Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Galileo Galilei/archive1

Galileo Galilei

 * Discussion copied from here.


 * Galileo Galilei - very easy to read. very informative. thorough, yet not dull. Kingturtle 05:08, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * Can't second (contributor), but will say this: User:Dandrake, who has done a lot of work on this one, is the son of Galilei biographer Stillman Drake, and very knowledgeable about the subject.&mdash;Eloquence 06:55, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)
 * Reading between the lines, I think you are fishing for a seconder :). I am happy to oblige as it looks like a very good page. Pete 08:21, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Article promoted by Iseeaboar 03:14, 4 November 2003 

The quote by Andrew Dickson White seriously distorts the position of the Church and particularly of Cardinal Bellarmine, whom he caricatures as "by far the most terrible champion" of anti-scientific dogmatism who "insisted on making science conform to Scripture." On the contrary, Bellarmine went out of his way to conciliate Galileo. His Letter to Fr Foscarini, which was intended primarily for Galileo,  said: "If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the centre of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true. But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me." Galileo merely replied that it was pointless giving proofs because his opponents would not be able to understand them. Bellarmine's attitude was actually more scientific, as the term is understood today, than Galileo's.

- Stephen Hitchings (211.30.198.140) 01:49, April 13, 2005