Why are the skeptics here?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Really? Did you read the entire thread? I'll count your absence from the panel as a blessing from above if you truly failed to notice that I was at least attempting to make a case.

No - I had only read your Round 1 and 2 responses, which consisted almost entire of counter-rebuttal. You don't actually present a positive defence of Objectivism till your summation.

Of course, in a formal debate, you wouldn't be permitted to bring up new points in a summation (or it wouldn't be a 'summation' now, would it?)

Originally posted by lucifershammer
3. Do you have any proof for that? Or are you just going to go with "Galileo had heard about Bruno etc."?
4. Really? How many trials did Galileo have? What were the charges brought against him? What did Cardinal Bellarmine (the head of the Roman Inquisition) say about Galileo's thesis before the trial? What were the conditions of Galileo's sentence? ...[text shortened]... questions. But, if you don't, then I seriously suggest you research this aspect of history.

EVERYONE brought before the Inquistion was threatened with torture; YOU KNOW THIS. Why are you pretending that this FACT is in dispute??

Originally posted by no1marauder
Galileo's "PR job" was confirming a hypothesis through observation, the very basis of science. There's a prior thread buried somewhere here regarding the Galileo case where it was shown by examination of the documents of the trial that your claims regarding the matter i.e. Galileo was "meddling" in religion, etc. were almost entirely false.

...[text shortened]... matter regarding the RCC no matter how much it is shown to be at variance with reality).

No. Galileo's "PR job" was printing pamphlets and having them distributed in churches across Europe; his PR job was in publicly insisting that the Church give formal assent to his theory. That's what PR means.

Oh, and as to confirming a hypothesis through observation, all available observations at the time in fact favoured the geocentric model of Brahe over that of Copernicus/Galileo. In fact, if Galileo were a modern scientist with any integrity, he would've abandoned his theory himself. Don't believe me? Try presenting the available observational data of the time and the competing Brahean and Copernican models to any real scientist - see what he/she says.

Yes, there is a thread somewhere buried about Galileo - and it demonstrates precisely what I said about Galileo "meddling in religion". This is old ground.

That I never change my stance regarding the Church is a falsehood - if you have any integrity whatsoever you will stop repeating it. I once asserted that the Inquisition represented an improvement on Continental European judicial processes. You proved me wrong and I admitted my error. Maybe you're too proud to admit when you've been proven wrong - but I'm not. But I'm not so meek as to admit I'm wrong when the evidence says otherwise; I'm not just going to roll over because you want me to. Call it apologetics or conservatism or whatever else you will.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
No. Galileo's "PR job" was printing pamphlets and having them distributed in churches across Europe; his PR job was in publicly insisting that the Church give formal assent to his theory. That's what PR means.

Oh, and as to confirming a hypothesis through observation, all available observations at the time in fact favoured the geocentric model of B ...[text shortened]... use you want me to. Call it apologetics or conservatism or whatever else you will.

The same old BS. I'll find the thread.

Originally posted by no1marauder
EVERYONE brought before the Inquistion was threatened with torture; YOU KNOW THIS. Why are you pretending that this FACT is in dispute??

Because it is only a "fact" if you consider 'threatening with torture' (as in, Inquisitor saying, "If you don't tell us what we want to hear, we'll torture you" ) to be equivalent to being aware of the possibility of torture. I don't have the stats for the Roman Inquisition but, with the Spanish Inquisition (supposedly the worst), only about 1 in 50 were tortured.

Of course, if you have documentation to suggest otherwise, I'm open to hearing about it.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Because it is only a "fact" if you consider 'threatening with torture' (as in, Inquisitor saying, "If you don't tell us what we want to hear, we'll torture you" ) to be equivalent to being aware of the possibility of torture. I don't have the stats for the Roman Inquisition but, with the Spanish Inquisition (supposedly the worst), only about 1 in 50 w ...[text shortened]... course, if you have documentation to suggest otherwise, I'm open to hearing about it.

I already gave you such documentation months ago. Defendants were EXPLICITLY threatened with torture. You conceded as much. I'm still looking for the thread.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
1. Galileo.
2. Copernicus came up with the heliocentric theory. Galileo mainly did a PR job on it.
3. He was not tortured.
4. Learn your history. Seriously.

Indeed, Nicholas Copernicus came up with the idea. Circles are perfect, he thought, and god likes perfection. Was better than Ptolmy's epicycle notion.

Galileo didn't just do a PR job, he actually gathered evidence that Copernicus' idea was correct. He then wrote a book on it. The church were initially ambivalent about it, but later forced him to write a retraction of the ideas and also he was not allowed to teach the heliocentric theory. For an academic, that'd pretty much constitute torture!

Galileo was placed under 'house arrest' but, being far smarter than the guards, this was not much of a constraint for the G-man! It still wasn't good for him, and it seems likely he caught pneumonia at some point due to the poor conditions in which he was residing. Galileo was an old man, for the time, when he died, but it's a shame he was never allowed the intellectual freedom that he rightly deserved. For that, at least, the church HAS to take at least some of the blame.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
No. Galileo's "PR job" was printing pamphlets and having them distributed in churches across Europe; his PR job was in publicly insisting that the Church give formal assent to his theory. That's what PR means.

Oh, and as to confirming a hypothesis through observation, all available observations at the time in fact favoured the geocentric model of B ...[text shortened]... use you want me to. Call it apologetics or conservatism or whatever else you will.

So a real scientist would have abandoned the heliocentric theory which was true for the position of the Church that the Sun revolves around the Earth which was false and it was heresy to believe otherwise??? No, I don't believe you.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
3. Do you have any proof for that? Or are you just going to go with "Galileo had heard about Bruno etc."?
4. Really? How many trials did Galileo have? What were the charges brought against him? What did Cardinal Bellarmine (the head of the Roman Inquisition) say about Galileo's thesis before the trial? What were the conditions of Galileo's sentence? ...[text shortened]... questions. But, if you don't, then I seriously suggest you research this aspect of history.

Bruno really WAS a heretic though!

Originally posted by lucifershammer
No. Galileo's "PR job" was printing pamphlets and having them distributed in churches across Europe; his PR job was in publicly insisting that the Church give formal assent to his theory. That's what PR means.

Oh, and as to confirming a hypothesis through observation, all available observations at the time in fact favoured the geocentric model of B ...[text shortened]... use you want me to. Call it apologetics or conservatism or whatever else you will.

Bull. The whole lot of it.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Bull. The whole lot of it.

You should have been around when he was defending this Catholic propaganda article claiming that "The Spanish people loved their Inquisition!" That was a whole lot of bull.

Here's the thread discussing torture in the Continental system and the Inquistion. http://www.timeforchess.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=32073&page=1

Particulary pages 8-10. I quoted extensively from two scholarly works to show that threat of torture was 100% in the Inquistion as a confession was the only sufficient evidence available if there were not two eyewitnesses. Torture was an accepted part of the "fact finding" process in the Contintental system and under even less restraints, in the Inquistion.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Indeed, Nicholas Copernicus came up with the idea. Circles are perfect, he thought, and god likes perfection. Was better than Ptolmy's epicycle notion.

Galileo didn't just do a PR job, he actually gathered evidence that Copernicus' idea was correct. He then wrote a book on it. The church were initially ambivalent about it, but later forced him to ightly deserved. For that, at least, the church HAS to take at least some of the blame.

The evidence that Galileo gathered fitted equally well with Brahe's model (which makes sense - the two are mathematically equivalent as far as the Solar System goes). What's more, the Copernican model predicted stellar parallax - something that wasn't observed for nearly three hundred years after Galileo died. Brahe's model predicted no stellar parallax - which fitted all available observations, of course.

So, if you were a scientist at the time, which scientific theory would you prefer?

I'm not claiming the Church is blameless in the incident, or that it did not cross the boundary in trying and imprisoning Galileo (and, IIRC, his house arrest was actually in Pope Urban's house - so it was hardly "poor conditions" ). Nevertheless, the popular black-and-white conception of Church vs. Galileo/Science is as much of a myth as the popular story about Columbus sailing west to prove the earth was round.

Originally posted by no1marauder
So a real scientist would have abandoned the heliocentric theory which was true for the position of the Church that the Sun revolves around the Earth which was false and it was heresy to believe otherwise??? No, I don't believe you.

A real scientist would've conceded he had no basis for prefering the heliocentric theory based on the available evidence. A real scientist would've admitted that the heliocentric model makes predictions that do not correspond to observations while the geocentric model does.

That's why I asked you to consult a real scientist, instead of pretending to be one.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
The evidence that Galileo gathered fitted equally well with Brahe's model (which makes sense - the two are mathematically equivalent as far as the Solar System goes). What's more, the Copernican model predicted stellar parallax - something that wasn't observed for nearly three hundred years after Galileo died. Brahe's model predicted no stellar parall ...[text shortened]... of a myth as the popular story about Columbus sailing west to prove the earth was round.

BS!!!!!!!!!!!!! The RCC declared that believing in the heliocentric model was HERESY! What was the punishment for heresy in the 1600's, LH?