No, Galileo’s dissent from the Inquisition is not detail-for-detail like the skeptics dissent from the climate nonsensus, but it is close enough for political work.
In the New York Times’ “Divining Perry’s Meaning on Galileo Remark,” reporter Henry Fountain gets Augustana College historian Thomas F. Mayer to comment,
If Perry means to say that at some point some body of scientists said Galileo was wrong, that didn’t happen… His notions about science were not that far out there. There were a lot of other scientists, especially in Rome, who more or less agreed with his scientific observations.”
But Perry’s general point was that Galileo was punished for publicly dissenting from the church-approved dogma. Today, climate skeptics are disparaged and even threatened with criminal punishment for dissenting from government-approved climate dogma.
Yes, Perry could have made his point more articulately, but under the circumstances he did just fine.
If the issue of anthropogenic climate change were a scientific debate it would be of great academic interest but little consequence. Like other scientific fields of investigation it would evolve, change, advance, and go down blind paths. In the long run, scientific facts would prevail and our knowledge would increase. Anthropogenic global warming long ago became a political cause. As a result, the “science” has become corrupted and the economic and social consequences are enormous.
Those who believe they understand the earth’s climate and can predict it 100 years from now accuse those who question them of being luddite extremists or worse. They attempt to silence debate with intimidation and assertions that it is “settled science”. This is the behavior of political activists, not scientist.
Why have we not had open public debates on the science of climate change? Few issues have a larger impact on our future. We never have a public debate because it is asserted that it is “settled science and a forum should not be provided for extremists unscientific doubters”. The result is a political issue of huge importance with no open debate on its basic foundation. Brilliant, and they will probably get away with it until scientific reality catches up with them.
You are correct. Perry could have been more articulate. Although when I read his remark, I did understand what he was saying. In reading “Galileo’s Daughter,” I was struck by the similarity in Galileo’s plight and that of the climate skeptics. Many have done excellent research only to be branded as heretics by the science challenged media.
BTW where has the media been in reporting the breakthrough at CERN which validates Svenmark’s work on cosmic rays and clouds?
The NYTimes exists not to report facts nor to describe the world as it is. Its mission is to maintain the “Narrative”, the mythology* that sustains the ethical, political, and intellectual world of our self-appointed mandarins. The reason for a non-mandarin to read it is to discover what the mandarins are supposed to think, so that we poor peasants can better defend ourselves from their depredations.
*Mythology is not fanciful stories told by primitive or ancient peoples. It is any story, even one that is factual, that is told to support an ethical, political, or intellectual position. E.G. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
“A lot of other scientists”? We should be given names. Yes Galileo had friends and supporters but who was in charge of university posts and church’s at the time?
“If Perry means to say that at some point some body of scientists said Galileo was wrong, that didn’t happen… His notions about science were not that far out there.”
Some scientists did say he was wrong – some of them stuck to Aristotle’s ideas, which had been consensus for many centuries. They might not have done so as a body, but the decisions of any group are generally poor so no-one should fixate on scientific bodies.
Pravda is truth in Russian. Isvestia is news. The old Russian saying was in Isvestia there is no truth and in Pravda there’s no news.
Anyone who reads the NY times for news, reads Pravda for Truth.