Geocentrists Convene To Discuss How Galileo Was Wrong 1027
rollcall writes "'Galileo Was Wrong' is an inaugural conference to discuss the 'detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe.' The geocentrists argue that 'Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the [Catholic] Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.' I, like many of you, am scratching my head wondering how people still think this way. Unfortunately, there is still a significant minority of Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe: 18% of Americans, 16% of Germans, and 19% of Britons."
I hope there is live blogging from the conference.
Re:Relativity Says It can be. (Score:2, Informative)
But earth is not in a rest frame, since it is both spinning around the sun and spinning around its axis. The Coriolis effect is proof that we don't live in an inertial frame.
Re:Doesn't the Bible say so? (Score:3, Informative)
In "believe anything written down" land (Score:4, Informative)
A compendium of bible quotes loosly supporting this:
http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/geocentric.shtml [hypertextbook.com]
Re:Doesn't the Bible say so? (Score:3, Informative)
Really? Because I'm rather familiar with the bible and no where does it say the earth is the center of the universe. Just created first.
Re:Next up on slashdot: (Score:2, Informative)
especially that Galileo only defended heliocentrism, as was described by Copernicus ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism [wikipedia.org] )
Re:Doesn't the Bible say so? (Score:5, Informative)
Except that we can measure the acceleration of the earth (rotation around the sun is obviously not a strait line, and easily measurable). So... yeah, you don't actually get the same results when you do the math for a point decoupled to the solar system and earth. No one outside of physics learns relativity, despite it being 100 year old science. Some may learn "pigeon" relativity, but that's not really helpful.
Re:Doesn't really matter... (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 pretty much did away with literacy tests for voters. Sigh.
Maybe because the literacy tests had nothing to do with knowledge and everything about (white) cultural familiarity? The examiners even got to select who took the test and who didn't. What could possibly go wrong?
Re:Doesn't the Bible say so? (Score:3, Informative)
Web site tense is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The summary should read:
Catholic] Church's historical position on the immobility of the Earth was not only scientifically supportable, but it was the most stable model of the universe
The Roman Catholic Church long ago accepted our current scientific understanding of the organization of celestial bodies.
Oh, and evolution through natural selection as well.
And one of its greatest thinkers [wikipedia.org] believed that reason and faith were both equally valid ways to truth and not in conflict at all.
These nuts are in no way affiliated with official Roman Catholic Church positions. So let's just halt the Church bashing before we begin, ok?
Re:Website Design for Crazy People (Score:5, Informative)
This may not be Mosaic, but I'm sure they were taken aback when GeoCities folded and they had to move.
What does the 17% mean? (Score:5, Informative)
What does the claim that 17% of the population believe in a geocentric earth mean? Even assuming that there's no one in that population that is simply saying that for kicks, it seems probable that a large part are simply answering that way because they don't know anything either way and are just guessing. At some level that's not as bad as having people who actively believe in geocentrism. But at another level, that means that one should expect that around 34% are really ignorant and have of them just got lucky when asked. That's not good. However, I suspect that some of these answers really are just people messing with the polsters or not bothering to thing.
But one thing to note is that many of the geocentrists are religious. Not only is geocentrism common among Christians but there's a substantial fraction of ultra-Orthodox (charedi) Jews who are affirmatively geocentrist. This is especially common among the chabad chassidim who are often geocentrists because their guru, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, made pro-geocentrist comments and because they want to preserve the word of Maimonides as inerrant (of course some of these are the same sort of people who refuse kidney transplants because the Talmud says that one kidney is the seat of your good instincts and the other is the seat of your bad instincts. So we're not talking about highly enlightened individuals). There are however, some very disturbing studies by Alexander Nussbaum showing that even among modern Orthodox Jews, anti-science views are disturbingly common. See for example http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_orthodox_judaism_and_evolution.html [skeptic.com] .
However, one thing to note is that although the conference in question in the top post is Catholic, affirmative geocentrism is not nearly as uncommon among evangelical Protestants as one would hope. Indeed, it is common enough that Answers in Genesis, one of the world's largest young earth creatonist ministries, feels a need to have essays that talk about why Christians don't need to be geocentrists. http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/geocentrism.asp [answersingenesis.org] . Incidentally, There's some evidence that anti-Copernican sentiment actually started in Protestants and only spread to Catholics a few years later. Thomas Kuhn discusses this in his excellent book "The Copernican Revolution" although my understanding is that more modern historians disagree with him on this point and many don't think that there is a strong case for anti-Copernicanism as an originally Protestant ideology.
Finally, note that there are still some flat-earthers out there although they are very rare. They aren't as uncommon in the Islamic world. See for example this segment on Iraqi TV http://haha.nu/interesting/iraqi-tv-debate-is-the-earth-flat/ [haha.nu] . In the West there is still some flat-Earthism but it is often more conspiratorial than religious in nature. See http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/ [theflatearthsociety.org] although some of the people there are trolls, some are quite sincere.
Re:Relativity Says It can be. (Score:1, Informative)
"The Earth is rotating"
The universe does not have a fixed point of reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment [wikipedia.org]
Catholics and Vatican do real science ... (Score:3, Informative)
Their error, as I understand it, is they imagine the universe entirely in terms of geometry, without trying to understand dynamics. How do they account for the path a satellite in a polar orbit takes over the earth?
You do realize that the widely accepted cosmological theory for the creation of the universe, the big bang, was introduced by a Roman Catholic priest?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema [wikipedia.org]ître
Also the Vatican operates an observatory and does real research:
They study meteorites to "give us insights into how these samples were formed more than *4.5 billion* years ago when the planets themselves were being formed." Did you note that number rather? Not the 6,000 or so you were expecting is it.
While looking for dark matter they were involved in the discovery of two extrasolar planets.
They have helped explain perceived anomalies as background stars appearing in a sparse portion of a nebula, unrelated to the structure of the nebula.
They are researching why an unexpected amount of UV radiation is emanating from some young active stars.
They are helping to map out the geography of some galaxies and identify regions of star formation.
etc...
http://vaticanobservatory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=38&Itemid=145 [vaticanobservatory.org]
Re:It's really a moot question (Score:3, Informative)
So, in that limited since, Aristotle was as right as Galileo. Galileo just happens to be more useful.
Actually, no. Aristotle believed everything moved on circles. Kepler formulated a better model with ellipses (Galileo supported it). It's pretty easy to show that the Ptolemaic model of the solar system doesn't work. It doesn't admit new planets, it places the stars on a fixed sphere a set distance away, and it doesn't allow for a number of Galileo's observations (full range of phases on Venus, moons orbiting Jupiter, etc.)
While it's mathematically possible to reference the entire universe to Earth, it's a non-inertial reference frame whose motion can be verified with tests. It's not equivalent to referencing everything to the center of mass (which is basically the Sun).
Re:In "believe anything written down" land (Score:2, Informative)
I've read a lot of that.
The misreadings and misunderstandings are incredible. I find it hard to believe that someone apparently intelligent could unintentionally be that obtuse.
The writer goes so far as to incorrectly define words to prove his point. There's also the bizarre frame of reference which seems to fluctuate between someone reading 2500 years ago, and someone reading now, depending on which point of view best supports his arguments.
Then there's making claims that the Bible says something it simply doesn't.
Let me give you an example from his page:
"And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament."
The writer uses this to claim that the Bible states that the sky is some sort of solid dam, holding back incalculable amounts of water. This is what he claims a firmament is.
Google for "define:firmament" and you'll find five definitions, only one of which mentions anything about it being solid, and even then, it only "seems" that it what firmament meant.
The firmament is simply an arbitrary space above the earth.
Now, Genesis is widely accepted to have been written approximately 3500 years ago. Do you think an uneducated commoner in those times realized that clouds were made of water? I doubt it.
However, somehow the author wrote about water over the firmament. Clouds. Wow. Such horrible science.
There's also water in space. Quite a bit of it, actually. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/milkyway_water_010412.html [space.com]
So regardless of what you take the "firmament" to mean - unless you take the "solid sphere" meaning, which is in no way indicated Biblically - then there's water above it.
Similarly, he complains about the phrasing "corners of the earth", and "ends of the earth" as if they show an earth that is some flat shape.
We still use these phrases today, in lots of conversations. Does that mean we all think that the earth is a flat square? No. It's a metaphor.
"Going to the ends of the earth" means you'll do virtually anything to accomplish a task. Since there is no end to the earth, due to it being a sphere and all, then this makes perfect sense.
The problem a lot of people have with this kind of stuff is that they either read the Bible totally literally, completely out of context, or both.
It was written using language and metaphors that common people of 2000 to 3000 years ago would understand, in a culture where community was incredibly important.
Read it from that point of view - instead of thinking "The earth doesn't wear a skirt! This is pink unicorn bullshit!" - and you'll find it makes a lot more sense.
Re:Haha you got me (Score:3, Informative)
I surely hope we don't equate the holocaust to the earth position because then it would become a matter of point of view. IMHO geometrically speaking you probably can take the earth as fixed and the universe revolving around it, and all the phenomenons like wind, coriolis acceleration and stuff should hold anyway. Maybe the centrifugal force applied on bodies on the surface would prove if we are rotating or not but that would require knowing the mass of the earth. I guess our current estimate is derived from g hypothesizing a rotation ;D
Arguing against a fixed earth is like arguing against solipsism. The only weak argument is about asymmetry. Why i imagine other bodies similar to mine? or back to the earth, why does the other planet revolve around a star, why there is the milky way instead of a more pleasing distribution of stars.....
As for the meaning of the earth as the center of the universe or man as the objective of creation, I think that if you proclaim yourself a believer then from your POV science just weeds out wrong interpretations of the scriptures, so I don't see the point of going against science. Try to learn what the god you believe as existing meant with the phrases he inspired people to write. I don't think the apostles insisted that a temple was literally rebuilt in three days, no?
Re:Website Design for Crazy People (Score:3, Informative)
Surely you jest - this site shows the beauty that is out there [dokimos.org] ;)
Sweet Jesus indeed. I just about had a seizure. You should put a warning label on that link.
Re:It's really a moot question (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Web site tense is wrong (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Doesn't really matter... (Score:4, Informative)
Let us remember that Doyle was a dupe of Spiritualism and believed in the physical existence of fairies. His stories and characters are probably not a good example.
Re:Evidence (Score:4, Informative)
When pressed on the details of their beliefs, I think that only a few people will actually say that yes, they truly believe in transubstantiation (after that
term is defined for them, after all I've talked with a lot of people who claim to be catholic who have no idea what that mean
I suspect you don't truly know what it means. I suspect you think it means that the bread physically transforms, whereas it turns out the original Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation does not claim that. It claims, if you read a translation of the original doctrine, that the bread retains the aspect (ie, physical properties) of bread, but is transformed in essence (ie, spiritual properties) as Christ. The confusion comes from a change in common language idioms -- a modern reader would see "essence" and assume atoms (ie, that the doctrine claims the physics of the bread changes), whereas a religious spiritual writer would regard matter as mere aspect and things of eternal significance (the spiritual nature) as being "essence".
I'm not Catholic, but I did have to stop making fun of that doctrine when I found out it was my misunderstanding of the Catholic doctrine that was the issue, not their doctrine misunderstanding physics after all.
Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Informative)
Buddhism (which is neutral on the topic of gods)
Buddhism has Devas [wikipedia.org]. They are not creators of the universe or omnipotent or immortal, but are considered "supernatural gods" [wikipedia.org].
and Scientology
Some countries do not accept Scientology is a religion. [wikipedia.org].
Re:further proof (Score:2, Informative)
that religion is on its last legs. First you had religion - it ruled all. Then science came (post christianity),
I think you may be mistaken, science has been around for a lot longer than Christianity... and you will find with a little research many scientists (including Darwin) who claimed to be Christian.
Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Informative)
Oy. Not this again. Look. Theism consists of dogma, rules for behavior, and often enough, a strong and well solidified political agenda, for instance, as with Islam or the Christians that are constantly attempting to fiddle with the sayings on money, messing with the pledge of allegiance, praying in congress before making laws, seeing to it the rest of us can't buy beer on Sunday, etc. They do these things because they think this is the way to "bring" their religion, and its dogma and rules, to the rest of us. Speaking generally, theism is a belief in a god or gods, and it carries, in a very official and intentional manner, a great deal of imposed behavior and canned rules with it.
Atheism is the lack of such a belief. It embodies no dogma; no rules; no political agenda, no morals, no ethics. Atheism contains no guides in any particular direction as to science, politics, etc. No atheist will burn a scientist because atheism presents an alternate worldview, because atheism doesn't present worldviews at all. If an atheist has a particular worldview about a scientific issue, it is a 100% guarantee that the worldview did not arise from the atheism (although it is possible that the atheism came from the worldview.)
Your line "thanks to its staunch atheism" is completely wrong and misleading. The soviets were a highly corrupt -- meaning, far from core principle -- communist society and the things they did, they did in the name of active dogma, rules and outlooks that came from communism, socialism, and so forth. Not as any kind of consequence of atheism. Think about it: "I don't believe in god, therefore you can't go to a scientific conference"??? "I don't believe in god, therefore we'll build a ground-based laser"??? I mean, really... WTF?
The thing you theists need to get through your heads is that atheism is not the opposite of theism; it does not present or espouse mirror outlooks to theism. The 'a' up front doesn't mean "the devil's minions", it means "without." It is a lack of belief in religion's core idea, the existence of a god or gods. That's all it is. There is no atheistic mirror to religion's constant, dogmatic, intentional interference with society and law. And there is not one single thing in it that tells us what we should do WRT politics or science. When you see an atheist taking action in some area, you can be sure they are basing those actions upon something other than atheism.
Re:In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Informative)
Buddhism as a whole isn't particularly neutral on the subject of gods. Theravada Buddhism is all about ethical actions and meditation. Theravada doesn't really support anything supernatural, but they also insist on there being one and only one Buddha and his always being a little above even the most enlightened modern practitioner. By them, no one else gets to be a Buddha, just off the wheel of Karma by meditation. So while they claim not to have any gods involved, some of us feel they are making the historical Buddha into one. Mahayana Buddhists mostly believe in gods and lots of other things, but the goal isn't becoming a mere god, it's enlightening yourself and then all sentient beings. You can theoretically become a god in some Mahayana traditions, but you shouldn't want to, as that god may still be as far as you are right now from the real goal of enlightenment. Some Mahayanists also believe in demi-gods (who are in cool afterlives but often too busy being jealous of the full gods to seek enlightenment), and hungry ghosts, who by some accounts are descending to splinter into animal spirits and start the climb back. Then there's Vajrayana, which I can't describe much more succinctly than to say it holds the goal is enlightenment, but you will have to become Dr. Strange first. If Mahayana is supernaturalist with gods and 'other planes', Vajrayana is taking the gods and dimensions and psychic powers stuff to an ongoing TV series, with half a dozen successful spin-offs and lots of special guests and plot cross overs, and you have to learn the names of all the particles of the week to progress.
Zen, by the way, is mostly based on Mahayana teachings.
Re:I am not surprised. (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, that is not right.
You have described the Specific Theory of Relativity accurately. However, the General Theory of Relativity expands the equivalency to any point in any reference frame, hence the "General".
Re:I am not surprised. (Score:3, Informative)
You have no idea what religion actually is. You are tarring every people of a faith with the wacko brush. My wife is a religious catholic biochemist, involved in nervous system basic research. She doesn't doublethink. What you are confused about is that she doesn't treat the bible as a literal history, but as a book to be inspired by. She looks for love and comfort in Jesus, not astronomy. Why can you read a sci-fi history and enjoy its message, but she can't read her book and do the same?
Re:I am not surprised. (Score:4, Informative)
No, no it isn't. The nondeterminism in quantum mechanics is understood and circumscribed, and we absolutely can be exactly sure.
Re:Doesn't really matter... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In "believe anything written down" land (Score:3, Informative)