Just a few miscellanea i want to talk about...
Haven't seen any statements involving "global cooling" other than those from Fox's propaganda machine. Global temperatures are up, just not as much as predicted. Weather patterns are more effected than originally estimated. These models aren't perfect.
There are statements discussing what is often referred to as global cooling, even in scientific journals. It wasn't global as it was pretty much confined to the industrial world, and we have attributed the general decrease in global average temperature from 1940s to 1970s (e.g. the drop seen on the graph
here) to industrial aerosols. Essentially aerosols reflect light away and thus less sunlight means cooler temperatures. Here's a
source if you're interested in more detail, but in either case, global warming isn't entirely relevant to the discussion anyway.
Which is why the wise claim to truly know nothing. In fact, no one can know anything for certain (in reality anyway, logical definitions and mathematical proofs are a little different), which is why science isn't about knowing things for absolutely certain - it's about approximating what we see as closely as we're able to.
After all, only a Sith deals in absolutes~
Even in mathematics I wouldn't say we know anything for certain. I really appreciate Feynman's
description of the Babylonian way of doing mathematics compared to the Greek way of doing mathematics. Essentially, with mathematics, you can prove a lot of conditional (if this then that), but you can never really decide on an axiom. Even axioms that seem intuitively must have inconsistency or incompleteness; something that was proved by Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, which you can read about
here.
As it stands, I'd even throw mathematics in the bucket of "things we think are probably true but could very well not be." The only difference is that in mathematics, what's considered (in some sense, absolutely) true and false changes with time whereas in science everything is taken as tentatively true until someone else has an idea with more predictable power.
Last thing I want to comment on is the Galileo affair. The entire thing is complicated, and if you have time,
this documentary does an interesting job describing it. In either case, I'll refer to this
source since it's been awhile since I watched that documentary and not gonna rewatch it for the details.
Characterizing religion's *exact* role int he Galileo affair is not an easy thing to do; sure, religion was a primary driving force but it wasn't the only one; and there was still legitimate scientific objection for some time.
The major scientific objection was clarification on how, if the Earth moved in a heliocentric model, can we not feel the earth move? Galileo eventually answered this question (in the form of Galilean relativity); but not before creating a lot of noise. One person took offense to a scientific work of his on religious reasons, and he responded back by saying that we need to sometimes take scripture figuratively. This debacle between Galileo and one person eventually got the church's attention because Galileo was creating a lot of noise.
But the real concern was the effect that Galileo's ideas would have on the world; after all, religion was so central to this world any evidence to undermine religion may have had serious social consequence--in other words, it was the backlash to Galileo's ideas that were the church's main concern, not Galileo's ideas per se. To quote the secondary source I am using:
In [ Cardinal Bellarmine's] innate conservatism he saw the Copernican universe as threatening to the social order. To Bellarmine and much of the Church's upper echelon, the science of the matter was beyond their understanding--and in many cases their interest. They cared about administration and preserving the power of the papal superstate more than they did getting astronomical facts right.
And then in the end, a new pope took over and Galileo was allowed to speak of the matter neutrally and hypothetically. In fact, the Pope's secretary wrote to Galileo:
"If you would resolve to commit to print those ideas that you still have in mind, I am quite certain that they would be most acceptable to His Holiness, who never ceases from admiring your eminence and preserves intact his attachment for you. You should not deprive the world of your productions."
However, Galileo's dialogue was anything
but neutral. I should mention in this very dialogue, he presented forth Galilean relativity which at least settled the big scientific question. He also basically made the Pope Urban VIII (the new Pope that allowed him to at least talk about it) look like an idiot via the character Simplicio, which added fuel to the fire even if he was getting the science right.
On the other hand, the actual Condemnation (i.e. sentencing) Galileo got was, well, I'll just
qoute it here:
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it, by glossing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning: and whereas there was thereupon produced the copy of a document in the form of a letter, purporting to be written by you to one formerly your disciple, and in this divers propositions are set forth, following the position of Copernicus, which are contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture:
In either case, it's a mixed bag. On one hand, the whole affair culminated in Galileo basically having to affirm to the geocentric model despite providing (at that time) a powerful case for the heliocentric model of the universe. On other hand, Galileo's attitude during the whole affair made it a lot worse then it could have been, particularly how he presented Simplicio in his Dialogue.
That said, a fair amount of lingering doubts disappeared after the Galileo affair when Newton basically created what amounted to a mathematical scripture of proof that the heliocentric model was the correct by deducing motion to four basic laws (three laws of motion + law of gravity); in particular, the scientific community felt confident in Copernicus's ideas as fact after Galileo provided his principle relativity that basically cleared the elephant in the room as far as science was concerned.
As it stands, I'm pretty sure a lot of people here would have a lot more to say about the Galileo affair (i.e. it's an extremely powerful case of religion impeding science or it's too slippery of an example); at the very least, I figured that I'd share my understanding and thoughts on it.
