Galileo's Mistake: A New Look At the Epic Confrontation Between Galileo and the Church (Hardcover)

Mr. Roland's main theme is the correction of what he considers a misunderstanding of the real conflict between the Church and Galileo. Whereas most people seem to believe that it was Galileo's support of the Copernican heliocentric theory of the solar system that got him into trouble, Roland points out that this was secondary. His true conflict came because of his insistence that the scientific method was the only way to truth. Clearly this is something that the Church could not and cannot tolerate.

Along the way we are treated to a nice history of the early years of scientific method as well as an outline of Galileo's career and achievements. Unfortunately, we are also made to endure Rowland's emulation of Galileo's method of prose. In between chapters of excellent history and commentary we have a basically irritating dialogue between the author as narrator and what I assume are the fictional characters of Sr. Maria Celeste and Berkowitz, who hold the positions of the Church and science, respectively. Of course, in a reversal of Galileo, the nun gets the best of the argument every time.

And it's not that I don't like what Rowland has to say. I agree with his thesis. I may not feel it's been overlooked as much as he does but I certainly think his reminder of Galileo's weaknesses as both scientist and writer is timely and worthwhile, though I don't dismiss Galileo's achievements as Rowland is often wont to. It's just that I don't feel much is achieved by effectively silencing the other party instead of presenting a truly reasoned discussion. Certainly Galileo could be hamfisted in his prose and we are used to the kind of virtual ad hominem approach to argument that passes as debate in everything today, but I still don't like it. A very good book would have been much better without it.

Still, I'm not willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. With the impact--and often, admittedly, negative impact--that science has had on our world it is perhaps no surprise that we look back to the founders and foundation of modern science for answers. Though he doesn't provide perfect insight or perfectly readable prose, Rowland has certainly made a fair addition to our look backward at this most important of periods. It is worth reading.

Most people were taught that the conflict between Galileo Galilei and the Vatican was the last gasp of the Age of Faith before it gave way to the Age of Reason -- a view seemingly supported by the church itself, which in 1992 officially admitted it had wronged Galileo. But it is Mr. Rowland's contention that the venerable mathematician and astronomer was not a casualty of a revengeful and backward church but instead a victim of historical circumstances and his own lack of tact.

Mr. Rowland notes, for example, that the church never bothered Nicolaus Copernicus, who proved mathematically that the earth rotated around the sun more than 20 years before Galileo was even born and nearly a century before Galileo's famous summons to Rome.

The difference, of course, is that between what Copernicus said in 1543 and what Galileo was told in 1632, Rome experienced the full brunt of the protestant reformation and responded with its own counter-reformation: the Holy See could no longer afford dissent that that kind. Those are the historical circumstances.

Galileo's lack of tact, his "mistake" as Mr. Rowland puts it, is more complicated. While Copernicus presented his views in the Latin "De Revolutionibus," Galileo made his mark with "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany" which was written in Italian, a vulgar street language at the time. More importantly, where Copernicus released his proofs on his deathbed and to a largely academic community, a Galileo just past middle age touted to a wider audience that his proof showed that the scientific method was clearly superior to the Bible as a way to understand the universe. And lastly, while the church warned Galileo to stop his promotion of the scientific method in 1616, Galileo came back to it just 16 years later when he published "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems," where he ostensibly explained both sides of the heliocentric-geocentric debate but made no mistake about which side made most sense in his mind. The Vatican, Mr. Rowland states, had no option but to call Galileo to Rome.

It is when it describes the circumstances Galileo's trial rather than the circumstances of the theological debate that this book is most interesting. Like the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial or the case against Rosa Parks in 1955, Galileo's trial was about rules being broken and not about whether the rules were right or wrong. In that light, Mr. Rowland writes that a narcissistic Galileo was clearly guilty of breaking the rules set out by an embattled and desperate church -- a church that showed its leniency by placing Galileo under house arrest rather than burning him at the stake as was common at the time.

To make his points, Mr. Rowland uses fictionalized dialogue and he creates situations where he takes certain liberties to fill in the gaps between what is known as fact, and for its part, the writing flows easily (revealing Mr. Rowland's journalistic background). But for all that, Galileo's Mistake remains a thought provoking and interesting but ultimately unpersuasive book. The traditional view of Galileo's trial is surely not without fault, but the evidence that it is almost completely wrong seems too flimsy to believe, even after 300 pages of explanations ... no matter how interesting they might be.