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Governments have learnt that fear works – and that is truly terrifying We have returned to the world of Galileo vs the Vatican. Scientific dissidents are again silenced and ostracised for their opinions As the year in which life officially returned to normal comes to an end, we must ask an uncomfortable question. What on earth just happened? We have lived through a period of what would once have been the unthinkable suspension of basic freedoms: interventions by the state into personal life that even most totalitarian governments would not have dared to impose. And we, along with most (not...

The university announced on Tuesday that the so-called “Galileo manuscript” – a one-page document that includes a letter accompanying the astronomer’s presentation of his telescope and his supposed notes observing Jupiter’s moons through his telescope in 1610 – was crafted by Tobia Nicotra, a well-known forger from Italy who was fined and sentenced to two years in jail for crafting fake Galileo documents in 1934. He also infamously produced fake autographs of Christopher Columbus and Mozart. The possibility came to light in May when the Georgia State University professor Nick Wilding expressed “serious doubts about its authenticity”. Wilding found while...

In the early 17th century, the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon envisioned a bold, multiphase program to accumulate knowledge of the natural world. A critical part of this plan was Novum Organum, which celebrates its 400th anniversary this year. In this work, Bacon attempted to undo the centuries-old dominance of Aristotelian forms of inquiry, encouraging readers to instead apply inductive reasoning to carefully curated observations of the natural world. “Book One” of Novum Organum addressed why so little progress had thus far been made in understanding nature. Here, Bacon cautioned against “idols and false notions” that can interfere with...

Faith of Famous Astronomers, one being a church organist who discovered a planet - Sir William Herschel Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), made a major contribution to the scientific revolution by discovering that the planets did not revolve around the Earth (geocentric), but instead the Earth, as well as all the other planets in the solar system, revolved around the Sun (heliocentric). Copernicus, who had a doctorate in cannon church law, wrote: "The Universe, wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator." Copernicus wrote: "To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and...

The Truth About Galileo By Philip Cottraux Galileo. His name invokes the image of a brave scientist standing up against religious authority. The story goes that he discovered the earth is revolving around the sun, proving we are not the center of the universe. The Catholic church, threatened by this, had him arrested and burned at the stake until he recanted his findings. Galileo is remembered as some sort of atheist folk hero, suffering the consequences for his heroic stance against superstition. This is the version most people learn in school. I remember it from high school world history class....

Vatican Reveals Secret Archives A 13th-century letter from Genghis Khan’s grandson demanding homage from the pope is among a collection of documents from the Vatican’s Secret Archives that has been published for the first time. By Nick Squires in Rome 01 Jan 2010 In a letter dated 1246 from Grand Khan Guyuk, pictured, to Pope Innocent IV, Genghis Khan's grandson demands that the Pontiff travel to central Asia in person The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years. High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen...

Observations of a trio of dead stars have confirmed that a foundation of Einstein’s gravitational theory holds even for ultradense objects with strong gravitational fields. The complex orbital dance of the three former stars conforms to a rule known as the strong equivalence principle, researchers reported January 10 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. That agreement limits theories that predict Einstein’s theory, general relativity, should fail at some level. According to general relativity, an object’s composition has no impact on how gravity pulls on it: Earth’s gravity accelerates a sphere of iron at the same rate as a...

The Myth of the War Between Science and Religion For the past several years, I've been posting short commentaries on YouTube, probably the most popular website in the world.  I've covered everything from movies and music to books and cultural trends, but I've given special attention to the New Atheism. Among other videos, I've posted three answers to Christopher Hitchens' book God is Not Great, a brief presentation of some classical arguments for God's existence, and a response to Bill Maher's movie Religulous. As you might know, people are able to post comments in response to videos, and I’ve received a huge...

Imagine—just imagine, for the sake of the argument—that scientists in a future generation discover that the global-warming trend of recent years was not caused by human activity. If that happens, what will be the consequences for the Catholic Church, in light of the Vatican’s apparent embrace of the climate-change hypothesis? This is not-- repeat, not another column about the scientific evidence for or against the reality human-induced climate change. If you are inclined to respond by denouncing either the proponents or the foes of that theory, please stop. My own personal opinion on that theory is of little or no...

The sun revolves around the Earth, a Saudi cleric insisted to a student panel Sunday—prompting a social media storm. Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari told a student that the Earth is “stationary and does not move,” according to Al-Arabiya, justifying the statement with religious texts and statements. But then he tried to debunk the common knowledge about the Earth’s rotation using “logic,” in a visual demonstration that prompted the speech to go viral. “First of all, where are we now?” he asked. “We go to Sharjah airport to travel to China by plane, clear?!” Khaibari argued, confusingly, that the Earth cannot rotate...

Galileo knew he had discovered a new planet in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date, according to a new theory by a University of Melbourne physicist. Professor David Jamieson, Head of the School of Physics, is investigating the notebooks of Galileo from 400 years ago and believes that buried in the notations is the evidence that he discovered a new planet that we now know as Neptune. A hypothesis of how to look for this evidence has been published in the journal Australian Physics and was presented at the first lecture in the 2009 July Lectures in Physics...

The Turkish Science Minister has become the latest public figure to make outrageous claims over Islam's hand in science and technology, the Hurriyet Daily News reported Friday - this time, claiming that Muslims discovered that the world is round. "Some 700-800 years before Galileo, 71 Muslim scientists led by al-Khwarizmi convened by the order of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun and revealed that the Earth is a sphere," Minister Fikri stated on Thursday. Fikri further claimed that a copy of the original document proving Islam's role in astronomy is currently in the Museum of Islamic Science and Technology in Istanbul. The Earth...

Explanation: Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the Galileo spacecraft recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides a deep, global ocean. Galileo's Europa image data has been newly remastered here, using improved new calibrations to produce a color image approximating what the human eye might see. Europa's long curving fractures hint at the subsurface liquid water. The tidal flexing the large moon experiences in its elliptical orbit around Jupiter supplies the energy to keep the ocean liquid. But more tantalizing is the possibility that even in the absence of...

Europa, Jupiter’s sixth-closest moon, has long been a source of fascination and wonder for astronomers. Not only is it unique amongst its Jovian peers for having a smooth, ice-covered surface, but it is believed that warm, ocean waters exist beneath that crust – which also makes it a strong candidate for extra-terrestrial life. And now, combining a mosaic of color images with modern image processing techniques, NASA has produced a new version of what is perhaps the best view of Europa yet. And it is quite simply the closest approximation to what the human eye would see, and the next...

I haven't seen the [AP Stylebook's] new religion chapter, but I have seen how the press generally reports on Catholicism -- and it seems like there are already some agreed-upon guidelines. For instance: Catholics in the news. If an actor, a football player, a CEO, or any other reasonably decent, successful or attractive person is a practicing Catholic, that is never relevant, and any reference to receiving the sacraments or belief in God must be edited out for clarity and brevity. However, if the story is about a transvestite stripper, a comedian who draws heavily on the comedic value of...

The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years. High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen before in public, have now been published in a book. The Vatican Secret Archives features a papal letter to Hitler, an entreaty to Rome written on birch bark by a tribe of North American Indians, and a plea from Mary Queen of Scots. The book documents the Roman Catholic Church’s often hostile dealings with the world of science and the arts, including documents from the heresy trial against Galileo and...

43.5% Polled on Catholic Apologetics Forum are Open to the Possibility of Geocentrism Catholic Truths Mark Wyatt, Dec. 23rd, 2005 OK, granted, the poll was not scientific, and the results are clearly skewed to a population sample who studies, has some understanding (and interest), or at least an awareness of these things. Still, the results are interesting and worth looking at a little closer. The poll was conducted on the Catholic Answers forum from Dec. 19th through Dec.23rd, 2005...

As Star Trek: Voyager Captain Kathryn Janeway, Kate Mulgrew knew her way around a solar system or two. So there was a certain irony to the actress’ voiceover work in the upcoming documentary The Principle, which focuses on the notion of geocentrism: the idea that the sun revolves around the Earth. But Mulgrew has dispelled the notion that she buys into the documentary’s central premise, writing in a post on her Facebook page that she is “not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism.” “I was a voice for hire, and a misinformed one, at...

Galileo Was Wrong, Vol. I Finally Released! Robert Sungenis, Ph. D., and Robert Bennett, Ph. D. have just released Galileo Was Wrong, Vol. I (the Scientific Evidence). This book demonstrates through history, philosophy, and mainly through science itself that modern science has not demonstrated that the earth moves or is not in the center of the universe. It demonstrates that in fact observation after observation and experiment after experiment indicate that the earth does not move and is in the center of the universe. Scientists after scientist admit candidly that "it appears that the earth is standing still" or that...

Robert Sungenis is offering sample pages from many of the 12 chapters of Galileo Was Wrong , including the table of contents and the entire introduction. The introduction includes a discussion of John Paul II and his speech to the PAS in 1992 regarding the Galileo Affair. The samples can be obtained at the link top www.geocentrism.com, above. Mark Wyatt