A scientist evaluates the Galileo affair

Page 86 from "The Imagined Conflict"

A persistent myth is that Galileo's observations (see image) were proof that the Earth revolves around the sun. Galileo himself knew very well that he did not have a very good case scientifically for this hypothesis. He tried to advance an erroneous argument based on the tides for the Earth's orbit, but it convinced few.

In chapter 3 of “The Imagined Conflict” (Wipf & Stock, 2025), a major section entitled “Galileo was right and so were his critics”* is devoted to Galileo (pp. 85-102). My claim is that this chapter has one of the most accessible and comprehensive accounts available about the science at the time of Galileo. Unique for my book among science-faith literature is also that it has more than 40 illustrations.

The chapter about Galileo contains a scientist’s view of the science of his time, and steers away from a presentist view of history. It is based on research from the last 10-15 years where we have obtained a much better understanding of the limitations of the science of the solar system of the 17th century. 

My claim is that it is impossible to understand the Galileo affair without understanding why the geo-heliocentric model of Tycho Brahe, ignored by Galileo, had better scientific support at the time. This was the case for several decades after Galileo’s death. This is hard to understand with a presentist view of history, where the past is understood in light of present knowledge. 

The chapter ends by saying "The Galileo affair is a result of projecting the Enlightenment image of conflict between faith and science back in time and distorting history in light of it. That is a very unfortunate way of dealing with the history of science."

* Title from Olson, “Galileo was Right—But So Were His Critics”.