Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy. His invention of new scientific methods and his improvement of the telescope got him into some trouble with the church. His ideas challenged what the church deemed as correct, and he was eventually sentenced to a life in jail for his actions. Galileo's history and interactions with the church show that the church was very against scientific proofs that went against the Bible.
Galileo discovered new ways of experiment that helped him prove his theories that would later clash with the church beliefs. Galileo is the creator of what most call the “modern experimental method.” Before this was created, scientists would create a hypothesis about a topic they wanted to learn about, and guess and check it. Rather than this insufficient method, Galileo created a system where he would conduct scientific experiments to help prove or disprove his hypothesis. This was because Galileo wanted to improve the precision of his results. This new method led to many new scientific discoveries especially in the astronomy field. In order to get more precise data, Galileo had to improve his instruments (Galilei Galileo. Scientists).
In order to do this, Galileo further developed the already created telescope. In 1608, Hans Lippershey invented the very first telescope. It happens quite often that people credit Galileo with the original invention, but this is only because he was the one who greatly improved his invention. People may also credit him because at one point Galileo told people he was the creator when in fact he was not! Now however, we know not to give him the original credit (Galilei Galileo." Scientists).
After learning about the invention of the telescope, Galileo made major improvements to eat to help him collect better data. Galileo first heard of the invention in the mid- 1600s. He built a telescope for himself, and his first model had the power to magnify nine times that of the human eye! This was also three times more powerful than Lippershey’s original model (Galilei Galileo." Scientists).
After many more models and a lot of hard work, Galileo eventually created a better model of the telescope. This model could magnify at the power of 30x the human eye’s ability. This new model was so powerful that he used this telescope to observe the planets, and his model as UXL says, “revolutionized astronomy”. Galileo first started by observing the moon, in which he observed jagged edges. He concluded this to be mountain ranges, and he also observed that the dark circles were bodies of water. We know know that there isn't any water on the moon, but these observations were a good start to Galileo's discoveries. He called this water, at the time, “Maria” (Galilei Galileo." Scientists)
Galileo also used his telescope to observe the sky, focusing on the milky way. After observing the milky way, Galileo concluded that it was not in fact “milky” per say, but rather that it was made up of trillions of little stars that give it this appearance. Galileo thought that all of his ideas needed to be shared, so in 1610 he published a book titled, The Starry Messenger. This book gained Galileo his popularity, and got him recognized by many famous astronomers and scientists. Kepler was among the many to praise Galileo (Galilei Galileo." Scientists).
By observing Jupiter, Galileo started to gain knowledge of how planets revolve around another, and this got him started to think about this in terms of the sun and earth. Using his telescope, Galileo could clearly see four moons revolving around Jupiter. He used the term “satellites” -first used by Kepler- to name these moons. Observing these moons for a while led Galileo to the conclusion that they revolved around Jupiter. Galileo’s next observations were to be made on the sun and the earth next (Galilei Galileo." Scientists).
Ptolemy, an astronomer declared that all of the planets, including the sun, revolved around the earth. The Roman Catholic deemed this theory to be true. This is what they believed in and also what they thought. This was called the geocentric theory. The other theories floating around was called the heliocentric theory which was the theory that all planets revolved around the sun. The first person to suggest this was Nicholas Copernicus, and so this can also be referred to as the heliocentric theory. Copernicus’ proof was mathematical proof, and he needed more physical proof in order for his idea to be more well accepted. Because they conflicted with the church’s views, the church and Copernicus’ theory from being said or taught (Galileo Galilei." Scientists).
Galileo did not like this decision of the banning of Copernicus’ theory, so he went to Rome to see if he could change the Pope’s mind. In 1624 Galileo traveled to Rome to speak with the Pope directly. Although the Pope refused to change what the church believed, he did give Galileo permission to write about both the Ptolemy and Copernicus theories as long as he did not favor the Copernicus theory because that would go against the church’s views. With his new permission, Galileo began writing a new book entitled Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems–Ptolemaic and Copernican published in 1632 ("Galileo Galilei." Scientists:).
Even though Galileo promised the Pope he would not favor the side of Copernicus, that was far from the case once he started writing. He wrote this book in a lighthearted tone with the intentions that this would keep him from getting in a lot of trouble. He created make believe characters that in which were fighting over these two theories. To summarize the book, the person who was arguing for Copernicus ended up winning, and this was made very obvious in the book. He put that his heliocentric theory was completely hypothetical, again trying to make sure he did not get in trouble, but it was too obvious he believed in that theory. There was a big problem with Galileo's case though. He did not have correct evidence. He wrote about things that blatantly contradicted the bible’s scripture readings. His arguments were based off of the tides, but his evidence did not add up correctly. Although his way of proving it was a little off, his theory was ultimately correct (Moy, Timothy).
When the church heard about Galileo’s writing, they immediately called him back to Rome and put him on trial. Galileo was put in front of the Inquisition which was a group of people who dealt with individuals who challenged church views. Galileo was accused of violating his right given to him by the church, and he was also charged with heresy. He was forced to publicly announce that he was wrong. Although Galileo knew he wasn't, he was around the age of 70, and he did not want to face a greater punishment from the Inquisition than he already had. Some people say that after he declared his ideas were wrong, Galileo said, "And yet it moves," under his breath. This statement of course refers to him saying that the earth is moving around the sun (Galileo Galilei, Encyclopedia).
The judge sentenced Galileo to a life imprisonment, but this was later changed to house arrest. He already had to publicly take back his beliefs, and since Galileo was so old the Judge just put him on house arrest. His other punishment was that he also could not publish other books, but of course Galileo did anyways. He continued to study science focusing on physics, and in 1638 he published a book called Two New Sciences ("Galileo Galilei." Scientists:).
Galileo's history and interactions with the church show that the church was very against scientific proofs that went against the Bible. Galileo did not pose that much treat to the church. He only had new scientific discoveries, and so that fact that he was sentenced with a life imprisonment at first tells us a lot about the church. If they believed Galileo originally, the church would have to come up with new ways of interpreting the Bible, but that is not that bad. The church at this time was feeling vulnerable, and so any little action that conflicted with them was deemed as heresy. The church was also hesitant because although Galileo had a lot of proof, he did not have enough to make his theory a well recognized and a well taught idea. For these reasons, the church took extreme actions with Galileo (Science and Christianity).