A Systems View Of Science and Rationality

[Carl-Richard]

 

12 hours ago, Roy said:

Galileo was killed by the church for brining up the possibility that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe but in fact revolved around the Sun like other planets. What he was saying was considered "pseudoscience" and he died for it. Eventually it turned out he was right.

He wasn't killed. He was put in "formal jail", which entailed him staying at a friend's house in Rome. It was technically Copernicus who brought up the possibility of heliocentricism, but Galileo created the telescope and made some observations, then did some calculations using Kepler's equations to provide some evidence for the theory.

Regardless, it's true that if we were to apply a consistent definition of pseudoscience, the church at the time (the original scientific institution) were actually more scientifically rigorous than Galileo. He had been making unfounded claims about the rotation of the Earth and the nature of comets (wrong in both cases), and despite pushback, he said heliocentrism is the true model. The reason Copernicus didn't get in trouble is because he never claimed something without evidence (like "my theory is the true one"). 

The church were initially not too pessimistic about a heliocentric theory, but the way Galileo treated his critics and competing theorists (who were all scientists) is in many ways to blame for why he was jailed. This is obviously not to say that he deserved what was coming to him. It's a point to show how stupid the term pseudoscience is.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Carl-Richard