But they did advise him to acknowledge that he had promoted Copernicanism in violation of his pact with Bellarmine, and to show contrition. Incredibly Galileo appeared before the Inquisition and maintained that his Dialogue did not constitute a defense of heliocentrism. “I have neither maintained or defended in that book the opinion that the earth moves and that the sun is stationary but have rather demonstrated the opposite of the Copernican opinion and shown that the arguments of Copernicus are weak and not conclusive.”
It has been widely repeated that Galileo whispered under his breath, “And yet it moves.” But the remark is pure fabrication. In fact, there are no reports that Galileo said anything of the sort. One should be charitable toward Galileo’s motives here. Perhaps he made his statement denying heliocentrism out of weariness and frustration. Even so, the Inquisitors can also be excused for viewing Galileo at this point as a flagrant liar. Galileo’s defense, Arthur Koestler writes, was so “patently dishonest that his case would have been lost in any court.” The Inquisition concluded that Galileo did hold heliocentric views, which it demanded he recant. Galileo did, at which point he was sentenced to house arrest._
Contrary to what some atheist propagandists have said, Galileo was never charged with heresy, and he was never placed in a dungeon or tortured in any way. After he recanted Galileo was released into the custody of the archbishop of Siena, who housed him for five months in his magnificent palace. Then he was permitted to return to his villa in Florence. Although technically under house arrest, he was able to visit his daughters at the convent of San Matteo. The church also permitted him to continue his scientific work on matters unrelated to heliocentrism, and he published important research during this period. Galileo died of natural causes in 1642. It was during subsequent decades, Kuhn reports, that newer and stronger evidence for the heliocentric theory emerged, and scientific opinion, divided in Galileo’s time, became the consensus that we share today.
What can we conclude about the Galileo episode? “The traditional picture of Galileo as a martyr to intellectual freedom and a victim of the church’s opposition to science,” writeshistorian Gary Ferngren, “has been demonstrated to be little more than a caricature.” The case was an “anomaly,” historian Thomas Lessl writes, “a momentary break in the otherwise harmonious relationship” that had existed between Christianity and science. Indeed there is no other example in history of the Catholic church condemning a scientific theory.
Galileo was a great scientist who had very little sense. He was right about heliocentrism, but several of his arguments and proofs were wrong. The dispute his ideas brought about was not exclusively between religion and science, but also between the new science and the science of the previous generation. The leading figures of the church were more circumspect about approaching the scientific issues, which were truly unsettled at the time, than the impetuous Galileo. The church should not have tried him, but his trials were conducted with considerable restraint and exemplary treatment. Galileo himself acted badly, which no doubt contributed to his fate. Even so, his fate was not so terrible. Alfred North Whitehead, a noted historian of science, concludes from the case that “the worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed.”
