediate result of the 1543 publication of Copernicus's book was only mild controversy... Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo.
In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds of ensuring that Copernicanism, which it described as a "false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture," would not "creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth."[139] The corrections consisted largely of removing or altering wording that the spoke of heliocentrism as a fact, rather than a hypothesis...
The corrections to De revolutionibus, which omitted or altered nine sentences, were issued four years later, in 1620.
In brief, using the data above:
1. Copernicus's theories were discussed while he was still alive in "a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus's theory. Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals heard the lectures and were interested in the theory."
2. On his death, his work attracted "only mild controversy" then and for the following seventy years.
3. When Galileo promoted the theory of heliocentrism and how the Bible supported the idea, Copernicus's book was banned in 1616, pending changes to nine sentences. "The corrections consisted largely of removing or altering wording that the spoke of heliocentrism as a fact, rather than a hypothesis"
4. The corrected version was available for publishing four years later in 1620.
Is all that correct, in your view? We can discuss the implications of a conflict between science and religion once we agree on a baseline. (I ask that you quote me if you are responding directly to one of my points. Thanks.)
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David Mo
Philosopher
To say what O'Neill thinks about the conflict between Galileo and the Church is difficult because he answered my questions with insults and because he have been directed mainly to Hypatia and Copernicus.
I will talk about the authors he cited as sources, from whom I have read some things. For example, David C. Lindberg: “Galileo, the Church and the Cosmos" in When Science and Christianity Meet, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers.
To say that the conflict between Galileo and the Church had many facets is not to say anything. Everyone recognizes that. If that is the myth they want to dismantle, it is a myth they have invented or which refers to authors who are not relevant in the history of science, such as Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins. What negationists try to do is hide the science-religion conflict within the others, making it irrelevant. This is a fallacy because the science-religion conflict is the dominant one and the one that had had the most consequences for the future.
I mentioned in a previous comment Lindberg's line of argument, which coincides with Numbers. It is full of fallacies. For example: that the conflict would not have taken place had it not been for Galileo's obstinacy and bad character. In other words, it was due to something accidental.
Also that the conflict would not have taken place if Galileo had not provoked it by mentioning that the Bible could not oppose science and had to be reinterpreted when there was conflict.
This is false for several reasons. The problem arose naturally. It had already been alluded to by some ecclesiastical authority - Bellarmino I think I remember. Galileo was deceived by this and believed that his proposal was going to be supported.
Furthermore the conflict with the heliocentric theory had already been mentioned by Luther and had been picked up in the indictment against Giordano Bruno. If he slept for years, it is because, unlike Bruno, Copernicus was known by few people "and even less read" -- these are Lindberg's words --, because he presented a model with little experimental evidence and because he had been tempered by Osiander's prologue, reducing it to a mere hypothesis.
All this implies that the problem was posed in a natural way. It was a conflict that had to break out sooner or later if science wanted to free itself from ecclesiastical authority. It is absurd to pretend that the cause of the conflict is an accidental event when it has spread over the centuries.
Another argument by Lindberg and Numbers: The conflict was not between science and religion, but between scientists. Lindberg maintains the idea that there is no conflict between ideas, but between people (again the accidental). This idea is absurd because there would be no conflict between people - in this case, at least - if they did not have contrary ideas. In any case, Lindberg and Numbers' idea tries to remove the religious authority from the conflict once again. But it is based on an important error: the equation of Aristotelian medieval science with modern science. Lindberg acknowledges that they are not the same, but then forgets to draw conclusions. What negationists hide is that Aristotelian science was not something independent of the church, but was a way of exercising its totalitarian power. Its methods and objectives were decided by its submission to theological power. That is why medieval scientists were unable to develop a method, such as the hypothetico-deductive one, which implied freedom of research. That is why, in the conflict with Galileo, their main arguments were the subjection to the authority of Aristotle and the Bible (Lindberg acknowledges this, but here he does not draw the right conclusions either).
There are more fallacies in the denialist position, but almost all are based on one: they ignore that the conflict between religion and science was inevitable and was due to the fact that the Church was a totalitarian power. That is to say, that it sought a total dominion - and they achieved it in good part for some centuries - of the whole life of its subjects, from their daily practices to the systems of ideas that were developed under its dominion. Such power, as demonstrated in other cases of totalitarianism, is incompatible with the development of a science based on reason and experience.
If O'Neill agreed with these objections, he could have said so. I would have liked to agree with him. But nothing would have happened if we had not agreed. But since he got nervous and slipped out of the debate, just when it was becoming more interesting, we cannot known. If you, GDon, know something or want continue making objections, I would be delighted. You can see that I am interested in the subject.
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David Mo
Philosopher
I don't know what conclusion you draw from these data. If you tell it we can discuss.
GDon
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It's not difficult to say what O'Neill thinks. I quoted him on the topic in my post to you! But I am asking you about something that you are claiming. Can you quote O'Neill to the effect that he denies that there was a religious conflict between the Church and Galileo, please?
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GDon
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The summary: Copernicus's work on heliocentrism had interest from the Church while he was still alive; it attracted mild controversy after his death in 1543; it was banned in 1616 after Galileo used it to support heliocentrism and to claim that Scriptures support heliocentrism; it was corrected and then available for publishing by 1620 after nine sentences were corrected that had spoke of heliocentrism as a fact rather than a hypothesis.
My conclusion: the Church didn't see heliocentrism being taught as a theory as a problem, even after Galileo. At that time, there were problems with proving heliocentrism to be a fact that wouldn't be overcome until later. From the Wiki entry I gave earlier on Copernicus:
The physical and mathematical arguments [against heliocentrism] were of uneven quality, but many of them came directly from the writings of Tycho Brahe, and Ingoli repeatedly cited Brahe, the leading astronomer of the era. These included arguments about the effect of a moving earth on the trajectory of projectiles, and about parallax and Brahe's argument that the Copernican theory required that stars be absurdly large.
The difference between how Galileo and Copernicus were treated is that Copernicus didn't try to attack the Church's position on Scripture. Galileo did, and apparently insulted the Pope (intentionally or unintentionally) for good measure. But the science -- heliocentrism -- could still be read about, as long as it was framed as a theory.
This is supported in the Wiki entry on Galileo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Controversy_over_heliocentrism
Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Bellarmine to deliver this finding to Galileo, and to order him to abandon the opinion that heliocentrism was physically true...
Bellarmine's instructions did not prohibit Galileo from discussing heliocentrism as a mathematical and philosophic idea, so long as he did not advocate for its physical truth.
Bellarmine's instructions did not prohibit Galileo from discussing heliocentrism as a mathematical and philosophic idea, so long as he did not advocate for its physical truth.
It's as I wrote to you in an earlier post: the idea that "science conflicts with religion" in any general way is prima facie absurd. Why would the Church oppose any science that didn't conflict with dogma? Because in most cases -- physics, mathematics, medicine, architecture, engineering, etc -- there is no conflict with dogma. Advances in those fields have no affect. That's why the idea that "science conflicts with religion" in any general way is so demonstrably wrong: most scientific discoveries are irrelevant to religion.
Your thoughts?
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qayak
Penultimate Amazing
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That maybe true today but not so true when many discoveries were made. Evolution, and by extension the entire field of biology. Astronomy when it was discovered there wasn't a place called heaven in the heavens would be another. Religions and "the Church" also have no trouble jumping in and influencing what scientists are allowed to study. Stem cell research as an example.
All of this is based on perceived attacks on their dogma that science doesn't care about but all science is slowed by such antics. When one group of people has the power to decide what other people are allowed to know about there is going to be conflict. We see a more extreme example under the dictatorship of the Soviet Union where there was an official position on all science and no scientist was allowed to study anything out of that without losing everything. The church has simply been forced to be more subtle because of a lack of KGB equivalent and scientists being spread even outside their sphere of control