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Stories
in Current Science
Every day, Jack
Haas searches the web and finds interesting Stories
in Current Science. (click
his calendar for stories from the past)
Galileo
and the Church
One of the most famous stories
in science involves Galileo and the Church. Because it is intrinsically
interesting, is complex (with many factors to consider), and has become
a standard illustration of "science versus religion" that plays
a dominant role in our culture, this episode will be examined in detail. For
now, however, here are four interesting pages I found during a quick look
at what's on the web:
a brief introduction, Galileo:
Science-and-Religion
Conflict? (based
on quotations from David Lindberg and Stillman Drake); an overview (by
John Polkinghorne); a page combining a brief abstract (by
the Catholic Educator's Resource Center) and a detailed essay (by
George Johnston); and a journal
article (by Thomas Lessl) about the rhetorical strategies that
are used to support The
Galileo Legend. Lessl begins his
paper with a summary, "Popular legends are
strange mixtures with curious effects." Later, he
observes that "science popularizers and
educators write selectively, playing up every hint of historical conflict
between science and Christianity but omitting to mention the most egregious
offenses against scientific freedom committed by secular ideologies." For
one example of selective distortion, see the next section.
The
Myth of
Flat-Earth Beliefs
One question — In the
time of Columbus, did educated people believe the earth was flat? — leads
to a second question that is more interesting: When responding to the
first question, why will most modern people say YES, when the correct answer
is
NO?
To see why, and to learn
about a fascinating abuse of history, read an introduction (by
Mark Hartwig), The
Myth of the Flat Earth (by Jeffrey Burton Russel, a historian), and review-excerpts about
his book. A longer page (by Mike Keas & Kerry Magruder) provides an
overview with fascinating historical details. { Most modern
scholars who have studied this topic — including evolutionist Stephen
Jay Gould in his essay "The Late Birth of a Flat Earth" — agree
with Russel, but the myth remains widespread and influential. }
All links on this page were checked-and-fixed on June 29, 2006.