![\"Copernicus3\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2010\/07\/Copernicus3.jpg\")
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Protestants, by the way, are not without their own embarrassing errors in this regard. Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon (and the later Calvinist Francois Turretin) all opposed Copernicus. Luther\u2019s successor Philip Melanchthon and even the renowned Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz were enthusiastic advocates of astrology (whereas St. Thomas Aquinas had opposed it 300 years earlier). Leibniz, the Lutheran philosopher (1646-1716) attacked Newton\u2019s theory of gravitation. Lutherans as a whole (at least as much as the entirety of Catholics, if not more so) were very slow to come around to heliocentrism.<\/p>\n
But for some reason many of the more loudmouthed and absurdly overconfident advocates of (what they consider essentially materialistic) science and\/or critics of Christianity are not so quick to admit that there is more than enough error here (hindsight is 20\/20) to go around. Most Catholics in that early period of modern astronomy didn\u2019t get everything right, but neither did anyone else<\/span> (including even the best scientists) get even some very basic facts of astronomy right. So why is one party excoriated, while the errors of the vaunted (and indeed brilliant) scientists are ignored, unknown, or suppressed, in a cynical effort at one-sided presentation?<\/p>\n The objective observer will note, I submit (upon a complete perusal of the relevant facts), that in most cases of supposed stark opposition of two competing ideas (especially ones as complex as those involved in science and philosophy), there is truth and error to be found on both sides. The reality of various conflicts in the realm of the history of ideas is not usually \u201cgood vs. evil.\u201d Just as individuals are radical mixtures, so are sets of ideas: with some falsehood mixed in.<\/p>\n Let me present, if I may, some basic facts:<\/p>\n Copernicus<\/span> (1473-1543) erred in asserting circular orbits and in holding that the sun was the stationary center of the universe<\/span>, with not only the earth and the other planets of the solar system, but also all <\/span>the other stars, moving around it. He also believed that transparent rotating crystalline spheres carried the planets in their orbits.<\/p>\n Tycho Brahe<\/span> (1546\u20131601) erred insofar as he was a geocentrist and held (Tychonic \u201cgeoheliocentric\u201d system<\/a>) that the sun and moon revolve around the earth, and the other five planets revolve around the sun: all in circular, not elliptical orbits. Also, in his system the earth did not rotate.<\/p>\n Johannes Kepler <\/span>(1571-1630) was correct in asserting elliptical orbits of the planets around the sun, at varying speeds (both notions having been foreseen by the Catholic Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th century), but continued to err in thinking that the sun was the center of the entire universe. The idea that the sun was but one of innumerable stars, was strongly advocated by the mystic heretic and scientist Giordano Bruno<\/a> (1548-1600). According to the Wikipedia entry, Bruno understood several aspects of cosmology that even Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Tycho neglected to see:<\/p>\n Bruno believed . . . that the Earth revolves around the sun, and that the apparent diurnal rotation of the heavens is an illusion caused by the rotation of the Earth around its axis<\/a>. Bruno also held (following Nicholas of Cusa<\/a>) that because God is infinite the universe would reflect this fact in boundless immensity. Bruno also asserted that the stars in the sky were really other suns like our own, around which orbited other planets. . . .<\/p>\n Bruno\u2019s infinite universe was filled with a substance\u2014a \u201cpure air,\u201d aether<\/a>, or spiritus<\/i> \u2014 that offered no resistance to the heavenly bodies which, in Bruno\u2019s view, rather than being fixed, moved under their own impetus<\/a>. Most dramatically, he completely abandoned the idea of a hierarchical<\/a> universe. The Earth was just one more heavenly body, as was the Sun. . . .<\/p>\n Under this model, the Sun was simply one more star, and the stars all suns, each with its own planets. Bruno saw a solar system<\/a> of a sun\/star with planets as the fundamental unit of the universe. According to Bruno, infinite God necessarily created an infinite universe, formed of an infinite number of solar systems, separated by vast regions full of Aether, because empty space could not exist. (Bruno did not arrive at the concept of a galaxy.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Galileo\u2019s two main published works were Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems<\/span> in 1629 and Discourses and Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences<\/span> in 1638. The first of these was fully ten years after Kepler published his third law of planetary motion, and twenty years after the publication of Kepler\u2019s first and second laws, yet Galileo seemed oblivious to those developments \u2013 despite the fact that he was very familiar with Kepler\u2019s works and had high regard for him (referring to him as \u201ca person of independent genius\u201d). Einstein described Galileo\u2019s failure to take account of Kepler\u2019s laws as \u201ca grotesque illustration of the fact that creative individuals are often not receptive\u201d. [source: \u201cMath Pages\u201d<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n R. R. Reno referred to this error on 26 July 2010, on the blog First Thoughts<\/span><\/a> (connected with the magazine First Things<\/span>):<\/p>\n These days no educated person \u201cacknowledges\u201d Galileo\u2019s heliocentric theory as \u201ccorrect.\u201d Galileo adopted Copernicus\u2019s theory, which presumed lovely circular orbits, but that turns out to be wrong. Tycho Brahe painstakingly collected data about the positions of the planets in the sky, which was theorized by Johannes Kepler as eliptical rather than circular motion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Interestingly, Kepler and Galileo corresponded, but Galileo insisted on defending Copernicus\u2019 views. On this point, Galileo was mistaken, and not just because he did not have access to the scientific data and good arguments. He was, like many brilliant individuals, a vain and willful man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Scott Rosmarin, in his article, \u201cGalileo\u2019s Lapse \u2013 The Fallibility of Scientists\u201d <\/a>(29 March 2010), noted:<\/p>\n Johannes Kepler had provided plausible evidence that the planets move in elliptical, <\/i>nor circular orbits, and not<\/i> at uniform speeds, but variable<\/i> speeds, depending on their distance from the sun. This seriously challenged the Copernican view. Galileo . . . simply rejected Kepler\u2019s view, clinging instead to the ancient belief that circular motion was \u201cbeautiful\u201d and, therefore, privileged. . . . Galileo believed dogmatically in the Copernican view, not merely as a good starting hypothesis, or true subject to possible modifications, such as those offered by Kepler.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Galileo was also wrong in following Copernicus\u2019s (and Kepler\u2019s) view that the sun was the stationary center of the universe, with the earth and other planets of the solar system, and also all the other stars<\/span>, moving around it. In this respect, he and Copernicus had hardly advanced beyond what was already posited by the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus<\/a> (d. c. 230 B. C.). All three had merely moved the center of the universe 93 million miles from the earth, to the sun.<\/p>\n That is not all that different (knowing how large the universe is) from positing that the earth is the center. Both are vastly erroneous positions. But, oddly enough, we only hear about one error and not the other. Nicholas of Cusa (a Catholic Cardinal) and Giordano Bruno were closer to the truth in these respects than Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. Truth is stranger than fiction.<\/p>\n Galileo, moreover, argued vehemently in his 1623 book The Assayer<\/span> that the comets of 1618 were merely an optical illusion. The Wikipedia entry<\/a> on the book states:<\/p>\n The book was a polemic against the treatise on the comets of 1618 by Orazio Grassi<\/a>, a Jesuit<\/span> mathematician at the Collegio Romano<\/span>. In this matter Grassi, for all his Aristotelianism, was right and Galileo was wrong. Galileo incorrectly treated the comets as a play of light rather than as real objects. . . .<\/p>\n Although The Assayer<\/i> contains a magnificent polemic for mathematical physics, ironically its main point was to ridicule a mathematical astronomer. This time, the target of Galileo\u2019s wit and sarcasm was the cometary theory of a Jesuit, Orazio Grassi, who argued from parallax that comets move above the Moon. Galileo mistakenly countered that comets are an optical illusion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Wikipedia article, \u201cComet,\u201d<\/a> observed that Galileo \u201crejected Tycho\u2019s parallax measurements and held to the Aristotelian notion of comets moving on straight lines through the upper atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n Furthermore, Galileo dismissed as a \u201cuseless fiction\u201d the idea, held by his contemporary Johannes Kepler<\/a>, that the moon caused the tides. He thought they were caused by the rotation of the earth. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy<\/span> entry on Galileo<\/a> comments on this notion and how it figured in the overall picture:<\/p>\n This argument, about the tides, Galileo believed provided proof of the truth of the Copernican theory. . . . Galileo argues that the motion of the earth (diurnal and axial) is the only conceivable (or maybe plausible) physical cause for the reciprocal regular motion of the tides. He restricts the possible class of causes to mechanical motions, and so rules out Kepler\u2019s attribution of the moon as a cause. How could the moon without any connection to the seas cause the tides to ebb and flow? Such an explanation would be the invocation of magic or occult powers. So the motion of the earth causes the waters in the basins of the seas to slosh back and forth, and since the earth\u2019s diurnal and axial rotation is regular, so are the periods of the tides; the backward movement is due to the residual impetus built up in the water during its slosh. Differences in tidal flows are due to the differences in the physical conformations of the basins in which they flow . . . .<\/p>\n One can see why Galileo thinks he has some sort of proof for the motion of the earth, and therefore for Copernicanism. Yet one can also see why Bellarmine and the instrumentalists would not be impressed. First, they do not accept Galileo\u2019s restriction of possible causes to mechanically intelligible causes. Second, the tidal argument does not directly deal with the annual motion of the earth about the sun. And third, the argument does not touch anything about the central position of the sun or about the periods of the planets as calculated by Copernicus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n<\/span>Galileo <\/span> (1564-1642) disbelieved in Kepler\u2019s elliptical orbits of the planets, considering the circle the \u201cperfect\u201d shape for planetary orbits:<\/p>\n