Axioms and Galileo's Mistake

[Danielle E. Cyr]

Talking axioms, definitions, evidence, science, philosophy and tropical islands
(and, why not, snowbanks), everyone of us can go to Renaissance and
contemporary Italy only by reading «Galileo's Mistake» by Wade Rowland.

I had kept it in my library for eight years since its publication and finally I
read it over Christmas Holiday. I found it totally enlightening and quite
delightful at the same time. Rowland wrote it adopting Galileo's own writing
technique for his «Dialogues about two New Sciences», involving two imaginary
participants in the conversation and constantly questioning them (which
technique Galileo himself had borrowed from Socrates). See reveiw below.

It makes us think a lot about the fragile, asymptotic and so evanescent nature
of truth ...

Danielle Cyr


The following ISBNs are associated with this title:
ISBN - 10:091902842X
ISBN - 13:9780919028425
>>From the Publisher
Veteran literary journalist Wade Rowland takes one of the modern world''s most
influential myths - the epic confrontation of physicist and astronomer Galileo
Galilei (1564 - 1642)with the Church of Rome - and turns it on its head.
Rowland argues that at the dawning of the Scientific Revolution in the early
1600s, Galileo''s mistake was to insist that science provides truth about
nature. The Church fought back against this challenge to its authority by
declaring that science provides only models 
+ read moreVeteran literary
journalist Wade Rowland takes one of the modern world''s most influential myths
- the epic confrontation of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564 -
1642)with the Church of Rome - and turns it on its head. Rowland argues that at
the dawning of the Scientific Revolution in the early 1600s, Galileo''s mistake
was to insist that science provides truth about nature. The Church fought back
against this challenge to its authority by declaring that science provides only
models for reality and that the ultimate truth is accessible only through
metaphysical or spiritual insight. Although the 1633 trial centred on
Galileo''s telescopic observations of the night sky, Rowland argues
persuasively that this was merely the public face put on a much more profound
issue: what is truth and how can we know it? Galileo''s ultimate recantation,
Rowland argues, must be understood in this light. Couched in the engaging style
of travel narrative, this provocative reexamination deconstructs the myth that
Galileo was a freethinker waging war against reactionary and anti-intellectual
Church. Using the Socratic method of examining arguments, "Galileo''s Mistake"
moves seamlessly through Galileo''s life and his ideas about the nature of
reality. By no means an apologist for the Church, Rowland skillfully and
persuasively identifies the source of the ontological crisis that plagues us
today: the unquestioned authority of science in determining the nature of
reality.