The Crime of Galileo

Rating:
Summary: Galileo vs. Academia
Review: A great book! It appears that Galileo is not the perfect icon, after all, for atheistic, modern day academia. The book shows how academia itself, with complete indifference for truth, erupted against Galileo in an effort to protect cherished allegiances to long held Aristotelian philosophies and misguided ideas. It demonstrates how academia was primarily responsible for the inquisitions and suppressions filed against Galileo, and how they used rhetoric and demagoguery to incite church authorities to become involved. "Those he feared," according to the author, "were the professors," not ecclesiastical authorities (p 8). And "like Galileo, Copernicus had foreseen resistance not at all from the Church authorities but from vested academic interests"(p 16). "It was not ... religious convictions that stood in the way but simply ... Aristotelian conditioning and ... fear of scandal" (p 104). The author supports his case with a thorough and chronological review of the letters and legal records of the time.

Rating:
Summary: The most useful book on Galileo so far
Review: If you're just looking for a casual read then perhaps Dava Sobel's 'Galileo's Daughter' or Arthur Koestler's 'The Sleepwalkers' would be more entertaining. But this is where Koestler gets most of his information so why not go straight to the source?
Giorgio de Santillana is obviously a terrific Galileo scholar, making reference to original documents held in the Vatican and other worthwhile resources which put this book on the forefront of academic debate (despite its age).
Santillana's line, that the inquisition was moved to action by Aristotelians (many of whom were Dominicans or Jesuits), though not universally accepted, is well argued. The fact that Pope Urban VIII had been one of Galileo's closest supporters and even opposed the censoring of Copernicus when he was Cardinal Maffeo Barberini makes Santillana's the most plausible explanation. To argue that all the church authorities were adamantly opposed to the Copernican cosmology is to ignore this fact. Though one must also allow for the petulant character of Urban who did not like having his instrumentalist views put into the mouth of a simpleton. These are the two factors which conspired to have Galileo tried for heresy and not simply the scriptural objections.

Rating:
Summary: Distortions of history
Review: This book offers a selective and distorted history, apparently in an effort to keep the Catholic Church from suffering blame for unsavory little errors in its past. It is true that Galileo's critique of Aristotelian thought played a strong role, along with his Copernican beliefs, in fueling the attacks on Galileo. But to say that "It was not ... religious convictions that stood in the way but simply ... Aristotelian conditioning and ... fear of scandal" -- that is a baseless and willful rewriting of events. The claim that academics had to "incite church authorities" against Galileo is mere nonsense. Church authorities up to and very specifically including the Pope were adamantly opposed to the Copernican cosmology (which violated the doctrine of biblical inerrancy), and they punished Galileo in order to supress it. Like it or not, that's what happened.

Those interested in what Galileo accomplished and how it got him in trouble might want to try "Galileo Galilei : First Physicist" (Oxford Portriats in Science), by James MacLachlan. This book discusses both the Copernican and Aristotelian controversies. It also gives some background on what was going on in the Catholic Church (pressures generated by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, etc.) It doesn't simply point a finger at the Church and yell, "Bad!" But it's not a whitewash, either. Unless you're looking for a whitewash, you don't need Santillano's book.

Rating:
Summary: Distortions of history
Review: This book offers a selective and distorted history, apparently in an effort to keep the Catholic Church from suffering blame for unsavory little errors in its past. It is true that Galileo's critique of Aristotelian thought played a strong role, along with his Copernican beliefs, in fueling the attacks on Galileo. But to say that "It was not ... religious convictions that stood in the way but simply ... Aristotelian conditioning and ... fear of scandal" -- that is a baseless and willful rewriting of events. The claim that academics had to "incite church authorities" against Galileo is mere nonsense. Church authorities up to and very specifically including the Pope were adamantly opposed to the Copernican cosmology (which violated the doctrine of biblical inerrancy), and they punished Galileo in order to supress it. Like it or not, that's what happened.

Those interested in what Galileo accomplished and how it got him in trouble might want to try "Galileo Galilei : First Physicist" (Oxford Portriats in Science), by James MacLachlan. This book discusses both the Copernican and Aristotelian controversies. It also gives some background on what was going on in the Catholic Church (pressures generated by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, etc.) It doesn't simply point a finger at the Church and yell, "Bad!" But it's not a whitewash, either. Unless you're looking for a whitewash, you don't need Santillano's book.