Three Scientific Revolutions: How They Transformed Our Conceptions of Reality by Richard H. Schlagel

disagreements with both the Aristotelians and the ecclesiastical authorities over the interpretation of natural phenomena increased, so did the hostility. For example, when the Aristotelians explained the amount of support water gave to floating objects as due to their shapes, in contrast to Archimedes’ principle of specific gravity, Galileo published a reply entitled (in translation), Discourse on Bodies on or in Water , supporting Archimedes. In 1612 he entered into a dispute with a Jesuit mathematician named Christopher Scheiner (who wrote under the pseudonym Apelles) over the nature of the recently cited dark spots circling the sun. Scheiner argued that they were tiny stars similar to the four stars circling Jupiter, while Galileo, based on their formation, maintained they were like clouds circling the earth. Again challenging the distinction between the celestial and terrestrial worlds, this proved quite contentious (today sun spots are explained as magnetic fields that emit massive bursts of energy that appear as dark areas on its surface).
    Then in a famous “Letter to Castelli” written on December 21, 1613, he openly expressed his disdain for those ecclesiastical authorities who rejected his discoveries because they conflicted with traditional biblical beliefs. Conceding that regarding questions concerning salvation and faith there was no higher authority than Holy Scripture, he adds that
    I should think it would be prudent if no one were permitted to oblige Scripture . . . to sustain as true some physical conclusions of which sense and demonstration and necessary reasons may show the contrary. . . . I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them. . . . (p. 226)
    Though a rationally sound objection, the clergy considered it not only as a rejection of the heavenly nature of the universe, but also as contesting the authority of scripture and the Church itself, a crucial turning point in his relation with the Church. The following year on December 21 a fiery young Dominican named Tommaso Caccini “denounced from the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella the Galileists, and all mathematicians along with them, as practitioners of diabolical arts and enemies of true religion” (p. 238). About the same time, the cardinals of the Inquisition started examining Galileo’s writings to see if they contained heretical material. Hoping to defend himself, he journeyed to Rome at the end of 1615 but with little success.
    A commission of theologians was formed in February of 1616 that decided against the motions of the earth and the centrality of the sun, instructing Cardinal Bellarmine to inform Galileo of its decision, after which he was told to abandon those suppositions. Bellarmine met with Galileo on February 24 before a notary and a witnesses, leaving a notarized but unsigned record stating, in the words of Drake, that he “told Galileo of the official findings against the motion of the earth and stability of the sun,” while the commissary of the Inquisition “admonished Galileo in the name of the pope that he must not hold, defend, or teach in any way, orally or in writing, the said propositions on pain of imprisonment. Galileo Agreed” (p. 253). This is crucial in connection with his final trial and conviction in that Galileo did agree “not to hold, defend, or teach in any way, orally or in writing the motion of the earth and stability of the sun.” An edict was then dispensed proscribing all books purporting to reconcile Christianity with heliocentrism, though none of Galileo’s were included. Finally, in 1992, the Catholic Church acknowledged that Galileo was correct and it was wrong.
    Then in the fall of 1618 the citing of three comets again evoked the question of the reality of the distinction between