Albert Einstein called him “the father of modern science” for his insistence on the primacy of observation in the scientific method. But according to the Wall Street Journal (8/28/08), some others — i.e., Monsignor Melchor Sanchez de Toca of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture — claim his controversial story is “like a Mexican soap opera; it never ends.”

Indeed, in today’s world, when someone says “What goes around comes around,” they’re not usually referring to Earth’s orbit around the Sun — a major interest of Galileo’s — but they could be alluding to Galileo’s continuing, 400+ years of turmoil with the church.

Galileo’s troubles with the Roman Catholic church began in 1632 when he published his powerful defense of Copernicus’ helocentric theory based on solid telescopic evidence. Apparently, the 17th century church had already endorsed the dictum of a well-known Fox News commentator — “The spin stops here!” — because they summarily dismissed Galileo’s advocacy of a circling Earth as “absurd, false, and altogether contrary to scripture.” Plus Galileo was given an indefinite prison sentence.

Click .

However, things began to cool off in the early 18th century when the church allowed some of Galileo’s writings to be published. In 1835 it endorsed discussion of the Sun-centered model by removing all heliocentric publications from the list of banned books. More recently in 1992, after a 12 year study of the Vatican’s secret archives, Pope John Paul II publicly expressed regret at Galileo’s conviction and treatment.

As part of next year’s celebration of the first use of a telescope to study the sky (by Galileo), the Vatican received an offer from an anonymous donor to fund a statue of Galileo in the Vatican. Nuclear physicist Nicola Cabibbo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences remarked that “The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith,” (Times Online, 3/4/08).

In fact, Galileo has become not only the Inquisition’s most illustrious heretic but also a global icon of an apparent church/science conflict. This time the Catholic Church wants to be on the right side of history, including being officially open to the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrials as well as supporting the research of professional astronomers at the Vatican Observatory.

Galileo not only laid the foundation for modern science, but by being the first to use the telescope to study mountains and valleys on the Moon as well as the Sun and other planets, he pointed humanity toward its ultimate destiny in the Galaxy: space colonization. As we approach a time of accelerating global space activities — i.e., the 2015 Maslow Window — more people are coming to appreciate the monumental contributions of Galileo to the human future in space.

For example, young people fresh from a study of Galileo’s troubles with the church and infused with an exhilarating sense of humanity’s near-term potential for space colonization, sometimes react with anger as they unintentionally judge Galileo and the church by 21st Century cultural standards. This partially explains students at Rome’s La Sapienza Univ who rejected a visit by Pope Benedict XVI last January, because of his 1990 lecture that some interpreted as a defense of the Church’s conviction of Galileo.

But we can take some consolation in the fact that, unlike some others, Galileo was not burned or beheaded, but lived his life in comfort under house arrest. Let’s hope the anonymous donor comes through with the money and the Vatican can find a suitable place for a statue of “the father of modern science.”

Trackback URI | Comments RSS