Galileo Was Wrong

[filkertom]

And you thought the Armor of God PJs were cool.

Chicago Dyke, one of the regular commenters at Eschaton, calls our attention to Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right, the First Annual Catholic Conference on Geocentrism (i.e., the belief that the Earth is the physical center of the universe).

I am curious as to what the turtle's standing on.

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I am curious as to what the turtle's standing on.

According to Stephen Hawkings in A Brief History of Time:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

[sdelmonte]

As it happens, I am rereading Pratchett's Small Gods, and in there the question is answered "it's not on anything. It's swimming. What else would a turtle do?" Or something like that.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I can no longer distinguish real things from satire--which is this? Is it brilliant or terrifying?

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

I thought this was a joke. As a lasped Catholic who was never taught geocentrism in *Catholic* School except in the historical context of "what people used to believe", I can't decide whether to be offended or embarrassed.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Why do I get the feeling that there will be some anti-intellectual misuse of the fact of relative motion of objects in space?

[antinomic.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the turtle is similar to the South American frogs I have read about. You lick them for the drugs secreted by their skin. Lick the turtle, get more support for your belief. I think I need more coffee.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I like it!

[umbran.livejournal.com]

To quote professor Farnsworth, "I don't want to live on this planet any more."

I wonder how much of the question can be dispelled by simply noting that the Earth is the center of the observed universe...

[arensb.livejournal.com]

I addressed this elsewhere, in a post that showed the Earth's special place in the universe.

You may want to avoid the comments if you don't want to weep in despair at the human race's inability to recognize sarcasm, though.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Of course the sun goes around the earth. That's perfectly observable. We only do it the other way around for science because the math is easier.

(This is my physicist husband's standard response)

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

So, let me get this correct. The primary assumption that our solar system is centered on the sun exists only because scientists are LAZY ABOUT MATH?

That does it. I'm going back to my high school and demand that all my math grades be changed to A plusses. They had no cause to wreck my self-esteem, just because scientists preferred to be slouches.

[eustaciavye.livejournal.com]

I feel a migraine coming on...

[urban-terrorist.livejournal.com]

I am curious about his IQ. Is it 20? or 25?

[jasperjones22.livejournal.com]

I'm actually trying to grasp the math on how the universe revolves around the Earth...is there some voodoo physics I was never taught that explains how countless tons of matter can revolve around a small planet?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

All I can think of are salad spinners (http://www.saladspinner.net/) and Spin Art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_art). (McDonald's has a pretty cool spin art online game (http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/promotions/Smoothies/spinart.html) to hawk their new fruit smoothies.) And those only work on one plane, not spherically.

On the other hand, even belief in gravity (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_theory_of_gravity_as_religion) isn't necessarily taken (http://universalbelief.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51) for (http://www.rpmministries.org/2010/09/hawking-or-god-who-do-you-believe/) granted (http://www.knowjesusknowgrace.com/teachings/38-belief/85-electricity-gravity-atoms-moleculesjesus).

[grimmbear.livejournal.com]

Well Tom, I would say the turtle is standing on his sad, outdated, morality that has no bearing on reality in any way shape or form.

(but that's just MY opinion).

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I am vaguely curious as to how these people explain the phases of Venus.

Not so curious, however, as to waste my time reading their work.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No problem. At one point, she had arms; later, they fell off.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Well, it IS nice of the wack-jobs who have completely lost their shit and are residing in fantasy land to self-identify like this. We can now tag them as "utterly ignorable."

But we won't, we'll keep paying attention to them. Because everyone loves to point and laugh.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I pay attention mostly because they keep trying to legislate their quaint and interesting beliefs into school science curricula and policy decisions.

[dysprog.livejournal.com]

That's it. I resign for the human race. I don't want to be a member any more. Not if we're letting these idiots in.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Please, I want someone to go there and ask them to explain the orbital mechanics of every planetary space probe launched in the past fifty years. Especially Voyager 1 and 2.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

Oh, those were lies perpetrated by the Liberal Media™.

[jovan-scorn.livejournal.com]

This hasn't been mentioned yet but maybe these guys, or rather the guys behind the speakers, are actually pretty sharp. Their science is made of ass and old shoes but their business may be spot on.

The slots on the conference are $50 each and include lunch (cold mac and cheese probably), vol 1 of their argument is $45, vol 2 is $40. You can get both teogether for $86 and o0f course donations are accpeted to sponsor! Even the abbreviated version of both books together is $30. Being a Catholic conference may even let them sidestep some taxes and you never know, they may recieve a kickback from the hotel for booking enough rooms.

I think it's well and good to be critical of bad science but we also need to examine the possibility that bad science is just a front snake oil salesmen selling their bottled variety of crazy.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

This still leaves me concerned with the people who will pay money for this. If they didn't believe it, they wouldn't pay money to have somebody reinforce their views.

[pabsungenis.livejournal.com]

I'm so ashamed to admit that I'm related to him. Even the rest of his family thinks that Bob Sungenis is a nutcase.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I was wondering. So sorry, dude. [big damn manly punch on the shoulder]

[dlobok.livejournal.com]

If I wasn't going to be at New England Webcomics Weekend that day, I'd be going to this event.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

What gets me is that this bogus idiot can run around introducing himself as a Doctor, because he got a PhD in some religious school. Personally I would like to see that term restricted to only those who undergo the rigorous of a science curricula. Letting anybody use the title because they spent money for a few years at some diploma mill just makes me ill. I have probably forgotten more science (and that's very little) than this nutcase has ever known. That he got a piece of paper to sit still for the word Doctor to preface his name gives him fake credibility to unknowing marks and reporters. But it doesn't mean he knows diddly over squat.

I'd LOVE to see his mathematical description to describe the difference in percieved orbits of Jupiter's moons. With the invention of the telescope and good clocks, the timing of Jupiter's Galieon moons were recorded. But as a year went on, the moons were either early or late to appear above Jupiter's crest. Modern theory and the speed of light makes this an easy problem to solve. For Geocentrist theory to prevail, there has to be a God DJing to the cosmos and scratching with the entire universe as its turntable, turning the orbits forward and back, forward and back, forward and back...

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Robert J. Bennett, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in General Relativity from Stevens Institute of Technology.


That's the one that boggles my mind.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

Regarding the pajamas, anyone mocking those has clearly NEVER dealt with a 4-5 year old who is afraid of the dark.

Talismans and affirmations are very effective in keeping bad dreams away, hence the popularity of the dreamcatcher - they work because we pretend they do, behold the power of positive thinking on something as malleable as dreams.

Seriously. By the time you hit the age of monsters in the dark, most parents are desperate enough for a good night's sleep to try ANYTHING. My kid's got a chunk of malachite in her pillowcase and I ward her room every night to keep the monsters out (at least the ones that we haven't befriended by feeding them imaginary cookies). It works, not because the wards keep monsters out, but because she believes they do.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

I like the jammies too. Heck, I'd wear them for fun!

[ladyskada.livejournal.com]

The "conference" is being held in Indiana, the same state that brought us Dan "Potato" Quayle. 'Nuff said.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Now, now. A lot of our friends are in Indiana. And Indianapolis is quite a good convention town (InConJunction and GenCon, to name two).

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

How lucky for them that the URL was available. I wonder why no one else wanted it?

http://www.galileowasrighttorecant_thechurchwaswrongforapologizingtohimposthumously.com is not as catchy, but also still open should they need it.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Livejournal, for automatically turning URLs into live links. Confusion to Google!

[alverant.livejournal.com]

It makes the whole "religious tolerance" thread we had over the weekend that much tougher.

I understand that during the Dark Ages they did try to do the math to justify the earth being the center of the universe. But the equations were extraordinary long and complex. Making the sun the center of the solar system made it so much easier.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

I had fun reading the recommendations by other autors/scientists and imagining what bits were edited off their comments to make them seem complimentary. For example:

"It is with pleasure that I remand this volume into the hands of the reader"(Martin Selbrede, Chief Scientist, Unipixel) Edited to delete "because I can't possibly get it out of my hands so I can wash them repeatedly quickly enough. Can I use bleach? Please?"

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Human beings have an innate necessity to feel some sense of community, this includes the lonely, the isolated and the pathetic.

You've been to furry conventions, you should know this.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Enough with the furries, already.