Busting The Myth of Galileo

 

Raúl Esparza previously played the title role in “Galileo” in a 2024 production at Berkeley Repertory Theater in California.

NY Times: What Rhymes With Heretic? A Galileo Musical Is Broadway Bound.

The musical, called “Galileo,” will star Raúl Esparza, and is scheduled to open in December at the Shubert Theater.

Analysis by

After nearly 400 years, anti-Catholic Galileo Porn is still going strong -- with a sure-to-be hyped new play to open at the end of this year. From the article:

"Galileo Galilei remains one of the world’s most famous astronomers, in part because his faith in science got him into trouble with the Vatican during the Renaissance. Now his heretic-to-visionary story is bringing him to Broadway.“Galileo,” a new pop-rock musical that explores the life and legacy of the Italian scientist, is planning to to open Dec. 6 at the Shubert Theater.

The musical will star Raúl Esparza, a four-time Tony nominee, in the title role. “Our show is about a visionary who maybe isn’t the easiest person in the world to like, but who ended up changing our understanding of our place in the universe,” Esparza said in a telephone interview.

Oh well, at least Raul got the part about Galileo "is not the easiest person in the world to like" part correct! Let's set the historical record straight on the "persecution" of this "visionary," shall we?

Galileo was a sneaky ,arrogant, overrated psychopath supported by the House of de Medici. His penchant for making drama finally caught up with him and got him placed under house arrest.

Contrary to the official account, the main opposition to the Copernican-Galileo heliocentric model (Earth revolving around the sun) came from highly educated scholars who opposed Galileo because his argument failed to disprove the geocentric model of the universe -- the accepted science of the time. The opposition was NOT religious -- at least not initially. Indeed, Galileo's failure to meet the standards of the Scientific Method by offering conclusive proof for Earth's flight around the sun -- a difficulty which remains to this day -- is what prevented his model from being accepted. The Church edict essentially telling Galileo to "shut up" came afterwards.

Based on the apparent movement of the sun and the stars around a fixed globe, Galileo's challenge to 2000-year-old geocentrism model was seen by the great astronomers of the day as foolish. His arguments relied upon analogies, rhetoric and insults. Even Galileo's modern day fanboys concede that although "Galileo was right," his arguments and his math skills were weak.

What got Galileo into trouble (house arrest) was not Catholic "intolerance" or "dogma," but rather, his underhanded disrespect for Pope Urban VIII -- who had been friendly with Galileo and was once open to hearing the scientific arguments. In 1630s Italy, one does not publish cryptic references to the Pope -- who had been so gracious to Galileo -- as a "simpleton."

In addition to being a notoriously arrogant asshole, Galileo was an overrated serial plagiarist who refused to marry the live-in girlfriend who was also mother of his three children. Instead, he eventually abandoned Maria Gamba -- effectively rendering the two daughters from the relationship "unmarriageable." He then dumped the girls in a cloistered convent to become nuns.

Was Galileo's unoriginal model of Flying Earth correct? Believe it or not, that question has never been resolved by observation / experimentation --- just theoretical math. But the point of this rebuttal is that the story of the "religious persecution" of Galileo by the big bad Catholic Church is mostly Fake History.

Aristotle (384–322 BC) // Claudius Ptolemy (100 – 160s/170s AD) // Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601)

The fixed Earth geocentric models charted by Aristotle, Ptolemy and Tycho -- though slightly different from one another -- reigned supreme for 2000 years neither because of religious dogma nor tradition, but because they fit the celestial observations.

Pope Urban forbid the teaching of heliocentrism, but did grant Galileo permission to present it as a mathematical concept only, without favoring it. Galileo then betrayed his trust by writing "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World" -- utilizing a "Straw Man" named "Simplicio" to argue the geocentric case. It was believed that Galileo was disrespecting the Pope by putting the Pope's argument in the mouth of the "Simpleton."

Boobus Americanus 1: I read in the New York Times today that a play about Galileo will be opening on Broadway later this year.

Boobus Americanus 2: It was terrible what the Catholic Church did to him.

St Sugar: It wass terrible what he did to his daughterss, Boobuss!

Editor: Like so many Fake Scientists, Galileo manifested all the classic indicators of a psychopath -- or what they call a "narcissist" these days.