Sensasjon: Naturvitere er ikke historikere

Siden jorden ikke står stille, fortsetter runden i Kosmos.

Igjen er det renessanseregneren Thony Christie som prikker de vanlig mistenkte i siden.

According to people such as Jason Rosenhouse and P Z Myer the persecution of such notable scientists as Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei by the Catholic Church has definitely hindered the progress of science and for good measure they or their supporters quote the words of wisdom of Über-Guru Neil deGasse Tyson that without religion science would be a thousand years more advanced.

Hvis det nå skulle stemme at Kirken forfulgte Bruno og Galileo for å stanse vitenskapen, klarte denne skummelt effektive gjengen å gjennomføre sitt forsett? Bremset de troen på at jorden kretset om solen eller at universet er uendelig eller at solen bare er én av mange stjerner?

Og har Rosenhouse og Myer snev av evidens for sine påstander, når de går så hardt og høyt ut fra hoppkanten med teusener på teusener av tilskuere?

Given their outspoken support of the ‘scientific method’, whatever that might be, you would expect them to do so, wouldn’t you? Do they hell! They don’t waste one single word on the topic. No evidence, no proofs, no academic arguments just plain straightforward unsubstantiated claims in the style of the gutter press.

Kort sagt er vitenskapshistorikere som Thony C ikke veldig imponert.

Nå kan det jo likevel være sant, selv om disse to eller andre ikke legger frem evidens. Så da er det greit å se om de som kjenner kilder og historisk utvikling kan hjelpe dem.

Og det kan de altså ... ikke.

For det første var det ikke mulig å sjekke om Brunos påstander om et uendelig univers stemte. Dermed var det verken noen data eller forskere å undertrykke.

Copernicus himself expressly left the question as to whether the cosmos is finite or infinite, as he said, to the philosophers, with good reason. This question was purely speculative and could not, with the evidence and possibilities available to the Renaissance astronomer, be addressed in anything approaching a scientific manner. To all intents and purposes the cosmos appeared finite and Renaissance scholars had no means available to prove otherwise.

 For det andre var påstanden ikke ny. 

In his own times Nicolas Cusanus had already considered the question and earlier, in the first-century BCE, the Epicurean philosopher poet Lucretius, Bruno’s inspiration, had included it in his scientific poem De rerum natura. Lucretius of course did not invent the concept but was merely repeating the beliefs of the fifth-century BCE Greek atomists.

For det tredje var påstanden en ikke uvanlig tanke på denne tiden.

All of this demonstrates that the idea of an infinite cosmos was fairly common at the beginning of the seventeenth century and nothing the Church said or did was likely to stop anybody speculating about it.

For det fjerde prøvde mange å finne ut av dette, selv om det lenge ikke var mulig.

Amongst others Galileo, Jeremiah Horrocks, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton all tried to estimate/calculate the distances within the solar system and outward towards the stars. First in the middle of the eighteenth century with the transit of Venus measurements were these efforts rewarded with a minimum of success. It wasn’t until the early nineteenth century that the first stellar distance measurements, through stellar parallax, were achieved.

For det femte påvirket altså Kirken nada negativt siden det som tok tid var å utvikle nødvendig matematikk, begrepsaparat og måleinstrumenter.

Hva så med påstanden om at solen bare var én av mange stjerner?

Nei, igjen har vi å gjøre med en hypotese som for det første ikke var ny og man for det andre ikke kunne avgjøre om stemte, gitt datidens matematiske verktøy, teorier og instrumenter.

Once again there was nothing new in this. Anaxagoras had already had the same idea in the fifth-century BCE and John Philoponus in the fifth-century CE. Once again the problem with this speculation was not any form of religious objection but a lack of scientific theory and expertise to test it. This first became available in the nineteenth century with development of spectroscopy. This of course first required the development of the new matter theory throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a process that involved an awful lot of science.

Men det må da ha vært et sjokk at Bruno hevdet at flere av planetene var bebodd? Der hadde vel Kirken mye å slå ned på?

Nei, heller ikke dette var noe nytt og det var altså umulig å avklare rundt år 1600. Vi har den dag i dag ikke avklart det.

Konklusjonen er ganske så klar.

Given my knowledge of the history of science I can’t see anywhere, where the Church hindered or even slowed down scientific progress on those things that Bruno speculated about in his cosmological fantasy.

Men Galileo-saken, viser vel Kirkens vilje og evne til å fjerne brysomme naturvitere? Og ikke minst skape et klima som ødelegger for forutsetningen for vitenskap, det som Popper kaller for det åpne samfunn?

Vel, det er ikke enkelt å finne evidens. Det er normalt at det tar tid for helt nye teorier blir akseptert. Det hjelper ikke at de som oftest har mange uavklarte og kritiske spørsmål, eller hvis de kommer dårligere ut enn konkurrerende teorier og ikke kan avklares med tilgjengelige verktøy.

Eller ikke stemmer.

Blant det som måtte aksepteres, var at vi ikke ble blåst vekk selv om jorden suste gjennom rommet i tusener av km i timen.

The problematic objections were observationally empirical and had already been discussed by Ptolemaeus in his Syntaxis Mathematiké in the second-century CE. Put very simple if the world is spinning very fast and hurtling through space at an alarming speed why don’t we get blown away? Copernicus had the correct answer to this problem when he suggested that the atmosphere was carried round with the earth in the form of a bubble so to speak. Unfortunately he lacked the physics to explain and justify such a claim. It would take most of the seventeenth century and the combined scientific efforts of Kepler, Galileo, Stevin, Borelli, Descartes, Pascal, Huygens, Newton and a whole boatload of lesser lights to create the necessary physics to explain how gravity holds the atmosphere in place whilst the earth is moving.  This process was not hindered by the Church in anyway whatsoever.

Videre manglet man altså data og flere konkurrerende teorier sto sterkere. Også når det gjaldt å forklare hvordan det kan ha seg at planetene beveger seg frem og tilbake på himmelen.

Disgusted by the inaccuracy of both systems Tycho Brahe started a new long-term observational programme to obtain new accurate data. Whilst doing so he developed a third model, the so-called geo-heliocentric model, in which the planets orbited the sun, which in turn orbited the stationary earth. This model had the advantage of explaining retrograde motion without setting the earth in motions, a win-win situation. 

Dermed var det kanskje ikke helt uforståelig at Kirken reagerte skarpt når noen hardnakket hevdet at det var bevist at jorden gikk i bane rundt solen.

It should be pointed out that due to the attempts of Galileo and Foscarini to reinterpret Holy Scripture in favour of heliocentricity the Catholic Church had entered the action in 1615 and forbidden the heliocentric theory but not the heliocentric hypothesis. The distinction is important. The theory says heliocentricity is a scientific fact the hypothesis says it’s a possibility. At this time heliocentricity was in fact an unproved hypothesis and not a theory.

 Men hindret ikke forbudet mot at fremme denne teorien vitenskapen, uansett? Nei, astronomene fortsatte å lete etter evidens og løsninger på kritiske spørsmål.

This is the point where Rosenhouse-Myers step in and claim that the Church hindered scientific progress but did they. The straightforward answer is no. The astronomers and physicist carried on looking for answers to the open questions and solutions to the existing problems. There is no evidence whatsoever of a slowing down or interruption in their research efforts.

Hva så når det fantes evidens? Kirken må jo ha prøvd å undertrykke det som etterhvert kom av slik?

Ikke helt. Med Keplers teori om at planetene gikk i ellipsebaner om solen (noe som forklarte observasjonene bedre enn Galileis sirkelbaner) og stadig nye data, begynte det heliosentiske verdensbildet for alvor å bli akseptert blant astronomer rundt 1660.

Og det hadde verken vært mulig eller vitenskapelig forsvarlig å akseptere det før da.

Between 1618 and 1621 Kepler published his Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae explaining his elliptical astronomy and his three laws of planetary motion in simple terms and in 1627 the Tabulae Rudolphinae the astronomical tables based on his system and Tycho’s new accurate data. It was these two publications that would lead to the general acceptance of heliocentricity by those able to judge by around 1660. Kepler’s publications delivered the desired accurate prognoses of planetary positions, eclipses etc. required by astrologers, cartographers, navigators etc.

Vitenskapshistorikere som Thony Christie ser rett og slett ingen evidens for at Kirken hindret at denne type teorier ble akseptert. Antallet studenter ved universitetene økte, det ble skrevet stadig flere og bedre bøker om astronomiske modeller, basert på stsadig bedre observasjoner.

At no point in the 120 years between the initial publication of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus and the general acceptance of heliocentricity in the form of Kepler’s elliptical astronomy is there any evidence of the Church having slowed or hindered progress in this historical process. 

Og dette var altså fortsatt flere generasjoner før det forelå solide bevis.

To close it should be pointed out that it would be another seventy years before any solid scientific evidence for the heliocentric hypothesis was found by Bradley, in the form of stellar aberration.

Men det vil nok fortsatt gå noen generasjoner før vanlige mistenkte aksepterer at det ikke finnes evidens for at Kirken bremset aksepten.