# Galileo vs the Inquisition When the Inquisition came for Galileo it was due to one core disagreement: Galileo believed that you could come to *understand* the world via *scientific* [Explanations](Explanations.md). The Inquisition believed that revelation and traditional authority (such as The Bible) were the true sources of reliable [Knowledge](Knowledge.md). The Inquisitions world view was false, but it was not *illogical*. They could simply point out that no amount of observation or argument can ever prove that one explanation of a physical phenomenon is true and another false. As they would put it: "God could produce the same observed effects in an infinity of different ways, so it is impossible to claim a way to possess knowing, merely through ones own fallible observation and reason, which way He chose". This is really just another way of saying that we see the end result, but don't have access to the [Data Generating Process](Never%20Forget%20the%20Data%20Generating%20Process.md). We can further *defend* The Inquisitions point of view by looking at the transition between Newton's and Einsteins respective theories of gravity. Einstein's [General Relativity](General%20Relativity.md) introduced a fundamentally different explanation of gravity based on a curved [Spacetime](Spacetime.md). Now we would say [Newtons Force of Gravity Is Not Real, But Einsteins Curvature of Spacetime Is Real](Newtons%20Force%20of%20Gravity%20Is%20Not%20Real,%20But%20Einsteins%20Curvature%20of%20Spacetime%20Is%20Real.md). But, if it turned out that Newton's theory was so spectacularly *false*, should we have ever believed that it truly described reality? And by that logic, should we trust that Einstein's theory describes "reality" - that gravity is in fact *not a force*, but just the curvature of spacetime? How can we then defend Galileo against the Inquisition? What should his defense have been against the charge that he was claiming too much when he claimed that scientific theories contain reliable knowledge of reality? ### The Popperian Defense Does Not Suffice At first glance, we may want to use the Popperian defense: [Science is Problem Solving](Science%20is%20Problem%20Solving.md). But how exactly would that work as a defense? Does that address The Inquisitions attack? No. The church also was interested in explanations and not merely predictions - they just did not accept that Galileo's solutions had any bearing on *external reality*. After all, [Problem Solving](Problem%20Solving%20Process.md) is a process that takes place entirely within human minds. The fact is that all our [Problems](Problem.md) and solutions are located within ourselves, having been created by ourselves. When we solve problems in science we arrive through argument at theories whose explanations seem best to us. So, without in any way denying that it is right and proper, and useful, for us to solve problems, the Inquisition and modern skeptics might legitimately ask what scientific problem-solving has to do with reality. We may find our ‘best explanations’ psychologically satisfying. We may find them helpful in making predictions. We certainly find them essential in every area of technological creativity. All this does justify our continuing to seek them and to use them in those ways. But why should we be obliged to take them as fact? ### Taking The Inquisitions Theory seriously on it's own terms If the Popperian Defense doesn't work, let's take a step back and start considering the Inquisitions argument [on its own terms](Take%20Theories%20Seriously%20on%20Their%20Own%20Terms.md). Inquisitions Theory: The Earth is in fact at rest, with the Sun and planets in motion around it; but the paths on which these astronomical bodies travel are laid out in a complex way which, when viewed from the Earth, is also consistent with the Sun being at rest and the Earth and planets being in motion. If the Inquisition’s theory were true, we should still expect the heliocentric theory to make accurate predictions of the results of all Earth-based astronomical observations, even though it would be factually false. It would therefore seem that any observations that appear to support the heliocentric theory lend equal support to the Inquisition’s theory. One could continue to modify the Inquisitions Theory to account for more detailed observations that support the heliocentric theory. This would of course require postulating even more complex maneuverings in space, governed by laws of physics very different from those that operate on earth. Many such theories are possible. Indeed, if making the right predictions were our only constraint, we could invent theories which say that anything we please is going on in space. For instance, we could hold the theory that [Earth is Enclosed in a Giant Planetarium](Earth%20is%20Enclosed%20in%20a%20Giant%20Planetarium.md). This may be an absurd theory, but the point is that it cannot be ruled out by experiment. Nor is it valid to rule out any theory solely on the grounds that it is ‘absurd’: the Inquisition, together with most of the human race in Galileo’s time, thought it the epitome of absurdity to claim that the Earth is moving. After all, we cannot feel it moving, can we? At this point the Inquisitions Theory looks hopelessly contrived. Why should we accept such a complicated and ad hoc account of why the sky looks as it does, when heliocentric theory does the same job far more simply? We could cite the principle of [Occam's Razor](Occam's%20Razor.md): *do not complicate explanations beyond necessity, for if you do the complications will remain unexplained*. However, whether an explanation is unnecessarily complicated depends on all the other ideas and explanations that make up ones world view. The Inquisition would have argued that the idea of the Earth moving is an unnecessary complication. It contradicts common sense; it contradicts Scripture; and (they would have said) there is a perfectly good explanation that does without it. But is there? Does the Inquisition’s theory really provide alternative explanations without having to introduce the counter-intuitive ‘complication’ of the heliocentric system? Let us take a closer look at how the Inquisition’s theory explains things. It explains the apparent stationarity of the Earth by saying that it is stationary. So far, so good. On the face of it that explanation is better than Galileo’s, for he had to work very hard, and contradict some common-sense notions of force and inertia, to explain why we do not feel the Earth move. But how does the Inquisition’s theory cope with the more difficult task of explaining planetary motions? The heliocentric theory explains them by saying that the planets are seen to move in complicated loops across the sky because they are really moving in simple circles (or ellipses) in space, but the Earth is moving as well. The Inquisition’s explanation is that the planets are seen to move in complicated loops because they really are moving in complicated loops in space; but (and here, according to the Inquisition’s theory, comes the essence of the explanation) *this complicated motion is governed by a simple underlying principle*: namely, that the planets move in such a way that, when viewed from the Earth, they appear just [as they would if](As%20If.md) they and the Earth were in simple orbits round the Sun. To understand planetary motions in terms of the Inquisition’s theory, it is essential that one should understand this principle, for the constraints it imposes are the basis of every detailed explanation that one can make under the theory. For example, if one were asked why a planetary conjunction occurred on such-and-such a date, or why a planet backtracked across the sky in a loop of a particular shape, the answer would always be ‘because that is how it would look if the heliocentric theory were true’. So here is a theory — the Inquisition’s Theory — that can be understood only in terms of a different cosmology, the heliocentric theory that it [contradicts](Contradiction.md) but faithfully mimics. And just like that we can see that the Inquisitions Theory *fails to solve the problem it purports to solve*! It claimed to explain planetary motions ‘without having to introduce the complication of the heliocentric system’. But on the contrary, it unavoidably incorporates that system as part of its own principle for explaining planetary motions. One cannot understand the world through the Inquisition’s theory unless one understands the heliocentric theory first. Therefore we are right to regard the Inquisition’s theory as a convoluted elaboration of the heliocentric theory, rather than vice versa. We have arrived at this conclusion not by judging the Inquisition’s theory against modern cosmology, which would have been a [Circular Argument](Circular%20Argument.md), but by insisting on [taking the Inquisition’s theory seriously](Take%20Theories%20Seriously%20on%20Their%20Own%20Terms.md), on its own terms, as an explanation of the world. Here we have a theory which can also be ruled out without experimental testing, because it contains a bad explanation — an explanation which, in its own terms, is worse than its rival. --- Date: 20241024 Links to: [Fabric of Reality](Fabric%20of%20Reality.md) Chapter 4 Tags: References: * [BRETT HALL - Gravity is not a force](https://www.bretthall.org/gravity-is-not-a-force)