A really fucking stupid statement

WARNING: This is an angry rant and contains explicitly obscene language. If you object to the use of such expressions then don’t fucking read it!

 

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. [Ambrose Bierce, “Devil’s Dictionary,” 1911]

 

Rick Perry Governor of Texas proved that he would be a worthy successor to George W. Bush in terms of stupidity by invoking the Galileo Gambit. Naturally the scientific oriented intertubes community pounced on the hapless Perry delivering body blows like Mike Tyson  on speed. Unfortunately in doing so many of them displayed a historical ignorance that almost matched that of Perry.

Following hot on the heels of M. J. Robbins, journalist David Zax drew attention to his 2009 article Galileo’s Vision at Smithsonian. com written to accompany an exhibition in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy. This article contains so many historical errors and falsehoods that I can’t even be bothered to find the time and energy to shit on it. However Robbins and Zax have a rival in the self-named science communicator Chris Mooney who proudly titles his contribution to the debate with a really fucking stupid statement, Galileo Was a Liberal.

This is one of the most pathetic examples of brainless presentism that I have read in a long time. Liberal and Conservative are terms in the actual sociopolitical context in America and are not applicable to the context of Late Renaissance Northern Italian culture (The word liberal was first used in English with its political meaning in the 19th century)

. The terms are so specific to the here and now in American politics that they are not even transferable to contemporaneous European politics. In fact they have changed so much in their connotations that they are not even applicable without extensive qualification to American politics, lets say, in the 1960s. Mr Mooney Galileo could not have been not a fucking Liberal your proud statement is meaningless crap.

Of course Mooney tries to cover his arse against this criticism, let us look at what he actually wrote,

In the context of his times, Galileo was a liberal. He was a fearless explorer of new knowledge, as well as a puckish challenger of assumed wisdom.

Mr Mooney in the context of his times the word liberal has no fucking meaning, end!

However let’s examine Mooney’s fearless explorer of new knowledge. Was Galileo being fearless in his Il Saggiatore as he used polemic and invective to pulverise the Jesuit astronomer Grassi who using empirical observation and mathematics had given the correct explanation of the nature of comets whereas Galileo was defending the incorrect Aristotelian explanation? Was Galileo being fearless when he deliberately ignored the best astronomical work on the heliocentric hypothesis available at the time, that of Kepler, because it might have stolen his glory? Was Galileo being fearless when he refused to acknowledge the superiority of the astronomical or Keplerian telescope because he had not invented/marketed it? Was Galileo being fearless when he propagated his totally anti-scientific theory of the tides as the highpoint of his Dialogo? Galileo’s scientific work is a mixture of progressive and stock conservative and to claim otherwise is a perversion of history. Another question does being a good for ones times scientific investigator automatically make one a liberal? I and many, many conservative scientists beg to differ. Was Edward Teller a liberal? I don’t fucking think so!

As liberal and conservative are terms of the sociopolitical and not the scientific context let us for a brief moment assume that they were applicable to 17th century Northern Italy and see if Galileo is a liberal or a conservative when viewed politically. Before his explosive climb to fame or better notoriety in 1610 Galileo was a professor for mathematics at the University of Padua the university of the Republic of Venice. When he published his Sidereus Nuncius he was awarded a life time contract with a dream salary however he chose instead to cash in his fame for a position as courtier at the absolutist Medici court in Florence. If he had stayed in the relatively liberal Venice he would have been able to publish what he liked with little fear of retribution. His friend Sarpi, the historian and theologian, was much more a thorn in the flesh of the Catholic Church than Galileo would ever be but the Republic of Venice would not have dreamed of delivering him up to the authorities in Rome and indeed never did so. If Galileo had remained in Padua he could have fearlessly explored new knowledge, as well as a puckishly challenged assumed wisdom to his hearts content with little fear of anybody. However our hero chose the career path of a courtier at an absolutist court where his life literally hung on the whims of his feudal lord. He then spent the next twenty plus years until his fall eagerly climbing the greasy pole of absolutist court politics. In fact this probably had more to do with his eventual fall than his scientific activities but that is a theme for a separate post. I think one can safely say that in the sociopolitical context of late Renaissance Northern Italy Galileo was very much a conservative member of the establishment.

I’m not a member of the P. Z. Myers’ anti-Mooney claque and find quite a lot of his articles very positive but as far as I’m concerned this time he would have been well advised if he had put his brain into gear before putting finger to keyboard. You might think I’m exaggerating but let us review what Money actually did. Firstly he produced a really bad case of presentism, which as far as I’m concerned is a cardinal sin in the history of science. Secondly he claimed that being a good scientist automatically makes someone a liberal, which is just plain stupid. Finally he proudly states that Galileo was a liberal whereas any examination of Galileo’s life shows him to have been a conservative member of the absolutist establishment of his times in sociopolitical terms. Put simply Mooney fucked up.

Before I leave the subject of Galileo and bad science journalism the article by David Zax, that I mentioned above, links to another article by Sarah Zielinski, which illustrates and describes the instrument from the Franklin Institute exhibition. The centrepiece of the exhibition was one of Galileo’s telescopes the descriptive text from Ms Zielinski reads:

Galileo’s telescope anchors the exhibit “Galileo, the Medici and the Age of Astronomy,” which is at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia until September 7, 2009. Though Galileo didn’t invent the telescope (Dutch opticians did), he improved upon it. The first telescope used a combination of two lenses within a tube, and it could magnify items by three times, but showed them upside down. But when Galileo constructed his own telescope in 1609, he added a third lens. His telescope magnified items by eight times and showed them right side up. Over the following years, Galileo built several telescopes, including one that would magnify items by a factor of 30.

The emphasized lines show that the writer has absolutely no idea what she’s writing about! All of Galileo’s telescopes are so-called Dutch telescopes, which have two lenses a convex objective and a concave ocular or eyepiece. Such a telescope has an upright image. The astronomical telescope designed by Kepler in 1611 has two convex lenses, both objective and ocular, and inverts its image. Galileo never built or used such a telescope. The three lens or terrestrial telescope, also invented by Kepler in 1611, has convex objective and ocular and a third convex inverter lens which produces an upright image. This telescope was also never used by Galileo. One would think that The Smithsonian Magazine would employ a better standard of reporter.