Interview: Thony Christie on the Galileo Affair
This is a long-awaited addition to the History for Atheists video channel – my long and detailed interview with historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus blog. His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church. Thony and I spoke for almost two and a half hours on this subject, so I’ve edited our conversation into three parts of about 50 minutes each.
In Part One, we discuss the common myths that seem to be accepted by many people, and certainly by many atheists, about what happened in the Galileo Affair. Thony gives a detailed background to Galileo’s early career and the social and scientific context in which he worked. In Part Two we discuss Galileo’s key astronomical discoveries and then in Part Three the causes of the controversy around his most famous book and his 1633 trial by the Inquisition.
And for those who prefer the audio version, the Podcast editions of all three parts are now up on Buzzsprout or most podcast platforms. Or you can listen to them on the History for Atheists podcast page.
Thony’s detailed, 52 part series of articles on the beginnings of modern astronomy is also a great resource: “The Emergence of Modern Astronomy – A Complex Mosaic”, and his articles in this series on Galileo are particularly useful in further debunking common myths on the subject. He has also kindly provided a detailed reading list with some notes for those who want to get an solid grasp of this important subject in the history of science and religion:
Thony Christie’s Recommended Reading
John Heilbron, Galileo, (OUP, 2010)
Up to date reasonably balanced general biography
Mario Biagioli, Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism, (University of Chicago Press, 1994)
Good overview of Galileo’s social and political tactics in acquiring status
Mario Biagioli, Galileo’s Instruments of Credit: Telescopes, Images, Secrecy, (University of Chicago Press, 2006)
Basically, sequel to the above on how Galileo used his telescopes in his search for fame and fortune
William Shea & Mariano Artigas, Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius, (OUP, 2003)
Good account of Galileo’s various journeys to Rome during his lifetime with a good account of his trial by the Roman Inquisition
Christopher M Graney, Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo, (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015)
What the title says, highly recommended
Maurice Finocchiaro, On Trial for Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair, (OUP, 2019)
Extensive account of all aspects of Galileo’s trial from perhaps the most knowledgeable Galileo historian, but who is also a Galileo fan.
Warning do not under any circumstances read Mario Livio, Galileo and the Science Deniers, (Simon & Shuster, 2020)
My review, why you shouldn’t waste you time and money on it, “How to create your own Galileo”, can be found here. However, be warned it’s very long!
And here is a translation of Cardinal Bellarmino’s “Letter to Foscarini” which we discuss in our conversation and which is crucial for an understanding of the critical issues of the Church’s approach to science and to the interpretation of the Bible.
18 thoughts on “Interview: Thony Christie on the Galileo Affair”
Great interview with Thony. My thanks to you both.
From the link to Thony:
“he is justifiably acknowledged as the second most important figure in sixteenth century astronomy, after Copernicus”
The word justifiably is misplaced. Granted, it’s with hindsight, but Brahe was actually more important than Copernicus. The latter’s model was abandoned within less than a century. Brahe’s methodology at the other hand – if you have two conflicting hypotheses, systematically collect empirical data that decide between them – is still used today. It’s ironical that Brahe did this more or less by accident. He was a positivist himself as he wanted to prove his own model, a mixture of the Ptolemean and Copernican models.
I’m not sure what Thony means with “this was a partnership made in hell” but by all means it was very fortunate that Brahe gave his observations to Johannes Kepler.
As a sidenote it’s interesting that Brahe moved from a protestant court to a catholic one, in a time of religious wars.
Hi Tim, I highly enjoyed the interview with Thony, very well done. I wanted to ask you: I recall (correct me if I’m wrong) that more than once you said that you intended to dispel some myths about ancient science (being similar or the same like ours) and medieval science (being non existent). You already address some aspects of ancient science in interviews you made and in the video about the Library of Alexandria, but never articulated it in a post here on the blog, even if I think you intended to. You could address the thesis of Carrier’s 2019 where he argued that the Roman empire was on the cusp of a Scientific revolution that was prevented by Christianity (accusing also the late Lindberg and Grant to be Christian apologists etc). Also addressing Lucio Russo’s thesis that in the Hellenistic period science was even superior to XVII c science, the laws of gravitations were correctly understood, heliocentrism was accepted and even proved contrary to mainstream narrative etc (even though Russo blames the Romans, not Christians, so maybe it doesn’t qualify as atheist badhistory). I think these scientific myths form a major part in anti-theist science badhistory, besides Hypatia, the Library and Galileo. Do you intend to write an article here for a full overview in the near future?
Thanks.
Unfortunately some articles are easier to write than others because I’ve been doing the relevant reading and research for years. When it comes to ancient science, I still have a lot of research to do to be able to critique the two fringe ideas (Carrier and Russo) you refer to. I did have a specialist in ancient science offer to do a guest post on those claims, but when I followed up with them I got no reply. So maybe I will be in a position to do so myself at some stage, but not yet. There’s way too much half-researched amateur stuff on the internet already – I don’t want to add to it with something not up to standard.
I see, it’s very judicious on your part. But what about Thony himself? He’s specialized in Renaissance science ofc, but he has written very good posts on ancient science, he has a very excellent knowledge of the subject (maybe less on medieval science?) You wrote some guest posts on his blog, he could write one here. I think he would have no problem in rebutting Carrier and Russo theses.
I’ll ask him. But he is more of an Early Modern Science man and asking him to read and analyse and critique two books on another field is possibly too big a favour from an already very busy person.
Fortunately there is some reliable stuff on internet as well. Regarding Russo one could start here:
https://physicsworld.com/a/praising-alexandrians-to-excess/
https://www.nature.com/articles/430614a
The big problem here of course is that physicists are not necessarily good historians and vice versa.
As for Carrier’s “the Roman empire was on the cusp of a Scientific revolution that was prevented by Christianity”, this is easy to refute: why didn’t the Romans pull it off then between say 250 and 350 CE, when christianity still had not enough power to prevent it? Any answer backed by evidence, please.
I’ve read a couple of your excellent articles. The ones on Hitler’s religious views, Hallowe’en and the Renaissance. All great stuff in fact. We do nowadays need something of a campaign for real history I’m beginning to think. Cheers!
When is the follow-up interview?
This interview went for two and half hours. Why would we need a follow up interview?
I know. I was just going by what you said towards the end: “we might need to get you back on to talk about some of those points in more detail.” (Part 3, starting 50:06).
https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html probably the best post I’ve seen on the Galileo affair here
Sadly the author passed away last year.
Hey Tim. I have a question regarding a claim that I’ve heard about in many new atheist circles. There’s this claim that people believed that the sun revolved around the earth because they wanted to feel special. In other words, they chose the geocentric model ovet the heliocentric model because they wanted to continue believing that humans were the center of the universe and the most important beings in the universe. If you want to see someone saying this, you can read this excerpt of a page from PBS:
“Before 1610, it was generally accepted that the universe was centered on the Earth, that God had made the Earth and made humans on it, and we were the center of everything.
After 1610, you have this empirical evidence that maybe the Copernican hypothesis of the sun being the center of the rotation of the universe is physically true…
…It has a kind of deeper psychological impact, I think, about where we are in the universe and what our whether we”’re anything special.
It starts to shift humanity from its central, God-given position physically at the center of the universe, to a more marginal position where we are third rock from the sun, hurtling through space.”
Is this idea that one of the reasons scientists and the Catholic Church at that time accepted the geocentric model over the heliocentric model because they wanted to believe the universe was made for them supported by any historical evidence?
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason, but was a desire to be the measure of all things an additional motivation for scientists and the Catholic Church to accept the geocentric model over the heliocentric model in the 17th century?
This actually gets things backwards. THe position of the earth in the geocentric model was not so much at the centre as at the bottom of the cosmos. It was the “most ignoble” position – the place furthest from the highest and pureest heavens where everything that was heavy, gross and material fell. It was, literally, the arsehole of the universe. So one of the complaints against heliocentrism was not that it demoted the earth from its special, central place, but that it demoted the noble Sun from its higher and better celestial circle to the ignoble centre/bottom. Dennis R. Danielson details this in his essay “The Great Copernican Cliche”, which describes how the mistaken idea that heliocentrism was resisted because it demoted the earth and humanity is mistaken and how this erroneous cliche arose.
Earth being being the lowermost sewage outflow pipe of the universe under the geocentric model is central to my favorite quote from the Divine Comedy:
“My eyes returned through
all seven spheres and saw this globe in such a way that I smiled at its meager image:
I approve that judgement as the best, which holds this earth to be the least; and he whose thoughts are set elsewhere, can truly be called virtuous.”
😲 I did not know that. Not only was the medieval/early modern view not what science commentators and popularizers atribute to it but it was the opposite. All these years, I belived what science popularizers like Carl Sagan said about how scientific findings demoted Earth from its special priviledged position. He loves to emphasize this myth, especially in his book Pale Blue Dot A Vision of the Human Future in Space. I accepted it because, the idea of “the center” sounds like the most important position. That’s usually how we use the concept nowadays (example: “he thinks he’s the center of the universe”). I assumed that what I considered the center was the same as what people in the past thought the center. In reality, I engaged in presentism, something that has to be avoided in the discipline of history. So, Heliocentrism actually promoted Earth’s position rather than demoted it, from what I’m gathering. Thanks for answering and thanks for the essay.