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.”
