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Simisola O. Oludare

Dr. Robert Wood

LCC 3104: Age of Scientific Discovery

03/15/2013

Essay I: The scientific methodologies and arguments of Galileo

Galileo Galilei, widely recognized as the ‘father of modern science’, was a scientist,

astronomer, mathematician and natural philosopher whose work on motion and astronomy

greatly influenced the modern science of physics. Galileo strongly believed that the true nature

of the world can only be understood by observing its behavior and that these behaviors can only

be explained through mathematics. This viewpoint is greatly expressed in Galileo’s study of

astronomy, which in the early 1600’s, led him to cast his gaze to the heavens and with the aid of

a telescope observe the nature of the stars. By looking to the stars, Galileo was able to discover

the true nature of the moon’s surface, the moons of Jupiter, the Milky Way, the nature of

sunspots, and the motion of the planets in the solar system. These discoveries led to Galileo

scrutinizing and accepting the theory of heliocentricism stated by Copernicus in 1543 that the

earth was in constant circular motion and that it was not the center of the universe. Unfortunately

for Galileo, the widely held belief of a stationary and central earth were adamantly defended by

the Church and the followers of Aristotle (called the ‘Peripatetics’) and were not going to be

debunked by any of his discoveries. This strong belief of geocentrism led to private and public

attacks on the credibility of Galileo and his discoveries which forced him to defend himself and

his scientific method. In this essay, I will present the scientific methods by which Galileo made

his astronomic discoveries, the reaction to his discoveries and theories, the means by which he
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defended himself and his discoveries and finally, the effects that the attacks on Galileo and his

retort had on science and society.

In The Starry Messenger, Galileo provides a detailed description of his first astronomic

observations made via his telescope. Although Galileo was not the first to construct a telescope,

he was the first man to publicize the discoveries that he made with one. The first astronomical

object that Galileo set his sight on was the moon. After observing the moon every night for two

months, Galileo was able to correctly describe the true nature of its surface and the sources of its

illumination. He discovered that the surface of the moon was covered with mountains and

valleys and that the face of the moon changed over the course of the days depending on how

much it obstructed the view of the sun. From the observation of the moon’s rough surface,

Galileo concluded that the moon and most of the other ‘heavenly bodies’ were in fact very

similar to the earth and that they were not perfectly spherical. This conclusion was in great

opposition to the public opinion which had been stated by Aristotle and propagated by the church

that the heavenly bodies were pure and thus perfect spheres. With knowledge of the popular

opinion, Galileo explains that the moon appears to be smooth due its great distance from the

earth and the nature of the way sunlight illuminates the moon. He even allows the idea of an

“ether” similar to the earth’s ozone layer surrounding the moon which made it difficult to

observe the mountains and valleys on the moon with the naked eye. Ultimately, Galileo

concludes that the mountains and valleys are real and are more numerous than those that can be

found on the earth.

As can be expected, the Catholic Church, its followers and the Peripatetics did not agree

with Galileo’s conclusions. He was faced with opposition form many scholars and theologians of

the time who sought to argue that his discoveries were not genuine. The most prominent
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argument against this discovery was that what he saw was an illusion created by the telescope

and were not real. In reply to this absurd claim, Galileo jest that he will award a sum of money to

anyone who can perform the ‘illusions’ that he observed. Another argument proposed against the

possibility of Galileo’s observations was an attempt to reconcile the Aristotelian belief of a

smooth moon and the roughness that Galileo observed. The argument was that the possible ether

which surrounded the moon while thick was transparent enough for observing the mountains and

valleys. To this argument, Galileo retorted that if this were true then he would conclude that the

mountains and valleys on the moon were even more numerous that he initially claimed. In

addition to these arguments, Galileo also received threats from some of those who opposed his

ideas and demanded that the rescind them. However, Galileo would not revoke any of his claims

and he and his friends would continue to retort the arguments of those who sought to dismiss his

arguments.

In addition to observing that the moon was rough, Galileo also discovered that the stars in

the sky were more numerous than were previously accounted for by Ptolemy and that while

some of these stars were fixed, some were wandering. Some of the fixed stars that he discovered

were the belt and sword of Orion, the Milky Way and the Pleiades. He explained that these stars

could not be seen from the earth due to the low magnitude of their illumination; he was able to

confidently come to this conclusion because he discovered that stars possessed the same

structure as planets but are lighted from within via some ‘sparkling rays’. Once again Galileo

received arguments in opposition to his discoveries of more stars in the sky. While he once again

faced the argument that these new stars were an illusion, he also faced opposition because the

heavens were believed to be unchanging and that the addition of new heavenly bodies was

unnecessary because they serve no known purpose. To refute this point, Galileo and his
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companions amusingly stated that the additional heavenly bodies existed to torment the

superstitious. However, opposition to the new fixed stars that Galileo discovered was not very

strong and could not withstand the evidence. While opposition to the new fixed stars was quickly

abated, Galileo faced greater opposition to the discovery of the wandering stars and the

conclusions he draws from his observations.

Using his telescope, Galileo observed the motion and behaviors of the wandering stars;

he was able to observe Jupiter’s moons (the Medician stars) and the size and phases of Venus. In

The Starry Messenger, Galileo observes the moons of Jupiter every night for two months and

notices that: the moons are bigger than the other fixed stars and astoundingly that the moons

change their position. He also observes that the moons move at a swift velocity and that they are

always at a fixed distance, constantly orbiting the planet Jupiter. The attachment of these moons

to Jupiter was of particular interest to Galileo because he also observed that Venus and Mercury

spent a particular period of time orbiting the sun. This also accounted for the phases of Venus,

which were previously explained as the obstruction of Venus by the moon, and led Galileo to

assert that all the bodies in the heavens (including the Earth) revolved around the sun, which was

at the center of the universe. By making this statement, Galileo confirmed his agreement with

Copernicus’s model of heliocentrism and rejected the commonly held belief of Tycho Brahe’s

model of geocentrism. Brahe stated that although the moon did revolve around the earth, the

other heavenly bodies revolved around the earth. By sharing his observation, Galileo defends

Copernicus’s model and believes that he has provided a ‘fine and elegant argument for quieting

the doubts of those who, while accepting with tranquil mind the revolutions of the planets about

the sun in the Copernican system, are mightily disturbed to have the moon alone revolve about

the earth and accompany it in an annual rotation about the sun’ (Drake, 57). Also, through his
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observations of Galileo is able to defend later his claims that spots he observes on the sun are not

caused by Venus or any other planets. He makes these claims because the spots he and others

observe are greater in size than Venus so to claim that the spots are the shadows of planet is

‘quite fallacious.’ And although Galileo doesn’t explicitly state that the spots on the sun are an

inherent to its structure, by debunking the claims that they are caused by Venus and planets, he

allows for the possibility of the sun being an imperfect sphere. Similarly to his observations of

the moon’s roughness, this claim was in great opposition to the doctrine of the Catholic Church,

the belief of the Peripatetics and the public opinion. By holding the possibility of an imperfect

sun in addition to his acceptance and defense of the Copernican system, Galileo became an

enemy of the theologians and philosophers of who sort to preserve the current beliefs.

The chief oppositions to Galileo’s defense of the Copernican system came in the form of

those who read the bible literally such as the Catholic Church, the Roman Inquisition and the

Grand Duchess Cristina and those who chose to rely solely on the reasoning of Aristotle, such as

the Peripatetics. Galileo’s first encounter with the Church began in 1613 when his Letters on

Sunspots was publicly denounced by Father Lorini who, by quoting the passage in Joshua when

the sun stands still in the heavens, states that the theory of heliocentrism violates the truth of the

bible. Upon hearing about this, Galileo sends a letter to one of his pupils in which he states that

the bible should not always be taken literally, and that it can be taken figuratively. Galileo states

that:

“As therefore the Bible, although dictated by the Holy Spirit, admits, from the
reasons given above, in many passages of an interpretation other than the literal
one; and as, moreover, we cannot maintain with certainty that all interpreters are
inspired by God, I think it would be the part of wisdom not to allow anyone to
apply passages of Scripture in such a way as to force them to support, as true,
conclusions concerning nature the contrary of which may afterwards be revealed
by the evidence of our senses or by necessary demonstration.”
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Unfortunately for Galileo, Lorini receives this letter which he proceeds to send to the Roman

Inquisition. Galileo is promptly summoned to Rome where he is forced to defend himself. And

although Galileo is able to properly defend his claims in the presence of his inquisitors, the

Copernican theory is deemed “formally heretical” by the Roman Inquisition. From this time, the

Church uses its power to censor Galileo and he is ban from publishing anything which advocates

the Copernican system. However, he is able to revise his initial letter and send it to the grand

Duchess Cristina, wife of Ferdinando I de’ Medici. In this letter, he goes into more depth as to

the nature of studying the physical world. He firmly holds to the belief that the truth can only be

known by demonstrations, which can then be explained by mathematics, the language of the

universe. This belief is most clearly stated in The Assayer, in which Galileo in a polemic on the

nature of comets, states:

“Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands
continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to
comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is
written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles,
and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to
understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark
labyrinth.”
In his final defense of the Copernican system, Galileo once again expresses his belief on the

nature of truth by presenting all of his observations and conclusions in a dialogue between three

men. In this dialogue, the character who represents Galileo’s thoughts is able to logically move

from observations to reasonable conclusions as to the nature of the world, but the character who

represents the thoughts of the Peripatetics relies solely on the erroneous observations of

Aristotle. This work represents Galileo’s ideologies completely and like most of his major

works, it was written in the colloquial Italian so that the common man could read it and
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understand it for himself. He did this because he welcomed all who were interested in truth and

philosophy to read about his findings and theories, not just the learned. Although Galileo

presented this work as fiction, his strong defenses of the Copernican system leads to his house

arrest and inquisition by the Church. Galileo is forced to renounce his belief in the Copernican

system and to no longer speak of it; the dialogue is then classified as a forbidden book by the

Church and ban from publishing.

Although Galileo was crushed under the pressure of the Church during his lifetime, his

methods for understanding and explaining the truth serve as the precursor to modern day science.

His work serves as an inspiration to future generation of scientists who set observations and

reason as their criterion of truth and not the assertions made by authority figures such as the

Church. These scientists also describe the physical world with mathematics like Galileo did and

they have been able to explain the many phenomena that occur in the world. Also by making his

work available to the general public by writing in the colloquial Italian, Galileo set a precedent

for scientists to make their work understandable by the general public and not the learned few.

However, while Galileo was able to contribute much to society via his science, the Church’s

persistence in denying the evidence that he provided led to a loss of credibility in the Church. As

a man of faith and science, Galileo warned the Church that if it didn’t acknowledge the truth of

how the world works in light of new evidence, it could not expect to retain the trust of the public.

He was right. One of Galileo’s lasting impact is creating the separation between science and

religion, a task he did not attempt to accomplish. And although the Church still maintains a

strong following, it is still marred by the injustice it committed against Galileo and truth, and in

addition to many more actions, this has resulted in an unfavorable view of the Church by a

considerable amount of people.

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Works Cited

Galilei, Galileo, and Stillman Drake. Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo: Including the Starry

Messenger (1610), Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), and Excerpts from

Letters on Sunspots (1613), the Assayer (1623). New York: Anchor Books, 1990. Print.

Galilei, Galileo. Letters to Benedetto Castelli. English digital text: School of Law, University of

Missouri, Kansas City. Interdisciplinary Encycolpedia of Religion & Science.

Interdisciplinary Documentation on Religion and Science 2003 – 2013, Web. 14 Mar.

2013. <http://www.inters.org/Galilei-Benedetto-Castelli>