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> "The teachings of the Church must not be undermined by heliocentrism or evolution research, so findings in those areas will be strictly filtered for heresy be

> "The teachings of the Church must not be undermined by heliocentrism or evolution research, so findings in those areas will be strictly filtered for heresy before publication." This is actually a bit of a historical myth that due to anti-religious bias prevails widely. Contrary to widespread belief, the works of Charles Darwin were never on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books, nor did the Catholic Church ever state that Evolution as a theory could not be believed, but rather emphasized that a few specific theological events (a garden in which man fell) must remain, though the lead-up to those events was not rigidly defined. This is also why a Catholic priest is responsible for the Big Bang theory. As for heliocentrism, this is also baloney as it was initially proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, who was not censored for his beliefs[1], and also served as a Catholic canon (religious member but not necessarily a priest). This idea was backed by Galileo using astronomy, however, Galileo was tried for writings other than his heliocentrism that were arguably heretical (including attacks on the Pope within his work) and not necessarily for the heliocentric view itself, as seen by the Church making Copernicus mandatory reading in some universities for astronomy courses. [1] The Roman Inquisition would later censor it for a short time, however, their main requirement was that it definitions be changed from fact to theory, and the Roman Inquisition actually used 13 mathematical arguments of their own from the astronomer Tycho Brahe, versus only 4 theological ones. The Spanish Inquisition never censored the book. Even though Brahe was later proven incorrect in his arguments, he was still one of the most accurate astronomers of the era, and Johannes Kepler (of the Kepler Space Telescope fame) would later use his measurements to create the 3 planetary laws of motion. In any event, it would appear that this censorship of Copernicus requiring revisions before publications was due to Copernicus' overconfidence in potentially erroneous mathematics, rather than a theological dispute.

phaistra 4y ago
Can you provide some books or links if so that I can read up on these misconceptions?
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Try here for a purely academic overview (no religious Catholic websites or other "biased" commentators for this), that was also very recent. There are plenty of other sources, but this was just what I found first that was academic in scope. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_7 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_... I would also recommend reading about Nicolas Copernicus (geocentrism before Galileo), as well as Georges Lemaître (Catholic Priest who had idea for Big Bang), and Gregor Mendel (before Evolution, experiments with Genetics). Example: "In Spain, new cosmological discoveries and ideas were discussed at both the universities and at the Casa and Consejo. For example, Jerónimo Muñoz (ca. 1520–1591), who taught astronomy and mathematics at the universities of Valencia and Salamanca, was one of the many European scientists to observe and write about the supernova of 1572. For Muñoz, the supernova challenged the Aristotelian notion that change was impossible in the celestial realm. In some of his unpublished work and letters to other European astronomers like Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), he espoused an understanding of the relationship between the celestial and terrestrial realms drawn from Stoic philosophers. He denied the existence of celestial orbs and instead asserted that the planets moved through the heavens like birds through the air or fish through the water. He also discussed Nicolaus Copernicus’ (1473–1543) heliocentric system with his students, although he did not endorse it (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 57). In fact, as Victor Navarro-Brotóns has shown, “the work of Copernicus circulated freely in sixteenth-century Spain, where its technical and empirical aspects were greatly admired and used” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63). In 1561, the statutes of the University of Salamanca specified that in the second year of the astronomy course the professor must teach either “the Almagest of Ptolemy, or its Epitome by Regiomontanus, or Geber, or Copernicus,” and that the students could vote on which text they wanted (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 55). In 1594, these statutes were amended and the teaching of Copernicus was made mandatory, no longer subject to the vote of the students (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59). The 1594, statutes were reproduced with no change in 1625, despite the prohibition of Copernicus’ work by the Roman Inquisition in 1616 (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 60). In fact, De revolutionibus was “never placed on any Spanish Inquisitorial index” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63), which does not mean Spanish astronomers were free to adopt heliocentrism but does indicate that it was possible to teach and discuss Copernicus in Spanish universities. As Navarro-Brotóns notes, only one Spanish scholar, Diego de Zúñiga (1536–1597), is known to have actually endorsed the Copernican system. Others used the Prutenic tables, which were calculated using Copernicus’ mathematical models, and other parameters drawn from De revolutionibus, in much the same way that Copernicus was taught at the University of Wittenberg (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59; Westman 1975). Finally, interest in Copernicus spread outside universities, because the Prutenic tables and other technical aspects of Copernicus’ work had applications in navigation. For example, Juan Cedillo Diaz (ca. 1560–1625), who studied at Salamanca and became chief cosmographer at the Consejo de Indias and professor at the Mathematical Academy in Seville in 1611, made a free Spanish translation of the first three books of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus sometime between 1620 and 1625 (Granada and Crespo 2019; Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63; Esteban Piñeiro and Gómez Crespo 1991)."
- bombcar 4y ago
  Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1599474999 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1599474999 is a good overview with lots of references for further research.
- tzs 4y ago
  For heliocentrism the article "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown and Down-and-Dirty Mud-Wrassle" by Michael F. Flynn from the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Analog is pretty good. Here's a scan online [1]. The Church's position at the time was that God made the universe, and if empirical evidence from observing that universe clearly showed that it did not work the way the Church thought the Bible said it worked, then the Church must have misinterpreted the Bible. Galileo's problems came from a combination of several factors, none of which stem from proposing a non-geocentric universe. 1. Galileo's heliocentric theory wasn't actually better at explaining observations than geocentric theories were. Galileo, like the Church believed in an intelligently designed universe created by an all-powerful God. He believed that such a God would choose laws of physics that were beautiful and elegant. Where his heliocentric approach would require something non-beautiful or inelegant to fit observation he dismissed the observations as optical illusions or observational error. It's commonly believed that the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus rule out geocentric theories, but that is not quite correct. They rule out the Ptolemaic system which was the leading geocentric theory, but they do not rule out the Tychonic geocentric system. 2. He had a very big ego. 3. He was an asshole. He was very intolerant and rude to his rivals and to those he considered to be his inferiors. And thanks to that big ego "inferiors" included pretty much everyone else. 4. He was a celebrity who was regularly invited to hang out with the rich and powerful. 5. He had an atrocious sense of politics. He either failed to realize or ignored that some of the people he was an asshole towards had the wealth and power to make his life miserable if he didn't stop being an asshole toward them. [1] https://faculty.fiu.edu/~blissl/Flynngs.pdf https://faculty.fiu.edu/~blissl/Flynngs.pdf
  - thewanderer1983 4y ago
    Another good introduction is "Worldviews" by Richard DeWitt. It's a introductory book on the philosophy of science but a big part of it discusses this.
mistrial9 4y ago
without handy references, I believe that part of the significance of Church dogma on stars and celestial mechanics, was that astronomy was widely practiced by many civilizations to varying rigorous results, but that science and most all abstract learning was also connected to religious or mythological meanings. Different societies, in particular the overall Muslim world of today, viewed the movements of the stars and planets with different meanings, which sometimes were taken very seriously. This connects to the imagery of the three wise men at christian nativity, who follow a star but give their gifts to the newborn. Social prestige associated with higher learning was a subject of rivalry and competition, as most things were in those places at that time it seems.
r3trohack3r 4y ago
I've been reading some old books lately including: * From Atomos to Atom * From Alchemy to Chemistry * The Main Currents of Marxism Part 1 (not about Marxism - just a bunch of, mostly Christian, philosophers) * The Skeptical Chemist * Some of Descartes' work I've noticed two notable things. First, the early Christian thinkers were _extremely_ logical. They did not shy away from human observation and philosophy, they embraced it. They spent a a majority of their study time reconciling human knowledge with scripture to try and understand their place in the world. Churches sponsored a lot of this research and invested heavily in making their religions consistent with human knowledge. Second, not only did the church invest heavily in making their religion consistent with human knowledge, all of humanity did the same. So much effort went into reconciling the early greek philosophers with modern observation and religion. From medicine, to law, to religion, to alchemy - everything was very inter-dependent and few (if any) bodies of knowledge could stand on their own, they appealed to facts from diverse philosophies to justify their stances. You see a pattern in the 1500s-1700s where, in a very short period of time, humans got _very good_ at attaching philosophy to physical phenomenon and reconciling what was observed with what they believed. During this period, pretty much every branch of human understanding underwent unprecedented massive paradigm shifts. Huge amounts of what was "known" were, fairly quickly, toppled when extremely foundational beliefs were questioned (i.e. the 3 element theory vs. the 4 element theory). A lot of folks were fairly invested in what they "knew" and didn't react well to the rug being pulled out from under them. It wasn't just "the church" that had a bad reaction to some of these thinkers; medicine rejected many early scientists like Paracelsus (generous to call them scientists) striping them of their credentials, jobs, etc. I guess what I'm learning is that European history was a lot more messy than I thought it to be (shocker, I know). And it's really fascinating seeing these currents of thought develop over time. It's pretty amazing that it took us nearly 2000 years to question Aristotle and, once we did, the rapid progress that followed. It's only been about 400 years since we thought maybe there were 3 elements instead of 4, and we are already seriously considering colonizing another planet.
lr4444lr 4y ago
Arthur Koestler in "Sleepwalkers" cites numerous criticisms from Vatican backed scholars that strongly suggest even though Copernicus may not have faced the unbridled legal wrath of the Church, that his career and reputation were severely tested for doing so.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597071 for information about how Copernicus was received academically from an academic's point of view. Also worth recognizing is that it was Protestants, not Catholics, who were by far the harshest towards Copernicus, as Copernicus was harshly mocked by Luther and his predecessor Melanchthon. Melanchthon: "Some people believe that it is excellent and correct to work out a thing as absurd as did that Sarmatian [i.e., Polish] astronomer who moves the earth and stops the sun. Indeed, wise rulers should have curbed such light-mindedness." "The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere [the celestial sphere] nor the sun revolves. … Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious." Luther: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon….This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13] that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Also recognize your book is from 1959, before the internet, before many books were digitized, and before many of these things were debunked.

phaistra 4y ago

Can you provide some books or links if so that I can read up on these misconceptions?

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Try here for a purely academic overview (no religious Catholic websites or other "biased" commentators for this), that was also very recent. There are plenty of other sources, but this was just what I found first that was academic in scope. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_7 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30833-9_... I would also recommend reading about Nicolas Copernicus (geocentrism before Galileo), as well as Georges Lemaître (Catholic Priest who had idea for Big Bang), and Gregor Mendel (before Evolution, experiments with Genetics). Example: "In Spain, new cosmological discoveries and ideas were discussed at both the universities and at the Casa and Consejo. For example, Jerónimo Muñoz (ca. 1520–1591), who taught astronomy and mathematics at the universities of Valencia and Salamanca, was one of the many European scientists to observe and write about the supernova of 1572. For Muñoz, the supernova challenged the Aristotelian notion that change was impossible in the celestial realm. In some of his unpublished work and letters to other European astronomers like Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), he espoused an understanding of the relationship between the celestial and terrestrial realms drawn from Stoic philosophers. He denied the existence of celestial orbs and instead asserted that the planets moved through the heavens like birds through the air or fish through the water. He also discussed Nicolaus Copernicus’ (1473–1543) heliocentric system with his students, although he did not endorse it (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 57). In fact, as Victor Navarro-Brotóns has shown, “the work of Copernicus circulated freely in sixteenth-century Spain, where its technical and empirical aspects were greatly admired and used” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63). In 1561, the statutes of the University of Salamanca specified that in the second year of the astronomy course the professor must teach either “the Almagest of Ptolemy, or its Epitome by Regiomontanus, or Geber, or Copernicus,” and that the students could vote on which text they wanted (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 55). In 1594, these statutes were amended and the teaching of Copernicus was made mandatory, no longer subject to the vote of the students (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59). The 1594, statutes were reproduced with no change in 1625, despite the prohibition of Copernicus’ work by the Roman Inquisition in 1616 (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 60). In fact, De revolutionibus was “never placed on any Spanish Inquisitorial index” (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63), which does not mean Spanish astronomers were free to adopt heliocentrism but does indicate that it was possible to teach and discuss Copernicus in Spanish universities. As Navarro-Brotóns notes, only one Spanish scholar, Diego de Zúñiga (1536–1597), is known to have actually endorsed the Copernican system. Others used the Prutenic tables, which were calculated using Copernicus’ mathematical models, and other parameters drawn from De revolutionibus, in much the same way that Copernicus was taught at the University of Wittenberg (Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 59; Westman 1975). Finally, interest in Copernicus spread outside universities, because the Prutenic tables and other technical aspects of Copernicus’ work had applications in navigation. For example, Juan Cedillo Diaz (ca. 1560–1625), who studied at Salamanca and became chief cosmographer at the Consejo de Indias and professor at the Mathematical Academy in Seville in 1611, made a free Spanish translation of the first three books of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus sometime between 1620 and 1625 (Granada and Crespo 2019; Navarro-Brotóns 1995, 63; Esteban Piñeiro and Gómez Crespo 1991)."
bombcar 4y ago
Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1599474999 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1599474999 is a good overview with lots of references for further research.
tzs 4y ago
For heliocentrism the article "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown and Down-and-Dirty Mud-Wrassle" by Michael F. Flynn from the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Analog is pretty good. Here's a scan online [1]. The Church's position at the time was that God made the universe, and if empirical evidence from observing that universe clearly showed that it did not work the way the Church thought the Bible said it worked, then the Church must have misinterpreted the Bible. Galileo's problems came from a combination of several factors, none of which stem from proposing a non-geocentric universe. 1. Galileo's heliocentric theory wasn't actually better at explaining observations than geocentric theories were. Galileo, like the Church believed in an intelligently designed universe created by an all-powerful God. He believed that such a God would choose laws of physics that were beautiful and elegant. Where his heliocentric approach would require something non-beautiful or inelegant to fit observation he dismissed the observations as optical illusions or observational error. It's commonly believed that the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus rule out geocentric theories, but that is not quite correct. They rule out the Ptolemaic system which was the leading geocentric theory, but they do not rule out the Tychonic geocentric system. 2. He had a very big ego. 3. He was an asshole. He was very intolerant and rude to his rivals and to those he considered to be his inferiors. And thanks to that big ego "inferiors" included pretty much everyone else. 4. He was a celebrity who was regularly invited to hang out with the rich and powerful. 5. He had an atrocious sense of politics. He either failed to realize or ignored that some of the people he was an asshole towards had the wealth and power to make his life miserable if he didn't stop being an asshole toward them. [1] https://faculty.fiu.edu/~blissl/Flynngs.pdf https://faculty.fiu.edu/~blissl/Flynngs.pdf
- thewanderer1983 4y ago
  Another good introduction is "Worldviews" by Richard DeWitt. It's a introductory book on the philosophy of science but a big part of it discusses this.

mistrial9 4y ago

without handy references, I believe that part of the significance of Church dogma on stars and celestial mechanics, was that astronomy was widely practiced by many civilizations to varying rigorous results, but that science and most all abstract learning was also connected to religious or mythological meanings. Different societies, in particular the overall Muslim world of today, viewed the movements of the stars and planets with different meanings, which sometimes were taken very seriously. This connects to the imagery of the three wise men at christian nativity, who follow a star but give their gifts to the newborn. Social prestige associated with higher learning was a subject of rivalry and competition, as most things were in those places at that time it seems.

r3trohack3r 4y ago

I've been reading some old books lately including: * From Atomos to Atom * From Alchemy to Chemistry * The Main Currents of Marxism Part 1 (not about Marxism - just a bunch of, mostly Christian, philosophers) * The Skeptical Chemist * Some of Descartes' work I've noticed two notable things. First, the early Christian thinkers were _extremely_ logical. They did not shy away from human observation and philosophy, they embraced it. They spent a a majority of their study time reconciling human knowledge with scripture to try and understand their place in the world. Churches sponsored a lot of this research and invested heavily in making their religions consistent with human knowledge. Second, not only did the church invest heavily in making their religion consistent with human knowledge, all of humanity did the same. So much effort went into reconciling the early greek philosophers with modern observation and religion. From medicine, to law, to religion, to alchemy - everything was very inter-dependent and few (if any) bodies of knowledge could stand on their own, they appealed to facts from diverse philosophies to justify their stances. You see a pattern in the 1500s-1700s where, in a very short period of time, humans got _very good_ at attaching philosophy to physical phenomenon and reconciling what was observed with what they believed. During this period, pretty much every branch of human understanding underwent unprecedented massive paradigm shifts. Huge amounts of what was "known" were, fairly quickly, toppled when extremely foundational beliefs were questioned (i.e. the 3 element theory vs. the 4 element theory). A lot of folks were fairly invested in what they "knew" and didn't react well to the rug being pulled out from under them. It wasn't just "the church" that had a bad reaction to some of these thinkers; medicine rejected many early scientists like Paracelsus (generous to call them scientists) striping them of their credentials, jobs, etc. I guess what I'm learning is that European history was a lot more messy than I thought it to be (shocker, I know). And it's really fascinating seeing these currents of thought develop over time. It's pretty amazing that it took us nearly 2000 years to question Aristotle and, once we did, the rapid progress that followed. It's only been about 400 years since we thought maybe there were 3 elements instead of 4, and we are already seriously considering colonizing another planet.

lr4444lr 4y ago

Arthur Koestler in "Sleepwalkers" cites numerous criticisms from Vatican backed scholars that strongly suggest even though Copernicus may not have faced the unbridled legal wrath of the Church, that his career and reputation were severely tested for doing so.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32597071 for information about how Copernicus was received academically from an academic's point of view. Also worth recognizing is that it was Protestants, not Catholics, who were by far the harshest towards Copernicus, as Copernicus was harshly mocked by Luther and his predecessor Melanchthon. Melanchthon: "Some people believe that it is excellent and correct to work out a thing as absurd as did that Sarmatian [i.e., Polish] astronomer who moves the earth and stops the sun. Indeed, wise rulers should have curbed such light-mindedness." "The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere [the celestial sphere] nor the sun revolves. … Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious." Luther: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon….This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13] that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Also recognize your book is from 1959, before the internet, before many books were digitized, and before many of these things were debunked.