Talk:Galileo Galilei/Archive 14

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Galileo's philosophy

I've expanded the detail of the page sufficiently, but the section on Galileo's arguments and their problems for heliocentrism also needs to be expanded. These should also be placed in the context of their contemporary refutation. There appear to be two important points -- Galileo's argument from elegance and his crucial argument, that being from the tides. We can use Finocchiaro to explain the argument from elegance, and then Lindberg to explain how Galileo's contemporaries quickly noted that elegance doesn't guarantee the truth of a proposition. This is why Galileo's crucial argument was that from the tides. Here, Stillman Drake provides an appropriate summary of the facts: Galileo's theory suggested there was one high and one low tide per day. In fact, there were two. Galileo then introduced a number of peculiarities when it comes to the Mediterranean to explain away why there was two instead of one, and claimed that the Atlantic, which did not suffer from these peculiarities, would confirm his claim of one low and high tide. Around 1619, Galileo became aware this was wrong, and so just didn't mention his Atlantic claim in his 1632 Dialogue but inappropriately continued pushing the argument anyways. This should complete the section. Some expansion on the parallax/star-size problem can be accomplished later.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 21:52, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

These issues are being discussed in the section above. What you're proposing would be a very serious distortion of history. Galileo made many different arguments in favor of heliocentrism and a non-stationary Earth. After the publication of the Dialogue, the scientific mainstream viewed the arguments for Copernicanism as stronger than those against it. That is not to say that there were not still lingering objections and problems with the theory, but the theory was nevertheless widely viewed as stronger than its rivals.

It looks to me like you're trying to turn this biography into a modern trial of Galileo, which will again re-litigate his 1633 trial and argue that the Inquisition's condemnation of him was reasonable and scientifically justified. This is POV-pushing of the worst type. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:21, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Thucydides, I'm looking for some more diverse opinions. You've proven countless times your understanding of the period is extraordinarily weak and based on the reading of one scholar -- Finocchiaro. Take your mistake that most scientists supported Galileo -- they didn't. David Lindberg in When Christianity and Science Meet writes "But we must keep in mind that the position adopted by the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion" (pg. 49). Galileo was supported by elegance and contradicted by science. Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:02, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

@Wallingfordtoday: I'd also like to see more diverse opinions. You're pushing an extreme point of view here, which neither David Lindberg nor Finocchiaro nor Stillman Drake advocate in their works. None of them would make such a silly statement as "Galileo was supported by elegance and contradicted by science." I quoted extensively from Finocchiaro's Defending Copernicus and Galileo above, because you yourself brought that work into the discussion. Once you found out that Finocchiaro calls your views an "anti-Galilean myth," you did a 180-degree turn and started downplaying his credibility. How did you even manage to find the one sentence from his book that you thought supported your views, while missing the sections titled, "An Overarching Thesis" (right in the introduction) and "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?", which systematically attack the viewpoint you've been expressing above?

Extreme? Scary! In fact, as has been shown above, Lindberg agrees with me. As does Graney. Finnochiaro disagrees, and Drake admits he doesn't even understand the issue. It seems you handwave away the fact that Galileo did in fact gain elegance and lose the scientific battle, which is certainly a mainstream views (if not "the" view now). See above on me dealing with this Finnochiaro nonsense -- something you've repeated around a dozen responses in a row. And the reason you do this is because Finnochiaro is the only scholar you've seriously read on the topic. You need him to be right. Now, let us note that other scholars have noted some serious omissions and misrepresentations on the part of Finnochiaro's book. For example, part of Finnochiaro's central thesis is that Galileo was completely honest, fair-minded in his discussions and never pushed the necessary truth of heliocentrism. On this, John Henry writes;

Finocchiaro claims, therefore, that his defence of Galileo is ‘an exercise in critical reasoning, just as his [Galileo’s] defense of Copernicuswas’, and he goes on to show, with suitable quotations from Galileo himself, how rationalmindedness, open-mindedness, and fair-mindedness were watchwords for this hero of the Scientific Revolution (xli). The result, it should be said before going any further, is a tour de force and in many ways it could almost be said to offer the final, the definitive, defence of Galileo against all critics. Almost … except for the fact that we have to ask ourselves whether Galileo really was the paragon of critical reasoning, and open and fair-mindedness, that Finocchiaro presents here. Surely there are too many rhetorical flourishes in everything Galileo wrote for us to easily accept that he was always operating in an open-minded, much less a fair-minded manner? This is perhaps most evident in his more polemical works, his History and Demonstrations concerning Sunspots (1613), and The Assayer (1623), which are not the focus of Finocchiaro’s discussion, but it is generally accepted that the Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1632) gains much of its power from the rhetorical possibilities provided by its dialogue form. A change of direction in the conversation makes it easy to leave something unexplained without drawing attention to the lacuna. Similarly, a brief exchange between the interlocutors makes it possible to make a rapid point and then move on to something else, without acknowledging, much less addressing, any of the problems associated with that rapidly made point. (p. 528)

He goes on to point some rather stunning omissions on Finnochiaro's part.

Consider also, for example, Finocchiaro’s interpretation of this comment from the Letter to the Grand Duchess: ‘now that one is discovering how well-founded upon clear observations and necessary demonstrations this [Copernican] doctrine is’. According to Finocchiaro, Galileo ‘does not say that the earth’s motion is now clearly observed and necessarily demonstrated, but that it is well founded’ (61). I agree that to say something is ‘well-founded’ should not, on its own, be taken as a dogmatic statement. It is surely turned into a dogmatic statement, however, if the wellfoundedness is explicitly said to reside in necessary demonstrations. Surely, Finocchiaro’s charitable reading is coloured by the demands of his overarching thesis, and the concomitant belief that Galileo embodied rational-mindedness, open-mindedness and fair-mindedness. It is perhaps worth adding also, that Galileo’s suggestion here that there are ‘necessary demonstrations’ which are now (in 1615) available is, to be charitable to him, outrageous overstatement (to be less charitable, it is a downright lie). (pg. 530)

Again, we need some more diverse views here, not endless rehashing of a singular view by one scholar whose sole stated intention is to demonstrate Galileo was completely innocent of all charges.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 05:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

John Henry actually reviews Maurice Finocchiaro's work on Galileo very favorably. For instance, in his review of Finocchiaro's The Trial of Galileo: Essential Documents, Henry writes that "Finocchiaro has proven himself to be one of the most reliable guides to the life and work of Galileo, and especially to the circumstances surrounding his condemnation by the Roman Catholic Church in 1633." In his review of Finocchiaro's Retrying Galileo, John Henry writes that the work is "highly enlightening, both at a trivial and at a more profound level." Henry goes on to point out that the argument about Galileo's downfall being his supposedly putting the words of the Pope into the mouth of Simplicio is a myth:

In the course of describing how various mythological elements crept into the story, the author will no doubt be re-educating many more readers than just this one. I confess that I have always assumed it was true that one reason for Galileo’s downfall was that he angered the Pope, Urban VIII, by having the foolish Aristotelian character in his Dialogue, Simplicio, provide the formulaic escape clause – summed up as ‘man proposes but God disposes’, that is, we can never really be sure how an omnipotent God might have constructed the world – which the Pope had insisted upon. I have even assumed that the famous papal comment, ‘He has put my words in the mouth of a fool’, was genuinely reported. I now learn that this mythic embellishment derived from a new slander against Galileo that evidently emerged at the end of 1635, and that there is no evidence before that, that the Pope felt affronted in this way (62). (John Henry, Journal of the Society of Renaissance Studies, Vol. 21, Issue 1, pp. 132-134)

In the passages you quoted above, John Henry disagrees with Finocchiaro about Galileo's possible polemicism. But you've grossly mischaracterized the passage by claiming that John Henry says that he has "noted some serious omissions and misrepresentations on the part of Finnochiaro's book." John Henry and Finocchiaro disagree on whether saying something is grounded in "necessary demonstrations" implies it to be definitely true, or merely on solid footing. John Henry isn't accusing Finocchiaro of "serious omissions and misrepresentations" - that's your highly distorted reading of Henry's words.

Henry's basic disagreement with Finocchiaro is not about the strengths of the various arguments made by and against Galileo, but rather in whether Galileo was as "fair-minded" and uncommitted as Finocchiaro presents him to have been. Henry doesn't believe that anyone is that fair minded - he's not just attacking Galileo. This is how Henry concludes:

In spite of these and other strictures that I might have mentioned, I greatly enjoyed engaging with Finocchiaro’s erudite and trenchant assessment of what he calls the subsequent Galileo Affair. It seems to me that although Professor Finocchiaro sometimes undermines his case by being too generous in his judgement of Galileo, his systematic critique of the unjustified conclusions reached by Galileo’s later scholarly critics is always astute and highly revealing. Given the varied layers of meaning that have been read into the Galileo Affair, Finocchiaro’s exposure of the way preoccupations and less than rigorous argumentation compromise the thinking of even leading intellectual commentators should provide salutary lessons to readers way beyond the confines of Galileo studies. Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn from Finocchiaro’s ‘exercise in critical reasoning’ is that there isn’t anyone who can think in ‘the reasoned, critical, open-minded, and fair-minded’ way that he attributes to Galileo. (John Henry, Intellectual History Review, Vol. 20, Issue 4)

I'm all for including varied views. What I'm not for is the inclusion of a section in the article devoted to trying to push the POV that the Inquisition had science on its side and was basically right to condemn Galileo - who, by the way, was a terrible scientist who couldn't answer anyone's objections and insulted the Pope. You've just poured on the POV in the "Conflict Thesis" section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:20, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Thucydides, I think you're really in for an education when it comes to academia. Almost every academic book review in the history of scholarship has lavish compliments. It's "scholar speak", so to speak. Once you begin reading more scholarship, you'll be acquainted with this a little more. In other words, all of the above is irrelevant. Despite it making you uncomfortable, Feild noted some serious omissions and perhaps distortions on Finocchiaro's part -- he simply doesn't discuss the hordes of data, from the very letters he cites, that suggest he's wrong. For example, Finocchiaro claims Galileo wasn't pushing his views as the truth, and yet Feild notes Galileo claimed he had "necessary demonstrations" -- Finocchiaro doesn't appear to understand these words.

You write "who, by the way is a terrible scientist" -- but I never said Galileo is a terrible scientist. As Lindberg notes, the Inquisition did have science on its side and Galileo got arrested because he broke his legal agreements not to push heliocentrism as the truth.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE: Good update to make. I was reading a paper 'Galileo's Tidal Theory' by Naylor, and Naylor points out exactly what I expected to read. "Almost all historians think that the tidal theory in the Dialogue is physically incorrect, and most believe that it contains major contradictions" (pg. 2). Nice. Naylor goes on to write;

It is notable that Galileo’s original belief, expressed in his Discourse on the Tides in 1616, that there existed evidence that there was a single daily tide in the Atlantic Ocean was not referred to in the Dialogue.27 This had been the only piece of evidence offered in the Discourse in favor of his claim that tidal frequency was dependent on the dimensions of the sea basin, and it was therefore quite important. Its omission from the Dialogue suggests that Galileo had learned that his earlier belief was mistaken and that in the Atlantic, as in the Mediterranean, there were two high tides each day (pg. 16)

Wallingfordtoday (talk) 22:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Galileo a Bad Scientist?

I want to thank Wallingfordtoday for pointing me towards Finocchario's excellent work, Defending Copernicus and Galileo. Wallingfordtoday approvingly quoted one sentence of this wonderful work above, and set Finocchario up as an authority, in contrast to the supposedly WP:FRINGE Stillman Drake (who, by the way, happens to be one of the most famous biographers of Galileo). I'll quote extensively from Finocchario's work, and I very much encourage anyone who has access to his work to take a deeper look at it, and to verify that I have not distorted his message. I'll quote enough passages, which are clear enough, that it should be obvious that I'm not just pulling out individual sentences that I agree with. The passages I quote come from the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?" In this chapter, Finocchario addresses the claims that the evidence and arguments Galileo presented did not support his heliocentric worldview, and that he was essentially lucky to be right, but actually a bad scientist.

In short, Finocchario's work reads like a point-by-point takedown of the theses that Wallingfordtoday has been arguing here. Let's begin with this claim by Wallingfordtoday:

• the scholarly consensus is that the Inquisition had science on its side -Wallingfordtoday

Finocchario calls this view the "anti-Galilean myth:"

there is the anti-Galilean myth that Galileo failed to give the conclusive demonstration of the Copernican hypothesis which he had promised, which he boasted to possess, which was required then by the agreed-upon methodological norms, and which is required now by the canons of scientific proof. Thus the Church was right to condemn Galileo for his Dialogue of 1632, which is supposedly full of logically invalid arguments, scientific errors, and even deceptive sophistries. It also follows that the Church was upholding the cause of scientific reason in its opposition to Galileo. This view is based on an untenable misreading of the main relevant documents, the Dialogue of 1632 and the Letter to Christina of 1615, and it will be indirectly and substantively criticized in my discussion of them below. (pp. 233-234, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

Finocchario generally takes the view that Galileo's methodological and epitstemic views were sound. He points out that Galileo is often falsely portrayed as a zealot by his detractors, who misunderstand the Dialogue:

The fact that the book is discussing the physical reality of the earth's motion is sometimes confused with the claim that Galileo is asserting that the earth's motion is physically real. However, all that Galileo is doing is taking seriously the phenomenon of the earth's motion, rather than regarding it as a mere instrument of calculation and prediction. To use today's terminology we might say that he is indeed an epistemological realist, but this is not the same as being a committed geokineticist. (p. 235, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

The next argument of Wallingfordtoday's that Finocchario criticizes is the idea that

• the scientific aspect of the Copernican theory was only validated with the advent of the work of Newton and Bradley, not Galileo -Wallingfordtoday

Here's what Finocchario has to say on that matter:

Some say that, as a matter of historical fact, it was not until Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, published in 1687, that there was a scientifically correct proof of Copernicanism in general and of the earth's motion in particular. There are several difficulties with this comparison. First, whether Newton deduced or induced his gravitational principle from Kepler's laws, or merely provided a hypothetico-deductive explanation of the latter from the former, in any case he assumed Kepler's laws as premises of his argument; now, if these laws contain an assertion of the earth's motion, then it is not clear why credit for proving Copernicanism should not go to Kepler or how the Newtonian proof can avoid a petitio principii; and if Kepler's laws do not claim that the earth revolves around the sun (but only that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn do), then it is unclear how Newton's conclusion can apply to the earth's motion. Second, if scientific validity is defined in terms of the reaction by the scientific community of the time, there is no essential difference between Newton's Principia and Galileo's Dialogue. The essentials of both were favorably received by the majority of progressively minded scientists; both were critically examined by the same scientists; and for both there were cases of fundamental rejection by scientists who, though neither incompetent nor irrational, were outside the scientific mainstream. (p. 238, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

Note how Finocchario states explicitly that the scientific mainstream of the time accepted Galileo's views, as laid out in the Dialogue. Finocchario criticizes what he calls the "slippery slope argument," which pushes the date at which the geokinetic (or heliocentric) view was scientifically established back ever further:

Copernicus's work in 1543 to Foucault's in 1851 and beyond that makes the earth's motion the indisputable fact it is today. The geokinetic explanation of the three phenomena mentioned above could be undermined by explaining them away through a reformulation of the laws of mechanics in more complex mathematical formalism. The result would not be simple, but simplicity would become the issue, which would bring us back to Copernicus's situation, before Galileo came along. In summary, to question the scientific validity of the argument in the Dialogue the way these critics do is to take the first step in a slippery slope, at the end of which one finds himself in the situation of the great French mathematician and physicist Henri Poincaré, who at the beginning of the twentieth century argued that, if one wanted to do away with the conventional simplicity of the laws of mechanics, one could still hold that the motion of the earth remains an unproven fact. (pp. 238-239, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

Note how Finocchario points out that simplicity (what I was calling "elegance" before, which Wallingfordtoday was pooh-poohing) was central to establishing geokineticism/heliocentrism. As Finocchario points out, it would have been possible to dispute heliocentrism after each individual piece of evidence for it came out, but from Copernicus to Galileo and Kepler to Newton to Bradley to Bessel, the alternative would have become ever more inelegant.

Next, the argument from Wallingfordtoday that Galileo's argument about the tides was refuted by the Church:

• In fact, Graney writes "the papal commission charged with reporting on the Dialogue in 1632 particularly pointed out the inability of Galileo's theory to account for the observed twice-daily high and low tides, when the varying speed of Earth's surface would suggest a once-daily high and low tide" -Wallingfordtoday

Finocchario disputes the idea that the Church disproved Galileo's argument about the tides, and points out that the falsity of Galileo's argument could not be established until a fuller theory of physics had been established (which, incidentally, happened because the scientific mainstream accepted the heliocentric model and went about developing a physics to explain it):

The falsehood that Galileo's tidal theory allegedly implies is that there is only one high tide and one low tide a day; in fact, normally there are two. Here we simply have a careless misreading of the text, in which Galileo is at great pains to discuss the other causes besides the earth's motion which give rise to specific features of the tides. [...] My conclusion here is that although Galileo's tidal argument uses some false propositions, it does not contain any obvious improper inferences and possesses considerable inductive strength. (pp. 239-240, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

Next, perhaps the most important charge made by Wallingfordtoday, that Galileo avoided the Tychonic system because he could not answer it, and that stellar parallax was a problem for heliocentrism - and indeed "Galileo's undoing." Quite a strong statement!

• the consensus of historians of science, parallax was a fat problem in Galileo's work -Wallingfordtoday
• To put it simply, these [Galileo's] claims are not "strong" to anyone familiar with the data -Wallingfordtoday
• the lack of observation of parallax, combined with Tycho's star-size objection was Galileo's undoing -Wallingfordtoday

Let's see what Finocchario makes of these charges:

The standard criticism is that Galileo either did not realize or else contrived to conceal the fact the Tychonic view could explain all the evidence that made the Copernican system superior to the Ptolemaic system and that therefore there was no reason to prefer the Copernican to the Tychonic system.

To clarify this situation it must be first pointed out that, whatever the situation may have been at the time when Tycho first devised his system, by the time Galileo published his Dialogue the superiority of the Copernican system was clear. In fact, the only serious reason for considering the Tychonic compromise was the weight of the mechanical arguments against the earth's motion, and it was precisely one of the great accomplishments of the Dialogue to call these into question.

Moreover, it is not really true that Galileo neglects the Tychonic possibility. It is correct to say only that he fails to mention it by name, although he does consider the relevant content and substance of Tycho's idea. The general reason for this inclusion is that Galileo's primary interest is to discuss the physical reality of the earth's motion and not the technical details of planetary astronomy. From that point of view there is no difference between the Ptolemaic and the Tychonic systems: they are both geostatic and have only one alternative, the geokinetic one. (emphasis added, pp. 240-241, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

First of all, note the sentence that I bolded. Finocchario contradicts the central point that Wallingfordtoday has been making all along, and says that by the time Galileo wrote his Dialogue, the Copernican model was clearly superior to that of Tycho. Finocchario goes on to point out that Galileo did actually address the substance of Tycho's model, in providing various pieces of evidence for Earth's non-stationarity, even if he didn't mention Tycho by name. Galileo provided two additional arguments, which Finocchario finds compelling, for the Earth's motion (see p. 241):

1. The pattern of motion of sunspots across the disk of the Sun.
2. Galileo's realization that orbital period is related to orbital radius - as demonstrated by both the Solar sytem and the Jovian system (this is essentially a less precise form of Kepler's Third Law). The idea that the stars would orbit the Earth at great speed (i.e., once a day) contradicts this general relation.

Finocchario finds the first argument very strong, and agrees with Galileo about the inelegance of the alternative, geostatic explanation:

Galileo correctly points out, however, that this explanation would have two disadvantages compared with the geokinetic theory, namely, it would be less simple and more ad hoc. (p. 241, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

Finocchario finds the argument about orbital periods less convincing, but still says that it is an argument that makes the geostatic view less probable.

Finally, addressing the supposed overall weakness and one-sidedness of Galileo's Dialogue, Finocchario strongly defends Galileo:

Thus, if Galileo's discussion contains a bias, it is that the discussion indicates that the geokinetic arguments are better than the geostatic ones. But this feature of the Dialogue would be objectionable and constitute a bias only if the geokinetic superiority were a distortion of the logical and methodological situation, that is, only if the geostatic arguments were really the better ones and Galileo was willfully and consciously conveying the opposite impression. The issue thus reduces essentially to one's analysis and evaluation of the arguments in Galileo's book. As my account above suggests, he was fundamentally correct in his appraisal of the relative merits of the two sides. It follows that the alleged imbalance is not his fault but a consequence of the nature of the case, and objectivity demands that one do precisely what Galileo did. (p. 242, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

It's not possible to read these passages from Finocchario and say that Galileo's views were rejected by the scientific mainstream of his time, or that his argumentation was weak, or that he gave a biased presentation. Finocchario, at least, strongly disputes these claims, and states that Galileo gave an overall fair hearing to the geostatic view, but that the evidence of the time simply weighed in favor of a geokinetic (i.e., heliocentric) view.

@Wallingfordtoday: You asked me to "Just bend to my will and accept you're wrong." I have to admit I got a chuckle out of that line. I'm not used to people talking like that, and I take it that you were speaking half in jest. I think the above statements make it clear that Finocchario firmly rejects the central points you've been trying to make in the above discussion. Most importantly, Finocchario states unequivocally that the Tychonic worldview was untenable by the time the Dialogue was written. I hope you'll understand, then, if I don't "bend to [your] will." Thanks for pointing me towards Finocchario's work, Defending Copernicus and Galileo.

@William M. Connolley: I just want to point out that Finocchario contradicts your statement that G had no valid reason to prefer heliocentrism to Tycho's system. As I laid out above, Finocchario discusses three arguments Galileo made that address Tycho's model (without mentioning it by name). Two of them are now understood to be correct (the sunspot argument and argument about orbital periods), and Finocchario finds that the sunspot argument was compelling at the time Galileo made it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:59, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

If anything, @Thucydides411:, I have to admire your sheer determination. And yes, bending to my will is a jest, though I would never stop anyone from doing so :). Anywho, I think for the first time you've been able to offer a substantive response to the points I've been making. Nevertheless, there are some problems, contradictions and red herrings to set aside -- you also seem to have no problem, at this point, with the Simplicio affair. Before I move on, I'll also clarify one thing -- Stillman Drake is one of the best biographers, even today, on Galileo. I should clarify that he's not plain fringe. He's only fringe when he talks about Tycho's system, which he himself admits he doesn't understand. This is important because as I'll show later, his credible work on Galileo will directly contradict some of what Finocchiaro says. The last note I'll make, before beginning, is that nothing you cite actually disputes Finocchiaro's earlier point that the contemporary audience rejected Galileo's views for scientific reasons (the point I cited him for) -- in fact, he just thinks that this was ill-thought reasoning, which we'll look at in a second.

Something I noted while reading James Hannam is that Hannam himself introduced the possibility that it was Kepler who had actually shown the validity of heliocentrism. Finocharrio notes this, though he doesn't mention that Galileo never actually brought up Kepler's work on precisely this issue -- in fact kind of ignored it because he was disoriented by Kepler's intense religiosity. Hannam writes (God's Philosophers);

Galileo never proved heliocentricism (as we have already seen, it was Kepler who effectively did that)), and his trial before the Inquisition was based more on politics than science (pg. 303) ... We first hear Galileo enthusiastically espousing Copernicanism in 1597 in a letter he wrote to Kepler acknowledging a copy of one of Kepler’s books that he had received from a mutual acquaintance. Kepler was thrilled to find an ally, even one he had never heard of, and immediately wrote back, enclosing another couple copies of the book for Galileo to distribute. By that time, though, Galileo had decided that he really had little in common with Kepler. The latter’s religious mysticism was not to the Galilean taste and the text was probably just too opaque to bother with. Galileo was a masterful writer and valued limpid prose in others. This had the unfortunate consequence that Galileo ignored Kepler’s great discoveries and never made much use of them in his own work. (pp. 309-310)

So it's possible Kepler was the one to do it. Galileo didn't push or just wasn't aware of precisely that work, unfortunately for him, so citing this portion of Finocchiaro's argument is just a red herring (though I will re-word the section on the Conflict thesis to include Kepler's findings). In the same quote you provide on this point, Finocchario suggests most scientists had accepted Copernicus's heliocentrism. The problem is that this is blatantly false and Finocchiaro is either unaware of or ignoring the many scholarly surveys that have been done on the topic, including Robert Westman's highly cited survey between 1514 to 1600 that only found eleven supporters of heliocentrism in this entire century. More recently in 2014, Pietro Omodeo has done another survey and arrives at the same conclusion (though he would add a 12th, John Feild into the list).

Moving on to the tides. Galileo's argument supposed that there would be one high and one low tide per day, in fact, observation demonstrated there were two in the Mediterranean. Finocchiaro claims that this doesn't debunk Galileo's argument because Galileo gives other reasons to explain these other tides. And here, Finocchiaro is exactly right. Though he doesn't cite it, Galileo argues precisely such a thing right here in the Starry Messenger. And here's where Graney's excellent scholarship comes in. In fact, Graney points out a few more details of Galileo's argument than Finocchiaro. Galileo argued that while there should be one high tide and one low tide in the Mediterranean, countless peculiarities in the Mediterranean Sea make it so that there's in fact two -- and, Galileo said, if you just look at the Atlantic Ocean that doesn't have all these peculiarities, there you will see the one high and low tide per day! (for the ref, see the previous link I gave on the same page, 128). As Graney has shown, this ... was also wrong. Bloop. And was known to be wrong, as Tobie Matthew noted in a 1619 letter to Francis Bacon. Somewhere along the way, Galileo was informed he was wrong, and dropped the entire Atlantic shtick in his 1633 Dialogue which made no mention of the Atlantic. So Graney has shown Galileo's claims were refuted by observation, and he simply omitted any information that contradicted him. This is no surprise, since scholars have also shown that Galileo simply didn't publish his observations when they directly contradicted his heliocentric theory. This claim on Finocchiaro's part, therefore, is plain outdated. [UPDATE: actually, perhaps it's just plain wrong, not oudated. Stillman Drake made the same observation of how Galileo's "explanations" of why there were two tides were refuted and how he dropped the argument once he realized this.] But it's outdated in more than one way. Graney also uncovers a lot of information in his 2015 Setting Aside All Authority pg. 112-3 that doubles down the sheer problems with Galileo's tidal argument. Other facts on the tidal argument Galileo never addressed but were brought up by his contemporaries were their demonstrations that 1) the speed of the movement of Earth's surface would be too small to cause the observed tidal motion and 2) as shown by another of Galileo's contemporaries, Giovani Baliani, that if the motion were to be explained by a combination of orbital and diurnal motion, it could equally suggest not heliocentrism but that Earth circles the moon!

Finocchiaro also has something to say about why Galileo didn't directly respond to Tycho -- it just wasn't relevant to his physical arguments. While I consider this explanation highly questionable and can show that other scholars (like Hannam and Drake) disagree with Finocchiaro, our disagreement here is irrelevant since the section on the Conflict thesis doesn't say Galileo evaded Tycho. It only says he was unable to answer Tycho's star-size objection in specific, which remains the case and even this is not disputed by Finocchiaro. So disagreement here is irrelevant.

The final point to deal with is elegance. I was wondering why people who like to take Galileo's side use such a fantastically weak argument to defend Galileo and ignore the fact that the observational science at the time directly contradicted Galileo. I know now since I've been recently reading the scholarship on the issue -- this was Galileo's own final argument after the tide thing didn't work out. In any case, back to Graney's recent contributions. Graney has recently shown that Riccioli flipped Galileo's argument regarding retrograde motion (thus showing "elegance") on its head;

He even taps this same concept as an answer to the pro-Copernican argument (number 32) that heliocentrism eliminates the complex, looping, “retrograde” motion of the planets (see chapter 3), rendering it mere appearance. He notes that the combination of Earth’s motions effectively introduces a daily retrograde motion for every object on Earth, a motion that Riccioli says is “unnecessary and lacking any foundation obtained from the senses, which can perceive no motion of the Earth at all, much less any variation in that motion.” (pg. 113)

And there's even more to discuss, such as some other observational telescopic evidence Galileo's contemporaries found against him that he didn't address either (pp. 50-53 of Graney's book), but this appears to be more than enough. Everything you cited from Finocchiaro is either irrelevant (Kepler and whether Galileo was playing it safe with Tycho), wrong (only small number of scientists accepted Copernicus, not most, in fact, and the tidal argument) or outdated (due to Graney's major work).Wallingfordtoday (talk) 02:23, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

@Wallingfordtoday: It looks like you're trying to put Galileo on trial again. Only while the 1633 trial was bad enough, now you're attacking him for being wrong, in hindsight, given modern physical knowledge that he didn't have access to. But we're not here to put Galileo on trial. We're here to discuss whether your characterization of the historical view on Galileo is correct, and as I've shown above, with extensive quotation from Finocchario, your views are considered an "anti-Galilean myth" by one of the foremost scholars of Galileo. I'm not going to sit here and argue with you about whether, given what was known in 1633, Galileo's arguments or those of his detractors were stronger. As someone who knows a thing or two about the sciences and how they actually function, I have a strong personal view on that question (and like other scientists, I take simplicity, elegance and regularity in physical theories very seriously, and think that they're absolutely fundamental and necessary for scientific reasoning). What I will do, however, is point out that you cited Maurice Finocchario as an authority, but somehow managed to pull out the only sentence in his entire book that could plausibly be cast as supporting your views (the one in which he says one can sympathize with people who couldn't accept that the stars are very distant). You ignored the entire chapter in which he demolishes your views point by point, and in which he argues at length that Galileo's evidence for a non-stationary Earth was much stronger than the opposition's evidence, and that Tycho's model was untenable and rejected by the scientific mainstream. There's really nothing left to argue at this point, and I'll allow others to read the above and draw their conclusions. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:37, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

By the way, now that you're putting Finocchario on trial as well (funny how quickly he went from being an expert that you cited multiple times to completely wrong about everything once I showed that he disagreed with you, isn't it?), I'll just point out that saying that very few people accepted heliocentrism in the 1500s in no way undermines Finocchario's statement that the scientific mainstream in 1632 accepted heliocentrism. This is why he's the expert: he knows that 1632 is later than 1600. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: All of this has already been answered and there's little reason to repeat myself. No reason not to put Galileo on trial a few times, he's already been through two. Finocchiaro is one of the foremost experts -- and I've already shown everything you cite from Ficchario is either right but irrelevant, wrong, or outdated. So much for a point by point refutation :(. There is one thing I was wrong about in my edit, though, which was that Kepler, not Newton and Bradley, demonstrated heliocentrism (though as Hannam points out - Galileo's own prejudice against Kepler lead to him not realizing it), and I've amended the page accordingly.

Finocchiaro's quote you give isn't about 1632 at all -- that's just you rationalizing to explain the fact that his opinion is awkward when pitted against scholarly survey. You can cite "elegance" as many times as you want, but as Graney has shown, Riccioli flipped the elegance argument on its head and the anti-Copernicans had actual observation on their side, which makes quick work of "elegance" any day of the week. If you want to fold back to your personal opinion now that it's clear you're wrong, go right ahead. I must note that in all your giant responses to date, you've still never addressed a word Graney says.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

You're wrong here:

"Finocchiaro's quote you give isn't about 1632 at all -- that's just you rationalizing to explain the fact that his opinion is awkward when pitted against scholarly survey"

Here's what Finocchario writes:

"by the time Galileo published his Dialogue the superiority of the Copernican system was clear."

The Dialogue was published in 1632, which is after 1600, if my math is correct.

You're relying very heavily on Graney now, whom you appear to like more than Finocchario at this point. I don't blame you, because Finocchario calls your views the "anti-Galilean myth," while Graney appears to be closer to your views. But the position you're in now is that you're arguing that one of the best-known experts on Galileo is wrong, while a much less well-known professor of astronomy at a community college is correct. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Fascinating rebuttal -- someone should have notified the University of Notre Dame Press before they published Graney's work that he was a physics professor! Anywho, setting that aside, you're misrepresenting your own source at this point. That quote you give by Finocchiaro has nothing to do with his statement that most scientists at the time accepted Copernicanism. Those are separate and you oddly conflate them.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:39, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Getting published by Notre Dame Press (or any other particular publisher) isn't that big of a hurdle. You're relying on someone who is a community college professor, while disputing the thesis presented by one of the foremost experts on Galileo.

You're right that the quote I just posted above does not directly say that most scientists supported the heliocentric view in 1632 (it merely says that the alternative wasn't tenable). However, another passage that quoted from Finocchario above does say precisely this, in reference to the year 1632 (when the Dialogue was published):

Second, if scientific validity is defined in terms of the reaction by the scientific community of the time, there is no essential difference between Newton's Principia and Galileo's Dialogue. The essentials of both were favorably received by the majority of progressively minded scientists; both were critically examined by the same scientists; and for both there were cases of fundamental rejection by scientists who, though neither incompetent nor irrational, were outside the scientific mainstream. (p. 238, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

Finocchario is talking about 1632, when the Dialogue was published. Pointing out that few people supported heliocentrism before 1600 does not contradict Finocchario's statement. A lot happened between 1600 and 1632, due in large part to the work of Galileo (and Kepler, and others). Your "refutation" of Finocchario is bizarre - 1632 is later than 1600. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:57, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Of course getting published into one of the worlds most prestigious presses is a hurdle. Anyways, you missed my point. Just imagine the editors at Notre Dame Press, reviewing Graney's new book -- astonishing, they think, a contribution worthy to be published. Not so fast! Thucydides411 kicks open the door, rolls in breathtaken by their foolish errands! "Have ye not realized, fools, that the opinions of the loathsome Graney are not identical to this other famous guy!" The editors, fools that they are, are grateful that they have not made such a hefty mistake. Or not. Incredible ad hominem fallacy blunder. I should point you to the fact that Graney has published more on the topic of Galileo's scientific validity than Finocchiaro. I think you need to take a look at the tile of Graney's book a little closer -- Setting Aside All Authority. Anywho, you're right that Finocchiaro does indeed suggest most accepted Galileo's claims. I'm rather skeptical of this but it's of no relevance to the conversation.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 05:56, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Anyways, back to the actual conflict thesis section. Out of everything written in it, the only thing I can imagine you dispute is that Tycho was "unable to answer" contemporary objections. But why not? Remember, Galileo's solution to parallax and the star-size objection is stars a billion (not exaggerated) times more distant than currently was thought and star sizes far beyond what observational evidence had ever suggested. Perhaps if my explanation as to why this doesn't work has not convinced you, Hannam's concise summary of its error will do the trick.

This lack of stellar parallax meant that the universe was either much, much larger than anyone had previously thought (and they already thought it was extremely big), or Copernicus was wrong. He resolved the problem with some intellectual sleight of hand. It was recognized that because the universe was so large, it appeared the same from wherever on earth you looked at it. Copernicus simply said that it was actually so indescribably huge that it appeared the same from wherever in the earth’s orbit you looked at it.23 To do this he had to increase the size of the universe by about a factor of a billion. This explanation offended the principle of parsimony—the idea that nature does nothing unnecessarily. Copernicus was making the universe far bigger than it needed to be just so that it would fit with his theory. We know today that he was right, but his reasons were not convincing. (pg. 276)

Are we agreed? Come now fine sir.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 06:10, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm amazed how quickly you dropped Finocchiaro once you found out he doesn't agree with you. Just a bit ago, you were lecturing me about how "historians agree the Inquisition had science on its side, not Galileo." Now, it turns out that one of the scholars you were citing approvingly calls your views an "anti-Galilean myth," so suddenly you want to ignore him. If nothing else, the above passages I quoted show that one of the leading historians of Galileo strongly disagrees with the views you've written into the article. Who are you relying on now? You're relying on one community college professor who disagrees with Finocchiaro. You've quoted Hannam above, who is discussing Copernicus, not Galileo. I have to say that I find Hannam's statement silly, but it's not even about Galileo, and doesn't address the situation in 1632.

I don't see our conversation going anywhere, but other editors can see from the above Finocchiaro passages that the views you're arguing for are not accepted by one of the leading Galileo scholars. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:30, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I debunked the argument from authority in my last response. Why do you find it irrelevant that our college professor Graney has a better publishing record than Finocchiaro on this topic? Your claim that Hannam's words are just about Copernicus and not Galileo also, again, shows your lack of familiarity with the historical facts being discussed. When parallax came up, Galileo's response was just "Copernicus dealt with that". Hannam's statements only reflect the facts. Heliocentrism wasn't fitting observation and so the advocates could only appeal to their religious beliefs to get out of it (or just not publish their observation when it contradicted them).Wallingfordtoday (talk) 15:02, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

To editor Thucydides411:Also, fat update on Finocchiaro. I took a look at Defending Copernicus again and found it very odd that out of the dozens of things he addresses, he neatly leaves the star-size explanation unanswered. In fact, it seems that Finocchiaro has neatly tucked in his explanation of the star-size objection in a rather temperamental 2016 review of Graney's book in the Catholic Historical Review (out of the countless academic reviews of Graney's book I've seen, this is the first critical one to date). Finocchiaro summons up the explanation that some Copernicans were invoking that many different things have large differences in size. Frankly, Finocchiaro is a notable scholar so I included this claim into the conflict thesis section, as well as the problems Hannam and Graney have noted with this response that Finocchiaro never bothers discussing. Since Finocchiaro's argument is now in the article, just like you wanted, I've removed the POV tag and all scholarly views are adequately represented.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 18:03, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

To editor Thucydides411: Thucydides, you have once again removed a section of the page because you misunderstood the edit. First of all, read my two previous comments. Second of all, read the section carefully. It says Galileo's only "scientific" argument was that from the tides. The arguments we've been over before, those of "elegance" are not scientific, they're philosophical. I included Finocchiaro's argument into the page and yet you continue looking for an excuse to label the section "POV" because it contradicts your personal views. Frankly, if you really want, we can include Galileo's arguments from elegance into the page alongside the appropriate criticism from the time period. Would that finally resolve this? Wallingfordtoday (talk) 18:41, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Re: "I debunked the argument from authority in my last response." The "argument from authority" here is simply that we follow reliable sources on Wikipedia.

Re: "Hannam's statements only reflect the facts." Hannam discusses Copernicus in the passage you cited earlier. Applying that statement to Galileo, nearly a century later, is synthesis.

Re: "It says Galileo's only "scientific" argument was that from the tides. The arguments we've been over before, those of "elegance" are not scientific, they're philosophical." The arguments about elegance are scientific. Pointing out that one theory explains a bunch of different phenomena with fewer assumptions is a scientific argument, of the type that scientists make all the time today. Those types of arguments are often the decisive scientific arguments. If you don't accept that type of argument, then there's no reason you should be impressed by Newton's Principia either (as Finocchiaro points out). After all, all Newton did was show that a bunch of different phenomena could be explained by universal gravitation and conservation of momentum (i.e., he gave a more elegant solution to problems you could also solve with ad hoc models). It's just plain wrong and dishonest to claim that Galileo only made one scientific argument in favor of Copernicanism. It would be a great disservice to our readers to insert such glaring falsehoods in the article.

You're playing up the star-size objection as a "refutation" of Copernicanism. But as Finocchiaro points out, Galileo and other Copernicans had an obvious answer to the objection: stars might indeed vary greatly in size. As it turns out, Galileo was correct that stars do vary in size by orders of magnitude. Everyone was somewhat wrong, however, in this discussion. Tycho's measurement of the angular size of stars was off by several orders of magnitude. Galileo came up with a clever way of measuring star sizes and came up with a much smaller answer, which was nevertheless still off by orders of magnitude (because nobody back then understood diffraction and seeing).

In his review of Christopher Graney's book, Setting Aside All Authority, Finocchiaro criticizes Graney for perpetrating a mythical view of the Galileo Affair:

Graney elaborates the opposite thesis: that as late as 1651, the anti-Copernican arguments were not only stronger than the pro-Copernican ones but also included some that were conclusive, thus "demonstrating" the geostatic geocentric thesis to be "absolutely true" and the heliocentric geokinetic idea to be "absolutely false" (pp. 5–6, 162); but this thesis is as mythological and untenable as the pro-Copernican myth. In fact, Graney’s justification of his alternative myth is mostly a series of omissions, distortions, exaggerations, superficialities, sophistries, biases, equivocations, inconsistencies, false dilemmas, strawman fallacies, and so forth. (Finocchiaro, Catholic Historical Review, 2016)

That's more than just a "temperamental review." Finocchiaro is accusing Graney of seriously distoring history. Finocchiaro points out that star-size argument was not nearly as strong (and certainly not unanswerable) as Graney makes it out to have been:

For example, consider the so-called star-size objection to Copernicanism, which was a good and strong argument, but not decisive or unanswerable (as Graney claims). (Finocchiaro, Catholic Historical Review, 2016)

Finocchiaro also points out that Galileo addressed the star-size argument at least twice, in his "Reply to Ingoli" and in the Dialogue. Stillman Drake, in Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, discusses Galileo's "Reply to Ingoli," in which Galileo additionally pointed out that previous measurements of the angular diameter of astronomical sources (for example, of Jupiter) had been grossly incorrect (p. 293).

Thus, to say that Galileo had no answer to the star-size objection is simply wrong, and it is likewise wrong to portray this objection as decisive. In point of fact, the scientific mainstream accepted Copernicanism in the wake of the publication of the Dialogue, and viewed the arguments in favor of Copernicanism as stronger than those against it. The "Conflict Thesis" section you've written gives a very different impression. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:16, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

These are silly mistakes. "Hurr durrr finocchiaro is so famous how can you disagree with him" is not WP:RS, it's an argument from authority.

Elegance isn't a scientific argument. It's a philosophical argument. "Elegance" is another word for Occam's Razor, which is philosophical argument and isn't so narrow as to solely apply to science. Elegance obviously is never decisive and may be a final deciding factor in the absence of real evidence, and that's about it. Newton's theory is supported by extremely hard mathematical and observational evidence (for example, he used his rigorous mathematical equations to accurately calculate the speed at which an object fell). These are silly mistakes.

Anyways, I find it very funny how you treat Finocchiaro's review of Graney's book as your own discovery -- when I'm the one who pointed it out to you. I called the review temperamental because it's ludicrous and doesn't actually address the substance of what Graney points out regarding the star-size objection. Finocchiaro goes as far as to say that "God did it" is a serious philosophical defense of the absurd star sizes on heliocentrism. To give another example, Finocchiaro cites the "different things can be different sizes" Copernican rebuttal as if it catches Graney off guard and making an omission -- even though such an argument is dealt with on pg. 80 of Graney's book.

You also kind of misrepresent the review a bit. You say that Finocchiaro "points out" Galileo addressed the argument. Wrong. He quotes Graney pointing out Galileo addressed the argument (i.e. "God did it" etc) and then doesn't deal with the problems Graney poked in them.

Anyways, you're wrong that the scientific mainstream accepted the claims of the Dialogue. Finocchiaro, above, says that most "progressive" minded scientists accepted it. It appears Finocchiaro has a very specific definition of "progressive". David Lindberg (who, to throw your argument from authority off a cliff, is a bigger historian than Finocchiaro) in When Christianity and Science Meet writes "But we must keep in mind that the position adopted by the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion" (pg. 49). The Inquisition had both science and the majority on its side.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

"Elegance obviously is never decisive and may be a final deciding factor in the absence of real evidence, and that's about it." The arguments that Galileo made that had to do with evidence were, of course, backed by observation. The Copernican system was backed by observations of the apparent motions of planets. It gave accurate positions, and explained retrograde motion and the phases of Venus. You could also explain those things with the Tychonic system, but only with many more assumptions. For example, the Copernican system, along with Galileo's observations of the Jovian system, implied that there was a general relation between orbital radius and period for orbiting bodies. That's an observational fact, which is explained by one rule in the Copernican system, but which cannot be explained by a simple rule in the Tychonic system (because the Earth is stationary, breaking the rule). In the Copernican system, it's obvious why the firmament should rotate once a day, while in the Tychonic system, that has to be put in ad hoc (and indeed, that ad hoc assumption breaks the regularity of orbital radius vs. orbital period which holds in the Copernican system). In the Copernican system, the observed direction of motion of sunspots over the different seasons is explained without any further assumptions, while in the Tychonic system, it can only be explained with new, ad hoc assumptions. Do you see a pattern here? All these arguments from elegance are based on observational data, which is explained naturally by one theory, but which requires extra assumptions in the other. As Finocchiaro points out, this same logic extends to Newton. If you don't care about elegance and are willing to introduce lots of new, arbitrary assumptions into your model, you can just assert that objects fall on Earth with a certain acceleration, that the planets orbit the Sun with certain set periods, semimajor axes and ellipticities, that the Sun orbits the Earth, and that the tides are caused by a mysterious tidal force that pulls on water. That theory would explain all the same data as Newton's theory of universal gravitation and laws of motion explain, but it would involve a ton of ad hoc assumptions. Galileo showed that in many ways, the Copernican system explained all the observed phenomena with far fewer arbitrary assumptions than did the Tychonic system, and of course, heliocentrism was completely dominant in scientific circles long before the Principia was published. "Elegance" does not mean that there's no data - it means that the data is explained with fewer assumptions.

"Anyways, I find it very funny how you treat Finocchiaro's review of Graney's book as your own discovery": I never did so. I even quoted your description of the review. I'm perplexed as to why you keep bringing up sources that undermine your argument, though. Earlier, you quoted one sentence from Finocchiaro's Defending Copernicus and Galileo that you thought supported your view, but left out the rest of the book, which quite directly calls your views a "myth." Then, you brought up Finocchiaro's review of Graney's book, in which he accuses Graney of distorting the history and setting up strawmen to attack.

"Finocchiaro goes as far as to say that 'God did it' is a serious philosophical defense of the absurd star sizes on heliocentrism": No, he doesn't. He points out that the reference to God was purely rhetorical. All Galileo and the other Copernicans were pointing out was that there was no reason to believe the stars should all be the same size as the Sun. And guess what? Galileo and the other Copernicans were correct on this point, yet again.

"David Lindberg (who, to throw your argument from authority off a cliff, is a bigger historian than Finocchiaro) in When Christianity and Science Meet writes 'But we must keep in mind that the position adopted by the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion' (pg. 49)": Maurice Finocchiaro is better known for his scholarship in Galileo than David Lindberg, but that's neither here nor there. The passage you're citing is discussing 1616, not 1632. It also makes the distinction between the "majority" and "latest" scientific opinion, which is a bit vague, but seems to be in line with Finocchiaro's statement about "progressive" scientific opinion. One thing you may have missed out in Lindberg and Numbers' account of 1616 is that they stress that the opinion within the Church generally "cast doubt on the ability of human intellect ever to discover the true cosmological system" (p. 49), undermining the idea that the Inquisition's objections to Galileo were primarily motivated by scientific principles. As Finocchiaro writes, "the Galileo affair is better interpreted as an instance of a conflict between a conservative, authoritarian trend and an innovative, liberalizing one within the Catholic Church" (p. 223, Defending Copernicus and Galileo, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?"). The thesis you're advancing here, that Galileo only had one scientific argument (the tides), and that the Inquisition had the better scientific arguments on its side, is not one that the Lindberg and Numbers book makes, and is actually quite at odds with their account. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

It's incredible how you can repeat the same times without realizing the problem. I received reference to Finnochiaro from another source and read the cited page -- which was my general impression. Finnochiaro calling my views a "myth" is of no relevance as his arguments generally include amazing omission of the big problems Galileo faced. Finnochiaro omits detailed discussion of the most significant problems (he devotes a single page to the tides and summarizes his entire defense as "Galileo explained peculiarities" <-- why not explaining what those peculiarities are, Finocchiaro? -- etc, etc).

Anyways, you don't repeat your earlier mistake that Occam's Razor is an argument from science rather than philosophy and, thankfully, omit the bizarre claim that Newton's gravitational theory was elegance, not extremely rigorous mathematics and observation. (Remember, the Copernican and Tychonic systems were mathematically identical.) In fact, you now suggest Galileo's observation backed him. But this just isn't true. You keep repeating things that are completely predicted by Tycho's system such as the phases of Venus. You keep making references to extra "assumptions" on the Tychonic systems without explaining what they are. And out of all the claims you make, only a single one of them actually has to do with making less assumptions -- retrograde motion, supposedly. Which, as Graney's book recently demonstrates, was actually answered by Riccioli.

He even taps this same concept as an answer to the pro-Copernican argument (number 32) that heliocentrism eliminates the complex, looping, “retrograde” motion of the planets (see chapter 3), rendering it mere appearance. He notes that the combination of Earth’s motions effectively introduces a daily retrograde motion for every object on Earth, a motion that Riccioli says is “unnecessary and lacking any foundation obtained from the senses, which can perceive no motion of the Earth at all, much less any variation in that motion.” (pg. 113)

In other words, dear, Thucydides, if the Earth was moving, and this retrograde motion is mere appearance and all, why don't we ever feel or sense any of the Earth's movement? The answer to this emerged only with Newton's gravitational theory. It's well-known that it took several centuries for all the holes in heliocentrism to be resolved. And while there's not really that many extra assumptions on Tycho, you also fail to mention the many ad hoc assumptions invoked by Copernicus as well. The star-size objection, alone, required two assumptions to escape that Tycho didn't need -- 1) the stars are a billion times further than anyone has ever seen 2) every star is larger than Earth's orbit around the sun. So while elegantly explaining one problem, Riccioli shows it opens another can of inexplicable worms that nullifies any of the "elegant" advantages previously gained. You also confuse observational data and elegance. Something is not observational evidence for X unless observation supports X. If observation is consistent with X and Y, then neither is demonstrated by observation. Importing Occam's Razor is a second layer of analysis to determine which explanation is less ad hoc. But nothing of this is direct observational evidence, nor does Finnochiaro claim it is observational evidence. Finnochiaro got it right -- this had to do with being ad hoc, but you're changing Finnochiaro's argument because you've hit a stump. There's no science to be seen.

Again, you pretend away Finnochiaro's argument that "God did it" is in fact philosophical rather than religious. But he does do this. Finnochiaro writes "Moreover, this reviewer would point out that here the Copernican appeal to divine omnipotence is a philosophical or metaphysical consideration rather than a religious one; it merely illustrates the principle that sometimes scientific inquiry presupposes metaphysical ideas and needs to get involved in metaphysical thinking." I know this is uncomfortable, but it's true. Riccioli pointed out, by the way, that he could use the same logic as the Copernicans to dismiss all supposed "ad hoc"-ness of geocentrism as due to divine omnipotence!

As for Lindberg, you need to read the page again. Lindberg notes that the Inquisition had the scientific majority on its side, and then says a paragraph later "Let us return briefly to the course of events. The Inquisition formally censured heliocentrism in 1616, declaring it false and heretical." Which means he was on a tangent on a general explanation of how the Inquisition had the majority of science on its side, not just in 1616, and later on then begins to discuss the events in 1616. He also says the scientific majority backed the Inquisition. He writes "But we must keep in mind that the position adopted by the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion." So he clearly uses the word "majority" and "latest". It's amazing you how you receive from this unequivocal support on my side that it actually contradicts me. You also blatantly misunderstand the statement "cast doubt on the ability of human intellect ever to discover the true cosmological system" -- this refers to the philosophical position prominent among Jesuits in this period (including one held by the Pope himself at the time) that claims could not be proven and so conclusions can't be established. This has nothing to do with actually doing the science.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 04:47, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

"if the Earth was moving, and this retrograde motion is mere appearance and all, why don't we ever feel or sense any of the Earth's movement? The answer to this emerged only with Newton's gravitational theory." It actually emerged with Galileo, who's often considered the founding father of physics for his enunciation of the principle of inertia. Do you know what physicists call the equivalence of inertial reference frames in pre-Relativity physics? They call it Galilean Relativity. There's a reason for that.

"the bizarre claim that Newton's gravitational theory was elegance, not extremely rigorous mathematics and observation": You don't appear to understand Occam's Razor. If you throw out the requirement of elegance in a theory, Newton's mechanics is no better at explaining anything than an arbitrarily complicated set of ad hoc suppositions. You can always explain any data if you're given enough free parameters. Every physicist knows this. Physicists sometimes argue about what level of weight to give to elegance, but everyone agrees that you can't do science without it.

I think anyone can see from the above discussion and passages that you're distorting Lindberg and Numbers' meaning. They're clearly talking about 1616 in that passage, and they clearly discuss the Church's views on the human intellect in regards to the Galileo Affair. Your assertion that they're talking about its relation to other matters is bizarre. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:29, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

It looks like you're finally running out of things to dispute. Thank God you dropped some of your weirder claims. Anyways, let's clean up the rest of this. Despite clear demonstration otherwise, you continue insisting that Lindberg's words are about 1616. (You also make the mistake that this is what "Lindberg and Numbers say" - showing you didn't even look at the table of contents of the book. The book is an edited monograph where Lindberg and Numbers are the editors, but chapter 2 is solely written by Lindberg). It's a short section so I'll quote it in full;

But we must keep in mind that the position adopted by the Inquisition was in step with the majority, if not the latest, scientific opinion. And it would have been a most remarkable event had its members taken elaborate measures to abandon their own deeply held principles of biblical interpretation, as well as the traditional cosmological opinions of the church fathers, while simultaneously rejecting the majority opinion of qualified astronomers. Let us return briefly to the course of events. The Inquisition formally censured heliocentrism in 1616, declaring it false and heretical.

A clear disjunction - Lindberg said exactly what I claimed he said. I should also point out that Galileo didn't make new telescopic observations between his 1616 trial and his 1632 Dialogue. You then write It actually emerged with Galileo, who's often considered the founding father of physics for his enunciation of the principle of inertia. Do you know what physicists call the equivalence of inertial reference frames in pre-Relativity physics? They call it Galilean Relativity. There's a reason for that. A few people get called "founding father of physics", that's besides the point. This might be right. I just found the part in Graney's book where he discusses the ship analogy of Galileo in Dialogue to address this point. There appears to be a further counter-argument made by Tycho and developed by Riccioli, though, that I'll keep reading about.

Either way, it appears as if you're not dropping the absurd Newton claim. In fact, Newton's gravitational theory is backed by overwhelming observational and mathematical evidence, totally unlike anything Galileo had. Galileo had a few weak pieces of elegance here, combined with explanations so convoluted to the star-size objections that many of Galileo's contemporaries noted that they found that Galileo's argument could not survive in light of it. In other words, it was really a wee bit of elegance versus observational evidence.

I really can't go round and round trying to explain how scientists develop theories to you. You're under the impression that two theories that predict the same observables are equally likely to be true, regardless of the number of assumptions they make. If you believe that, there's no reason to favor Newton's mechanics over an ad hoc theory that puts in every observed phenomenon by hand. Tycho's model could only explain all the things that Copernicus' model explained (the motion of sunspots, the daily motion of the stars, the orbital periods of the planets and their relation to the year, etc.) by introducing ad hoc assumptions. Physical theories take many observed phenomena and explain them with a few principles. They don't take many phenomena and explain them with an equal number of principles. If you don't accept that principle, called "elegance," "Occam's razor" or "parsimony," then you don't accept science.

I'll just cut right to the chase: the sources don't accept your claim that Galileo only had one scientific argument. Finocchiaro discusses many scientific arguments that Galileo made. The distinction you're trying to draw between "arguments" and "scientific arguments" is your own original research. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:43, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up WP:OR, I was just about to bring that up myself against you. Finocchiaro, nor any other scholar, ever suggests that "ad hoc" = science. Every scientist, philosopher, and historian knows the distinction between the two. Therefore, suggesting these feeble ad hoc arguments equate to science is WP:OR and irrelevant. No reliable source says this. There is no comparison between the advantages Tycho's sytem and heliocentrism had in Galileo's day. Whereas one benefited from unconvincing "elegancies", the other suffered from a major absurdity -- namely, star sizes, which was considered definitive against heliocentrism in the tme period under discussion. Your supposition that you could simply list elegancies and that these would have the same weight as this point was flawed. You also, thankfully, drop your misunderstanding of Lindberg.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 23:06, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE: By the way, to let you know, I've incorporated a number of your points into the article as we have the conversation. For example, you brought up Finnochiaro's argument that the Simplicio thing may not have had anything to do with a trial -- I added that to the page as a possibility. I also deleted the "why don't we feel the Earth in motion?" argument from the article since you alluded to (and I further read about) Galileo's moving ship rebuttal. After these many revisions I've been working on over the past few days, it appears as though the article is solidly reflected by reliable sources and the view of scholars. Do you agree we should finally remove the POV tag, or is there anything else you have trouble with? Given the fact that you probably will not accept the fact the philosophy =/= science, I simply won't re-insert into the article "Galileo's only scientific argument" to move this conversation forwards.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 02:05, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

No, I don't agree that the POV tag should be removed. The "Conflict thesis" section is an obvious exercise of POV-pushing. It might be possible to write a cogent section on the conflict thesis, but this isn't it. The section you've written is a mixture of suggestive statements clearly intended to give the reader an exculpatory view of the Inquisition's actions

• "Though Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment, his sentence was immediately commuted to house arrest."

distortions meant to imply that Galileo somehow deserved what he got

• "In his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo placed this argument into the mouth of the foolish Aristotelian geocentrist Simplicio, which could have easily caused offense against the Pope" - Galileo was forced by the censor to insert the Pope's argument into the text, and it apparently wasn't an issue until after the trial

prejudicial statements clearly meant to give the reader the worst possible impression of Galileo as a scientist:

• "However, in 2004, a letter was discovered showing that Galileo had conducted this trial but didn't publish it when it didn't support his theory."

and outright falsehoods:

1. "Galileo also challenged the Church's authority over interpreting Scripture" - Galileo never did this
2. "Galileo had asserted heliocentrism as demonstrated despite having legally promised earlier that he would only weigh heliocentrism as a hypothesis among other models" - this is untrue on two levels. First of all, in the Dialogue, Galileo presented heliocentrism (Copernicanism, more properly) as one of two models, and evaluated the arguments for and against both. Second of all, the injunction against Galileo from 1616 was not merely that he treat heliocentrism as a hypothesis. This is a modern myth. The injunction forbade him from discussing, teaching or even believing heliocentrism. There is some question about whether or not Galileo was aware of this injunction, but it was the critical piece of evidence against him in his 1633 trial.
3. "Galileo was unable to resolve the absence of observable parallax combined with Tycho's star-size objection" - This is simply not true. Galileo responded to both arguments, and his arguments happen to have been correct: the stars are far away, and some are much larger than the Sun (although astronomers would later understand that this was unnecessary to explain the apparent angular diameters of stars).
4. "This also had the consequence of suggesting, per the estimates of star size that existed with the telescopes of the day, that the size of every star, besides the sun, was larger than the Earth's orbit around the sun" - This is again untrue. Galileo's estimate of the angular sizes of stars was several times smaller than the estimates of Tycho, and Galileo presented them only as an upper limit. Stars of different magnitudes were also believed to have different angular sizes.
5. "This was widely considered a fatal problem for heliocentrism in Galileo's day for its significant violation of the principles of parismony." - In what day? Galileo lived through the period in which the scientific mainstream went from being geocentric to heliocentric. Galileo's telescopic observations and his Dialogue were major milestones in that transition, which convinced many people of the correctness of the heliocentric worldview. Some of his Jesuit detractors viewed the star-size question as a fatal problem for heliocentrism, but the scientific mainstream came to accept heliocentrism due to its many advantages.

And then there's this:

• "Galileo's crucial argument for the movement of the Earth around the sun - his theory of the tides - was erroneous."

So was the argument against heliocentrism that you've been touting non-stop - the star-size argument. But because nobody understood gravity or diffraction, neither argument could be decisively refuted at the time.

If you want to write a section about the conflict thesis, it should be about the conflict thesis, a historiographical debate. What you've written, instead, is an apology for the Inquisition's actions and an attack on Galileo. The historiographical debate is quite nuanced, with many different positions being taken by different writers. I'll give you a starting point, which is Finocchiaro's view:

Next, there is the issue of whether Galileo is to be credited or blamed for helping us understand that science and religion are in conflict or that they are in harmony. The resolution of this issue requires that we reflect properly on three things (Chapter 12): that the trial embodied a minimal but irreducible historical conflict between those who affirmed, and those who denied, that Copernicanism contradicted Scripture; that the trial epitomized more the conflict between conservation and innovation than the conflict between science and religion; and that because of how the trial was subsequently perceived, the conflict between science and religion is indeed an essential feature of the subsequent affair. (Maurice Finocchiaro, Defending Copernicus and Galileo, p. xxxix, in the section, "An Overarching Thesis")

It follows that the Galileo affair is better interpreted as an instance of a conflict between a conservative, authoritarian trend and an innovative, liberalizing one within the Catholic Church. (Maurice Finocchiaro, Defending Copernicus and Galileo, p. 223, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

-Thucydides411 (talk) 05:37, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Thucydides, there's no way you believe the words you're writing. This is obviously phony nonsense and you're just saying it because your views on the matter aren't represented by the consensus. Either that, or you've full-blown lost it. Consider this, for example. The section says "Though Galileo was sentenced to imprisonment, his sentence was immediately commuted to house arrest." Through some paranoid process, you interpret this to mean "distortions meant to imply that Galileo somehow deserved what he got". It's unclear where this paranoia comes from. What I wrote here was just taken from an earlier section of the article that I didn't write under "Galileo affair" that notes Galileo's sentence was commuted to house arrest in one day. You must be crazy to interpret "Galileo's sentence was commutted" --> "Galileo was rightfully arrested". I think Finnochiaro's personal paranoia is rubbing off on you.

Galileo wasn't forced by anyone to insert the Pope's words into Simplicio's mouth. That's your own fantasy. The article already notes that it's possible that this played no role in the trial.

The rest of your comment is just completely wrong and not worth wasting my time on. For example, Graney points to a 2004 letter discovery showing Galileo didn't publish what contradicted him. He writes "But it did not.21 Indeed, it is perplexing that, when Galileo made this claim in the Dialogue about what would happen “if” such a double star were to be found, roughly fifteen years had passed since he had observed just such double stars—Mizar, the Trapezium in Orion, and others—in around 1617." He goes on to point out the discovery of this letter was made in 2004. Galileo utterly failed to resolve the unobserved parallax, and he contradicted his legal promise not to advocate heliocentrism. No one was going to be fooled by Galileo's rhetorical tricks in his Dialogue which was clearly intended to give off the impression that heliocentrism was true. Galileo's star sizes, which he himself never disputed, were the same as all the others -- Earth's orbit. Remember, Finnochiaro never discusses the star-size problem in his entire book (odd for a "defense" of Galileo) and his statements in his review of Graney consist of claiming "Goddunit" is philosophically valid. And, of course, I need to remind you Lindberg points out that the Inquisition had the scientific majority on its side. Saying science eventually came to accept heliocentrism decades later according to discoveries Galileo didn't make (you note this in reference to that stars, by sheer luck, did turn out to be very far away) is anachronistic to this discussion. Just like the page says, Galileo was unable to resolve parallax and star-size problem. In Galileo's day, science had him screwed. You're just making things up that contradict the reliable sources.

I think you need to take it slowly, breath, relax, drink some water, and read the citations. Let's discuss these issues one at a time that you bring up, all of which you're wrong about. You can pick whichever topic we focus on first, and we'll talk about it. Wallingfordtoday (talk) 05:52, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't see why Finocchiaro influencing my view would be a bad thing. He's considered one of the foremost scholars on Galileo, and perhaps the leading scholar on the Galileo Affair.

Galileo wasn't forced by anyone to insert the Pope's words into Simplicio's mouth. That's your own fantasy. The article already notes that it's possible that this played no role in the trial. Finocchiaro discusses this. You quoted one sentence from Finocchiaro's book Defending Copernicus and Galileo earlier, before I pointed out that the book calls the views you're presenting a "myth." You should give the rest of the book a read. Here's the relevant passage:

One of these discussions uses theological language to the effect that God could have created the world different from the way it is and such that the tides would result from some other cause. This theological qualification was the favorite argument of Pope Urban VIII, and Galileo was ordered to include it in his book. The important point is that he integrates the theological qualification in the scientific discussion rather than printing it separately in a final section of the book. Although such integration was maliciously held against Galileo at the trial, the rhetorical effect is to strengthen its tie to the tidal argument and thus to suggest a degree of cogency less than strict demonstration. (pp. 233-234, in the chapter, "Galileo Right for the Wrong Reasons?")

"Galileo's star sizes, which he himself never disputed, were the same as all the others": Tycho measured 120 arcseconds for a 1st-magnitude star, while Galileo measured just 5 arcseconds for a 0th-magnitude star (Hughes 2001). That's a factor of 24 smaller. Galileo discusses this in the Dialogue. Another thing that Galileo noticed was that telescopes do not magnify the diameters of stars as much as they magnify other objects. In other words, he (and Kepler) already realized that there was something strange in the apparent sizes of stars (Casanovas 1984)

"[Finocchiaro's] statements in his review of Graney consist of claiming "Goddunit" is philosophically valid." Finocchiaro does not state that at all, as I pointed out to you earlier. If you're going to edit here, you have to at least be able to read sources honestly.

"stars, by sheer luck, did turn out to be very far away": Not by luck. Copernicus' and Galileo's reasoning was correct. No observed parallax means that the stars are far away. Their reasoning was correct, and the answer was correct, no luck involved.

"Just like the page says, Galileo was unable to resolve parallax and star-size problem." Except as I've pointed out countless times now, he did answer those arguments, and his answers were entirely plausible, given what was known at the time. The star-size argument was erroneous, and Galileo's answer was in large part true.

"For example, Graney points to a 2004 letter discovery showing Galileo didn't publish what contradicted him." As much of the literature on parallax in the Galileo Affair points out, the Copernicans believed the parallax argument was win-win for them. Non-observation of parallax would in no way undermine Copernicanism, while observation of parallax would rule out the geocentric worldview (unless, of course, you don't believe in elegance, in which case you could just assert that the stars move in little ellipses). In the Dialogue, Galileo proposes a scientific program of trying to measure stellar parallax, and even proposes a method of doing so (the method which is used today, by the way).

"In Galileo's day, science had him screwed": If you make statements like this, you simply shouldn't be editing this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:55, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Graney is a better candidate for leading scholar (Finocchiaro is in the minority when it comes to scholalrship). Even if Galileo was ordered to include the Pope's argument, he was not ordered to put the Pope's argument into the mouth of a geocentrist fool. You claim Galileo and Copernicus didn't get the star distances by luck, but this is contradicted by the WP:RS sources like Hannam;

This lack of stellar parallax meant that the universe was either much, much larger than anyone had previously thought (and they already thought it was extremely big), or Copernicus was wrong. He resolved the problem with some intellectual sleight of hand. It was recognized that because the universe was so large, it appeared the same from wherever on earth you looked at it. Copernicus simply said that it was actually so indescribably huge that it appeared the same from wherever in the earth’s orbit you looked at it.23 To do this he had to increase the size of the universe by about a factor of a billion. This explanation offended the principle of parsimony—the idea that nature does nothing unnecessarily. Copernicus was making the universe far bigger than it needed to be just so that it would fit with his theory. We know today that he was right, but his reasons were not convincing.

But Lindberg agrees "science had Galileo screwed" - as does Graney, Albert van Helden also agrees, and Hannam (see above). I've only seen Finnochiaro disagree. Again, we could include Finnochiaro's opinion as a minority perspective, but he doesn't even mention the star-size argument in his book. He only mentions it in a book review which is not a notable source. Finnochiaro, as I've shown earlier, believed "God did it" is not a religious but philosophical argument;

"Moreover, this reviewer would point out that here the Copernican appeal to divine omnipotence is a philosophical or metaphysical consideration rather than a religious one; it merely illustrates the principle that sometimes scientific inquiry presupposes metaphysical ideas and needs to get involved in metaphysical thinking."

You don't dispute Graney saying Galileo didn't publish contradictory observation, you just claim Copernicans saw it as a win-win. Please quote a reliable source saying this.

Anywho, you also point out Galileo's measurements were 24 times smaller than Tycho's (nontelescopic) measurements. But that didn't make them smaller than the size of Earth's orbit around the sun (and Hughes does not claim it does). Graney explains on pg. 55 that all the antiCopernicans making the star-size objection (like Riccioli) had the same measurements as Galileo. So I don't see where reliable sources dispute this point.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 01:50, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

By the way, you're contradicting your authority. Even Finnochiaro agrees the star-size objection is strong, just not conclusive.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:43, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

"Science on his side"

Let's not do this in any fashion. We WP:ASSERT facts and not opinions. Whether the consensus view that Galileo did have science on his side or the more salty historian's riposte that some of his arguments were ill-formed is essentially irrelevant to the grander arc of the story. What is important for readers is to understand what the arguments are and why they were or were not correct.

To that effect, I find two problems with the focus on Galileo's trial. (1) The equipment of Galileo's day was simply unable to measure the sizes of stars. Absolutely everyone was wrong who attempted to claim a measurement of this. Wikipedia actually does explain this, but it's hard for most lay-readers to find. (2) While Galileo's reliance during his trial on the tidal explanation is empirically problematic, the stronger argument is the one from Galilean invariance which is correctly described in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. The fact that this is the correct explanation needs to be made clear even if Galileo may not have been comfortable emphasizing it for whatever reason.

jps (talk) 16:11, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the point. Galilean invariance deals with one of the geocentric arguments, and that's it. The reason why contemporary telescopes were unable to accurately measure star size was unknown in Galileo's day and everyone, geocentrists and heliocentrists alike, measured and accepted the huge sizes articulated in earlier discussions.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 22:41, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

The point is that we understand where these side issues come from and they are irrelevant to why Galileo is considered a laudable champion for the correct answer. The point is that the correct explanations are there in Galileo's arguments while they are absent (and outright denied) by his opponents. What our job needs to be as Wikipedians is to describe what is actually happening in the universe, not to rehash nonsense arguments over point-spread-functions that no one understood at the time. jps (talk) 22:45, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

A large chunk of what Galileo said was wrong, as is the case with everyone else in that time period. Again, your point doesn't make much sense to me. I think we should just end the conversation as everyone is clear on how to proceed.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 03:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

I think the main point is that Galileo got some key points correct which is why he is remembered as an important figure in the history of science. I don't see any dispute of that. Focusing on things that Galileo got wrong (tides) or, worse, everyone got wrong (size of stars) is a weird focus for this article. Not helpful for the reader. jps (talk) 03:46, 7 March 2019 (UTC)