Galileo Modern Hero

Beacon in Troubled Times During the challenging times of today we especially need to lean on the heroic "symbols of the past. In the United States and Britain in particular we see a rapid retreat from hard won values by a public easily herded by politicians seizing "terrorism" as a political opportunity and a media concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy actors. Critics of the attacks on freedoms are shamelessly branded as "appeasers", and likened to Chamberlin, Clemenceau and others, who, pursuing policies of expediency and self-interest, foolishly tried to appease Hitler in the 1930's. When misapplied to defenders of civil and human rights today this comparison conspires to silence those, like Galileo, whom we most need to hear from.
Nothing could be more of a distortion than such cheap attempts to silence democratic dissent. A more appropriate analogy would be to see today's advocates of civil rights, due process and democracy as the few who opposed Hitler and his Brownshirts as they marched into the Bundestag in 1933; all with the permission of a German public which was stampeded into accepting an expedient answer to the much milder threats of violence and socialism.
Indeed, in these precipitious times of retrenchment we must guard against the attack on freedom and do well to turn to champions of freedom of thought and expression. As Western societies continue to stuggle to find a satisfactory response to the September attack on the American targets we need to be guided more by the Galileo's, Socrates' and Jefferson's and less by the confused war hawks of our times. Throughout the conflict western response has been largely misguided, mistakiing symptoms for causes. The most serious casualty has been the proscription of democratic freedoms cited previously in Historacle. As always, in addition to strong arguments, powerful symbols are needed to communicate truth effectively. Let us not be too shy to lean on Galileo for his commitment to free inquiry and expression, his fierce independence and confidence which supported a healthy sckepicism of authoritarianism.

Galileo and the Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution which began in the Renaissance and culminated with Newton's synthesis in 1685, would transform the world as only a handful of other hist- orical developments. Of course this new way of looking at & understanding the world has been ongoing ever since.
It has transformed the world: secularizing it, erradicating much disease, mechanizing labour, making slavery obsolete, freeing human thought and expression, liberating women, drastically altering ecology, extending human life span and even threatening the continued survival of life on the planet.
Galileo Galilei, the intellectual martyr, was of course the quintessential pioneer of . His confrontation with the authority of the state and church. his cultivation of scientific methodology, his Renaissance Platonism and imagination, and ultimately, the battery of proofs of Copernicanism and disproofs of Geocentrism which caused the implosion of the hide bound views of authority.
Fulfilling Archimedes dictum, "Give me a place to stand and I can move the Earth"; Galileo shook the earth as no other individual, giving it a place to stand -on the broad back of science and free inquiry.

RETHINKING GALILEO
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), rightly honoured as a champion of freedom of thought and expression has long been cast as the father of modern science. His actions and ideas are erroneously purported to be those of a replete modern scientist. He was not. This widespread but distorted positivist view exploits Galileo's achievements to serve the econcomic interests of industrial science. . The Thinker, Auguste Rodin.

By ignoring evidence, overstating .... , oversimplifying motives, and mistaking effects for causes positivist historians of science trumpet Galileo a complete modern scientist in 1600. He was not.
He was indeed an early "scientist", still in the mold of a natural philosopher. It would be more exact to say he was a true Renaissance Humanist one with a keen interest in philosophical critique, inquiry and --together with his broad interests-- in science as a tool in reforming natural philosophy.____________________________The Thinker, Rodin

For the complete account examine the upcoming definitive work
Galileo's Musical Background and the Scientific Revolution: Key to a Renaissance Platonist by Frank Anderson.