The Trial of Galileo: What Really Happened?

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The trial of Galileo is one of the most misrepresented, and therefore misunderstood, events in the history of science and religion. My supporters on Patreon voted to see a video covering what happened in this infamous sentencing, hopefully clearing up some misconceptions and bringing to light some interesting facts.

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Some useful further reading:

Drake, Stillman. Galileo: A Very Short Introduction. Introduction, Chs. 1-5.

Brooke, John Hedley, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives, 99-109.

Miller, David Marshall. “The Thirty Years War and the Galileo Affair,” History of Science 46 (2008): 49-74.

Ferngren, Gary. Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction (John Hopkins: 2002), 95-116

Numbers, Ron. Galileo Goes to Jail and other myths about science and religion, 68-78

Finochiario, Maurice. Retrying Galileo. (University of California Press, 2007)
Shea, William, “Galileo and the Church,” in God & Nature, eds. David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers, (University of California Press, 1986): 114-135.

Danielson, Denis, “The great Copernican cliché,” American Journal of Physics 69(2001): 1029-1035.
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Alex O'Connor
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[CosmicSkeptic]

TIMESTAMPS:

Part One: Context | 1:46
Part Two: Galileo's Justification | 4:14
Part Three: Galileo's "Warning" | 6:54
Part Four: The Dialogue | 9:05
Part Five: The Trial | 11:05
Part Six: The Sentence | 15:03
Conclusion | 17:06

[metajaji]

who else wouldnt mind more cosmic-historian vids???

[purugigi]

Honestly, you should do more science history videos like this one

[ShadowZZZ]

I love how when Stephen Hawking first visited the vatican, his first with was to see the manuscripts of galileo.... whadda bad ass

[NessieJapan]

Galileo: The original "Facts don't care about your feelings"!

[hitm]

The most remarkable fact is that the catholic church formally apologized but not until about 30 years ago:
“The question of Galileo’s heresy, however, remained open until 1992. After three centuries, Pope John Paul II formally acknowledged that Galileo had been wrongfully condemned, and that his judges had erred in insisting upon the literal reading of Holy Scripture as the way to understand the physical world.” Burton The History of Mathematics page 347

[andreaandrea]

"thunderbolts and lightings very very frighten me"
Galileo

[lukaszkulasek]

Could we have a video about Salem witch trials? This is also very interesting.

[FerencDojcsak]

Now, while a heretic and godless atheist myself, I must put a couple comments here, in quasi-defense of the inquisitors, as I too, as part of my philosophy and history of science curricula, had to deal with Galileo and his Dialog.
1. let's not forget that by that time, there was no scientific method yet and as such, the church's could not have been opposing the scientific method
2. the quote, that they prosecuted Galileo because he "was wrong" also does not imply that they were against scientific discovery per se - in a time where there was no scientific method yet, and facts about nature were understood to be one way of god revealing himself, they were more concerned about these discoveries controlled and overseen by the church (see how Aristotelian philosophy was implemented to theology, especially with Thomism - this effort was not done by proponents of heliocentrism)
3. Galileo, as mentioned above, did not really care to synthesize heliocentrism with theology or the edicts of the church. One could argue that as science was slowly born, contradictions as such were inevitable and attempts on mentioned synthesis became more and more futile. One could, however, not argue, that Galileo made the slightest attempts to do so; in fact, if any of you read 'Dialogo', you can see that arguing for heliocentrism is a mild statement - he was essentially ridiculing geocentrism. Galileo also, like an annoying celebrity these days, used his fame to propose his theories and incomplete mathematical workings, without mentioning the adequate criticism on them - criticism not just from the church.
4. as Alex mentioned, heliocentrism was not established by this time. In fact, the model faced serious challenges, and not just from the state (although some of the criticism of the inquisitors, such as they mentioning the problems with Galileo's scope, had merit): Tycho Brahe, Peter Crüger, Johann Locher, and other pointed out problems with heliocentrism, on scientific, not on religious basis - however, Galileo either did not adress those, or outright ridiculed them in 'Dialogo' (f.e. Locher's 'Disquisitions').
5. in summary, yes, Galileo was prosecuted because he was opposing the church, and yes, he was an important and inspiring figure in the history of science. However, his opposition wasn't all scientific. In fact, a lot of his conduct would, by today's standard, count as pseudoscientific.

[TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

They hated Galileo because he spoke the truth.

[noahsark]

Minor Error
3:51 - The Church never had an "official" interpretation of Scripture on that. That was just the assumed belief of many Church authorities. The Church never officially taught such idea though. This trial with Galileo helped form the official Church teachings on what it meant to interpret Scripture. The Church bows in humility and admits that Sacred Scripture may be misused to get scientific ideas, when in reality it mentions very few and mostly is for theological and salvific ideas. The only real scientific idea is the teaching of "ex nihilo" or creation from nothing. This is backed up by the Big Bang Theory, which is from a Catholic priest by the way. However, this is still largely a philosophical and theological truth then a scientific one.

[robertcartier]

"And yet, it moves."


Brilliant video!

[ryanmueller]

Climate change “skeptics” when consensus is mentioned be like:
“But Galileo tho”

[panqueque]

Imagine how powerless he must've felt when even though he produced the original letter, they still went ahead and only took their forgery into account.

[andystokes]

And here we are, sadly, several hundred years later and there are still people advocating that any scientific discovery should be dismissed if it contradicts their own literal interpretation of the Bible.

[eccentriastes]

It's amazing how many people will try to defend the church in this one by implying that because the exaggerated version of events that persists in popular consciousness is wrong, that means what the church did is basically okay.

[JamesLewis]

It does need to be pointed out that throughout all this, it's simply a given that the Church had authority to make these demands and enact punishments. This is what happens when you make your church and your government one and the same thing... and we can see that it is still the case now in Islamic theocracies.

[DimaKotik]

An omitted detail: Galileo represented the RCC's view with a character he named Simplicio (dummy).

[ltmcolen]

I've been following you for a couple of years.
I admire the fact you're studying Theology right now.
You look at things on a factual basis.
This time I subscribed.

[nathanbossoh]

For the most part this is a very welcome video Alex! However, (and you may never see this) there are a few crucial things that you have not mentioned, or that are not correct.

1) The term 'scientist' was not invented until 1833. 'Natural philosopher' was the word used and it meant something different to scientist.

2) One of the main reasons Pope Urban was so angry (and this is key) was that Simplicio represented the Pope's views. This didn't help Galileo's case on a personal level, not to mention Galileo was known to be a temper boiling person and this was also the period of the 30 years war was omitted and that played another crucial role in this unique decision.

3) The scientific standard of that time was sought through books not observation and experimentation. This was an important part of the debate. I.e. how should science be done?

4) It wasn't just due to scripture that heliocentrism was denied, it was scripture plus for them common sense at the time plus even some scientific arguments.

5) It was not the church against science, as some of the church leaders themselves actually agreed with Galileo, although that aspect is largely hidden usually.

6) It is a bit misleading to define science in its (more) modern context, and then to impose that on the Galileo case. Science has not always meant what it does today and your case becomes a bit anachronistic when we look back at his book and characterize it as the "winning book" (even if it was).
So to call it a 'science vs the church' episode is still quite misleading. It would be better to call it a debate within the church about how science should be done.