[ExI] Fwd: a fantasy of spin

[Darin Sunley]

It is a matter of historical record that Galileo was, to put it lightly, an
intransigent jerk who had no interest whatsoever in softening his message.
He was making a theological, not to mention intensely political statement,
and he knew he was doing this while he was doing it.

His house arrest came only at the end of long, involved, repeated
conversations with church officials, none of whom were stupid or
particularly dogmatic. These arguments are relatively trivial and I
guarantee you they were offered to Galileo repeatedly.

(Why American atheists insist on modeling the medieval Catholic church like
80 IQ rural Southern Baptist pastors is something I will never understand.
They were highly intelligent, deeply sophisticated, utterly ruthless
politicians of the first order. They understood the science perfectly fine,
and had no particular objections to it. But their real god was Church
Authority, and thats what Galileo was very intentionally attacking.)

On Thu, Feb 29, 2024, 9:38 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> Subject: a fantasy of spin
>
>
> "Yes, your Holiness, I will try to explain my ideas through two stories:
>
> Suppose a lord wanted to know, for no apparent reason, what the geometric
> center of Italy is.  The problem is that on the North, NorthEast and NorthWest
> the borders are uncertain, and do we include Sardinia and Sicily etc?  No.
> So choosing which borders to use is entirely arbitrary.  We calculate
> several different centers based on different borders. Best to pick one that
> is near a big city (preferably near the lord if that is possible).
>
> Now consider the solar system.  Your Holiness has declared that the Earth
> is the center.  Then the planets and their motions are determined.  The
> problem is that the geometry to do that is enormously complicated.  If, by
> pure arbitrariness, we consider the Sun to be the center, then the geometry
> is far easier.  Conversion from that to the Earth-centered geometry can be
> done.
>
> So the Sun being the center is just an arbitrary way of thinking to make
> the geometry easier.  No one is saying, like in the case of the center of
> Italy, that one version is true and the others false.  Earth as the center
> is perfectly valid, as you have ruled."
>
> Now what if we could go back in time and present Galileo these stories to
> tell to the Pope?  Might they have worked to save him?  Who knows?  bill w
>
>
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