Today, these words could be used to under-pin the value of MR-Linacs in radiotherapy.įirst, let us define the problem. Galileo served the first six months of his house arrest at the home of the Archbishop of Siena.Galileo is said to have muttered ‘E pur, si muove!’ – ‘And yet, it moves’ as he left the courtroom in which he had been forced to concede that the sun moved round a fixed earth. The painting was attributed to a Spanish painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Van Belle thought it might have once belonged to an army commander named Ottavio Piccolomini, brother of the Archbishop of Siena. Written underneath was the famous motto, “E pur si muove”. The painting was claimed to depict Galileo in prison, holding a nail in his right hand, having traced the Earth moving around the Sun. That would have been the year after Galileo’s death in 1642. He described a letter from a Belgian named Jules Van Belle, who claimed to own a painting, created in 1643. In 1911, he also published several articles detailing his efforts to determine the origin of the famous phrase. Favoro wrote a massive tome, The Works of Galileo Galilei, the definitive collection of Galileo’s writings.
Think of anthropogenic climate change, for example.Ī science historian named Antonio Favaro spent more than four decades studying Galileo’s life and work. Scientists who insist upon science facts are fired when the science gets in the way of profit. When science facts get in the way of profit, then the science is regarded as “fake news,” or “bad science,” or simply disregarded and ignored. This time the holy writ is profit, unrestrained capitalism, profit no matter the cost. In his biography, Livio notes we are in another era of science denial. “John Paul said the theologians who condemned Galileo did not recognize the formal distinction between the Bible and its interpretation.” On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the Church had erred in condemning Galileo for asserting that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Yet, in the end, Gallileo has been proven right and the Catholic Church has been forced to issue a formal apology. Galileo spent the last eight and a half years of his life under house arrest. In the case of Galileo, the science deniers triumphed for a time over the science. Galileo is, after all a father of astrophysics. 2Īll this come to mind because WC recently finished reading Livio’s Galileo and the Science Deniers, the first biography of Galileo written by an astrophysicist. It isn’t mentioned, according to biographer Mario Livio, until the 1757 book, The Italian Library, by Giuseppe Baretti, written over 100 years after Galileo’s death. Galileo’s protege and first biographer, Vincenzo Viviana wrote his biography between 1655-1656, and did not mention of the phrase. But Galileo thought that where there was an apparent contradiction between observed facts and the Bible, the contradiction arose from misunderstanding the Bible. Found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” 1 it’s pretty unlikely he would have said anything sounding like heresy in front of his Inquisitor, even muttering.
He respected the authority of the Catholic Church. He just thought that the Bible was a lousy science book. It turns out that mutter probably didn’t happen. Legend has it that after he recanted, while still in the presence of the Inquisitor, he muttered, “ E pur si muove“ (“And yet it moves”), meaning the Earth did orbit the Sun.
Catholic Church dogma said the Sun orbited the Earth. He was forced to recant his theory that the Earth orbited the Sun. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was tried by the inquisition, charged with suspicion of heresy. Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Justus Sustermans, circa 1640
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