Galileo’s Heresy and the Price of Certainty

Only 400 years ago, Galileo turned the religious and scientific worlds on their heads when he publicly asserted the heliocentric theory—the idea that the Sun was at the center of the universe—as a scientific certainty.

Up to that point, the generally accepted view was that the Earth was at the center of the universe. The Church held that God would not have positioned His most important creation anywhere other than at the center of everything else He created.

The Church’s frame of reference included a group of Biblical passages that seemed to lend weight to geocentrism. Joshua 10:12 recounts Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still (thus reinforcing the belief that the Sun moved). Then there are Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30—“…the world is firmly established; it cannot be moved”; Psalm 104:5—“…the Lord set the Earth on its foundations; it can never be moved”; and Ecclesiastes 1:5—“…the Sun rises and the Sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.”

Until Galileo—and certainly before Copernicus—science wasn’t what it aspires to be today. Before them, hypotheses were considered legitimate if they were consistent with observations of reality—if they “saved the appearances”—rather than whether they actually corresponded to reality. Some would argue that environmental and climate sciences have returned to this older “appearances” model, becoming less concerned with truth than with conformity.

The conflict between Galileo and the Church wasn’t as it is often portrayed. It was not simply that the Church interfered with science by taking on and ultimately excommunicating Galileo over his heliocentric theory. The fact is that Galileo initiated the confrontation. He challenged the Church and insisted that it revise its Biblical teachings on the basis of his then-unproven theory that the Sun—not the Earth—was at the center of the universe. It wasn’t enough for him to advance new science or redefine it; he pressed the Church to admit that its understanding of the Bible was wrong. The Church refused.

The dispute that followed stirred up a political hornet’s nest, entangling science and theology in a conflict neither side could easily step away from once it gained momentum.

Fast-forward to April 1975, when Newsweek magazine ran an article that, today, is striking in hindsight. It made a powerful emotional case for urgent action to address a perceived global cooling trend, warning of famine, flooding, tornadoes, and more.

Thirty years later, in 2007, former Vice President Al Gore emerged as a leading voice on global warming. Once again, the warning was that unless action was taken, there would be famine, flooding, tornadoes, and more.

Today, the discussion has shifted again, and we now speak of “global climate change.” The term appears to acknowledge that the climate both warms and cools, yet whatever direction it takes is framed as problematic and driven by human activity.

More recently, a Vatican scientific committee released a report parroting a widely discredited prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. What’s noteworthy is not only that it relied on a disputed claim, but that just three years earlier the Pope himself cautioned against the kind of doomsday theorizing that has characterized much of the climate discussion.

In 2007, the Pope stated: “It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.”

It’s time for the scientific community to clean up the science surrounding climate change and ensure it is not tainted by politics or religion. I recognize that this is difficult, given how heavily science relies on government patronage, but there must be integrity in the work. We cannot keep swinging from one extreme position to another, each supported by “undeniable” evidence, only to be replaced by the next “factual” position. A fact in science is supposed to mean something.

There is no room for politics in determining sound science, and there is no room for polls or consensus to determine its legitimacy either. Truth does not depend on opinion for its substantiation.

There is also a limited role for religion in matters of science. The pulpit should be reserved for bringing people closer to God. When properly understood, religion can illuminate the breadth and depth of God’s creative power, while science can provide vivid examples of that power in action. As St. Ambrose wrote in a reflection often associated with the Galileo affair, “To discuss the nature and position of the earth does not help us in our hope of life to come.”

We should be concerned that when the lines protecting the integrity of the scientific method are breached, we lose a clear distinction between social activism and dogma on one hand, and science and fact on the other.

We risk repeating the mistakes of the conflict between Galileo and the Church. The lesson from that episode should be that we cannot ask society to undergo sweeping cultural changes without sufficient scientific proof to justify them. Rather than posturing, scientists should focus on proving. Rhetoric and posturing helped delay, by more than a century, the science that ultimately confirmed Galileo’s theory. We should not make that same mistake in our understanding of climate.

Bad science on climate change will leave us ill-prepared and poorly adapted to whatever future the climate holds. One reality is already clear: if we fail to adapt to a changing environment, we will succumb to it. At this point, it is fair to say that humanity cannot afford more politics and religion in this discussion—we need better, more complete science.