“Take off the superhero garb placed on him by his
later biographers,
and it is clear that Galileo wasn’t the father of anything. He didn’t
invent
the scientific method. He wasn’t the first to apply mathematics to
science,
nor did he discover the first mathematical law of science”.
Thony Christie
Galileo’s reputation is more hyperbole than truth | Aeon Ideas
Galileo’s reputation is
more hyperbole than truth
If you ask people to name the greatest
scientist of all time, many will most probably answer: Galileo. In the popular
presentations of the history of science, he is portrayed as a one-man
revolution, an intellectual superhero who dragged science kicking and screaming
into the modern era. Even Stephen Hawking validates this view: ‘Galileo,
perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of
modern science,’ he wrote in A Brief History of Time (1990).
In popular books and websites, Galileo is regularly credited as the inventor of
the scientific method, the first to apply mathematics to science, the
discoverer of the first mathematical law of science, and on and on.
The descriptions sound too good to be true –
and they are. Galileo’s vast reputation, and the hyperbolic accolades that go
with it, are not justified by the real history. With a corrected perspective on
the man comes a rich and compelling pair of questions: what did Galileo
actually achieve, and where does the science superhero image come from?
In 1609, Galileo Galilei was a 45-year-old,
largely unknown, north Italian professor of mathematics, a profession with a
low social status, well on his way to total obscurity. He had produced his
brilliant experimental demonstrations of the laws of falling bodies years
earlier but had not published them. He was known among his circle of friends as
a purveyor of good wines and a castigating, razor-sharp wit. Then Galileo
stumbled upon the recently invented telescope and began the astronomical
observations that would make him famous. Realising that he had lucked onto the
scientific equivalent of winning the lottery, he rushed into print in early
1610.
Overnight, Galileo became the most renowned
astronomer in Europe. However, he was not the only telescopic astronomical
observer at the time, and all the discoveries he made were made independently
and contemporaneously by others in Britain, Germany, even Italy. This point is
hard to reconcile with the modern myth because even if Galileo had never used a
telescope, it would not have changed anything in the history of astronomy.
Having parlayed his discoveries into a new
position as court philosopher and mathematician to the Medici in Florence,
Galileo’s fame rested largely on those telescopic discoveries and his
demolition of scientific opponents in public debates and in his writing.
Although his defence of Copernicanism – presented in his book Dialogue
Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) – brought him that
notorious Inquisition trial and house arrest, it did not, as popular opinion
has it, win the day for heliocentricity. That honour goes to the much duller
tomes of Johannes Kepler, whose work Galileo had ignored in his own volume.
In all his scientific endeavours, Galileo did
not stand alone, as he is often presented. Rather, as with the telescopic
discoveries, he was part of a sizable community all working on the same
problems. Even his greatest scientific work, the Discourses and
Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (1638), was
shadowed by the independent work of others, such as the Flemish mathematician
Simon Stevin and the Dutch natural philosopher Isaac Beeckman.
Galileo achieved considerable fame in his
lifetime, but in the 17th century his reputation rested firmly on his
telescopic discoveries. His contribution to the debate over the heliocentric
view of the solar system was rather minimal, and despite the best efforts of
Marin Mersenne (the century’s greatest science communicator) to publicise
his Discourses, they didn’t have that great an impact.
Today it is often claimed that Galileo is one
of the giants on whose shoulders Newton stood, but he plays a rather minor role
in Newton’s masterwork, Principia Mathematica (1687). By the
18th century, Galileo was slipping into obscurity outside of Italy. Then he
experienced a remarkable resurrection.
Galileo’s rise to immortality starts at the
end of the 18th century. In this period, scientific biography started to become
popular, and Galileo became a favourite subject, largely because of his
persecution by the Catholic Church. This effect was immensely magnified by the
largely mythical war between science and religion in the late 19th century,
waged by two US-based scientist-historians, John William Draper and Andrew
Dickson White. They wrote passionately about religion as an obstacle to the
forces of progress, and advanced a self-congratulatory thesis in which Western
civilisation had steadily emerged from the ignorance of the Dark Ages to the
modern age of Enlightenment. This was an outgrowth of the broader rejection of
the dominance of religious thought, which had emerged in Europe during the
Enlightenment and had been enthusiastically adopted by influential American
intellectual figures including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
To fit into this narrative, Galileo was
presented as a solitary hero defending Copernicanism against the ignorance and
prejudice of the Church.
Draper and White also promoted the notion
that medieval scholars, blinded by theology, had believed the world was flat –
another myth that has wormed its way into generally accepted truth.
Galileo’s elevation to scientific sainthood
was aided by his sharply worded publications. His talents as a scientist were
considerable, if overrated, but his greatest skill was, without doubt, that of
a writer. His scientific publications are masterpieces of rhetoric and polemic,
delightful to read, informative and entertaining. The Discourses,
his most important scientific work, contains beautiful illustrations by Galileo
himself, proving that he was also an able artist. In comparison, the works of
Kepler, Stevin and their contemporaries are turgid and boring, difficult to
read and to comprehend. By the early 20th century, more than two centuries
after his death, Galileo had fully become the Master of the Universe that his
Victorian biographers created.
So how should we evaluate Galileo today?
Mackey’s comment: I’d like to step in here regarding this
question, by referencing my article:
Machiavelli in the name Achitophel, Galileo Galilei in the name Gamaliel
(3) Machiavelli in the name
Achitophel, Galileo Galilei in the name Gamaliel
Thony Christie continues:
He was a superb experimental scientist and
astronomical observer, a gifted instrument-maker, and an inventive theorist,
who was among the first rank of investigators developing modern science in the
first half of the 17th century. But, and it’s a very big but, he was not alone.
Galileo was part of a collective, a whole community of brilliant thinkers who
were expanding the boundaries of science.
Take off the superhero garb placed on him by
his later biographers, and it is clear that Galileo wasn’t the father of
anything. He didn’t invent the scientific method. He wasn’t the first to apply
mathematics to science, nor did he discover the first mathematical law of
science. His telescopic observations were exquisite, but not unique. He did
make several important contributions to the development of both science and
technology, and he presented his work in exemplary style.
I would be tempted to call Galileo primus
inter pares – first among equals – within the scientific community of
his time, were it not for Kepler, the mathematical visionary who deduced the
orbital shapes and laws of motion that guide the movements of the planets.
Although he enjoys a far less popular reputation, Kepler contributed more than
Galileo to the development of modern science. You might more properly acclaim
him as a hero. Most accurately, though, you would recognise science for what it
truly is: a group activity of great minds collaborating, challenging and
goading each other into the unknown.
