UnimpressedSeptember 27, 2009 03:12 EST

Giordano Bruno, if his tortured soul lives on, might be amused to hear that the Church's treatment of Galileo was an "anomaly".

MarkSeptember 27, 2009 05:48 EST

Bruno ran into problems over eight charges, only one of which had to to do with astronomy and where the centre of the universe is located. Bruno made statements that went against the core of Church theology with claims that Jesus was a magician. While it might be proper to criticize the Church for having executed someone for heresy, Bruno's greatest "sins" were not for "faith" in Copernicus.

h.hilbornSeptember 27, 2009 21:36 EST

Say, how did that geocentric theory turn out?

Jon JermeySeptember 28, 2009 00:31 EST

“But we’ve never found any,” he says. “How could we have any teaching about them?”

As if that ever stopped them before...

pherzenSeptember 28, 2009 09:02 EST

The Jesuits in particular were instrumental in fanning the early flames of what's generally acknowledged as the Scientific Revolution, beginning around 1600 (or post Copernicus and Harvey in any event.) The Jesuits were the only religious order to have actively sought out and even contributed to advancements in the natural philosophy of the day. They offered a notoriously thorough education. "If only they were ours," Francis Bacon wrote, but of course without their "sundry doctrines obnoxious." The list of luminary thinkers coming out of Jesuit institutions fills volumes of history and includes Galileo, Descartes and Mersenne. There are many excellent histories of that time, which show that much could be said about nature without causing the religious authorities to get too bothered.

The issue over religion and science is so predictably perennial, so yawn and shrug worthy in its framing and discussion that I dare say the above article contributes not a shred of new perspective. A brief mention of Galileo's persecution and an even briefer mention of Mendel, and we are expected to infer from this tenuous gossamer of a thread that the religious and scientific pose no inherent tension? I would say that while individuals may hold both religious and scientific perspectives, institutions tend to be exclusively biased either way. Insofar as both approaches to understanding presume to speak for all peoples, places and times, it should be no surprise that people will fundamentally disagree depending on what they've been taught and the extent of their curiosity and laziness. I come from Alberta, and I've had my share of idiotic conversations about evolution (why bother qualifying it with 'natural selection'?) where the trump card of my interlocutor is unfailingly "the fossil gap."

So a religious man also likes looking through telescopes? Amazing, will wonders never cease?

RogerSeptember 30, 2009 17:48 EST

The mechanism whereby the energy of the universe was created, out of nothing, is the basis to religion and the indictment of science.

Planetary ScientistOctober 04, 2009 08:26 EST

One bit this article fails to get across is that Guy is not only a religious scientist, he's a widely respected, world class scientist. The Vatican Observatory curates one of the most impressive meteorite collections in the world, and Guy has done some amazing work with them, helping to constrain the dynamics and origin of the solar system.

TimOctober 05, 2009 00:18 EST

I'm not a catholic but I am a historian. In 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. Galileo got in trouble for being disobedient not because of his science. Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic. It had little or nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology.

AnonymousOctober 05, 2009 16:48 EST

Of course, no topic about religion and science is complete without atheists like Jon Jeremy making snarky comments about the "inanity" of religion.

What he doesn't (or perheps refuses to) understand is that the "things that never stopped [religious people] before" often deal with things that science is currently (and may never) unable to observe.

Think of it like this: Science deals with HOW the universe works, and HOW it was formed. Religion, for the most part, deals with WHY the universe was formed, and WHY it works the way it does. That's why, ideally, the two should never clash.

Einstein said it best: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Science can and should inform religious decisions and opinions.

In response to pherzen: It's true that religious scientists are nothing new—but it seems that the world must be continually reminded of it, as we so easily forget.

The general opinion of the world—inflamed by extremists from both the religious and atheistic sides of the spectrum—is that religion can not coexist with science, and that one must either devote themselves to faith or reason.

We must hear more about our modern-day Gregor Mendels. They're out there, and despite science's reputation for atheism, there are many. More focus needs to be given to them to counterbalance the rants of Richard Dawkins and the mockery of Bill Murray.

KevinNovember 02, 2009 15:15 EST

I believe the author has left out the Galilean theory of our solar system being at the center of the universe. Today we know this is not true hence the Catholic Church didn't get it all wrong in censoring Galileo on the basis of his theories not being provable in his time.

Galileo wasn't completely correct food for thought

Bix12November 09, 2009 09:45 EST

I've been a big fan of Guy Consolmagno since first hearing him on BBC Radio 4 a few years ago.

After having put up with years of relentless assaults against my intellect by the I.D./Creationist extremists, (i.e, Earth is 6,000 years old, Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, evolution is just a "theory", etc., etc.), hearing Guy discuss science & religion in an intelligent, enlightened manner was like a breath of fresh air to me...or, perhaps more appropriately, manna from Heaven.

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