Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site hou4b.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!houxm!vax135!ariel!hou4b!mat From: mat@hou4b.UUCP (Mark Terribile) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Message-ID: <1284@hou4b.UUCP> Date: Fri, 18-Jan-85 13:32:36 EST Article-I.D.: hou4b.1284 Posted: Fri Jan 18 13:32:36 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 01:44:15 EST References: <528@mhuxt.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ Lines: 35 >Arndt apologizes for the persecution of Galileo: >> These men, in the Church, did nothing more >> or less than members of scientific bodies have done many times in the >> course of history and will likely do into the future. Argue and make > > When else in the history of science have one of the proponents of rival >scientific theories tried to use the legal system to 'prove' (or at least >or at least prevent the other theory from being heard) their own theories? >Nowhere! Disagreeing scientists argue back and forth in journals and letters, Seems to me that the USSR for many years supressed Darwinian Evolution, while supporting Lamark's theory of inherited adaptation. An article some years ago (Sci. Am.?) explained that this was a political act ... the fellow in charge of the ``Acadamy of Sciences'' was using this pet theory to inflate his importance and maintain/expand his power base. And then there was the time that Lenin made it a crime against the state to propound the ``false'', ie ``counterrevolutionary'' theory that fatigue was a warning from the organism that it was near the point of damage or failure. Seems to me that something like that also happened with plate tectonics. At least in Galileo's case the fathers of the church offered him a way to publish without punishment (this from a Sci. Am. article also). They said that Astronomy enjoyed a special place among fields of study ... that it was entitled to certain hypothetical statements that might not be appropriate elsewhere. If Galileo had said ``I have found that the Solar System behaves AS IF IT WERE HELIOCENTRIC'' the pope would have overruled the objections ... but Galileo stuck to his point. He declared (rightfully, it is true) that the S.S. IS heliocentric. This was much a case of refusal to acceede to *realpolitik* as a case of suppression, since Galileo was essentially told what the scoop was. -- from Mole End Mark Terribile (scrape .. dig ) hou4b!mat ,.. .,, ,,, ..,***_*.