This actually hurt my brain:
In an interview on Tuesday with the Texas Tribune, the newly-minted presidential candidate [Senator Ted Cruz] compared himself to the Galileo when discussing, of all things, whether climate change was actually occurring.
“Today the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers,” Cruz said. “You know it used to be it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.”
I had to read that a few times, but then I realized that reading it was actually killing my brain cells and I had to stop.
I know that I enjoy the unique advantage of having a degree in philosophy, but I really don’t expect presidential candidates to engage in the The Myth of the Flat Earth. I’m discouraged that I need to introduce you to this concept:
The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.
During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. From at least the 14th century, belief in a flat Earth among the educated was almost nonexistent…
The dispute between the papacy and Galileo was about whether the Sun orbited the Earth or the Earth orbited the Sun. It had absolutely nothing to do with the shape of the Earth.
So, that’s error number one in Cruz’s retelling of history. Error number two is that he can talk about “accepted scientific wisdom” in the context of the 16th and early 17th-Century. When we talk about “science,” we are talking about a method of inquiry that wasn’t really understood until the 19th Century. Galileo wasn’t arguing with “scientists” or any kind of scientific consensus. He was arguing with theologians and priests. A fairer way of looking at it is that most people assumed that the Sun and stars orbited the Earth, and that view was supported by respected authorities like Aristotle and Ptolemy.
The third error is to consider Galileo to be the equivalent of a modern-day climate science denier. What distinguished Galileo from his Catholic (and Protestant) detractors was his willingness to go where the empirical evidence led him, even if it contradicted common wisdom and a few passages of scripture. He was using the scientific method at a time when the scientific method wasn’t yet a “thing.” The modern-day equivalent to Galileo is a scientist, not an unscrupulous senator from a carbon-rich state.
What Cruz was attempting to say is that common wisdom can be wrong, and most people used to believe that the Earth was the center of the Solar System and the Universe. If most people could be wrong in the past, then most scientists can be wrong today.
That’s true.
Why he couldn’t just say that instead of torturing the shit out of history and damaging my head?
It should be remembered, however, that Galileo, the one using the scientific method, turned out to be correct. The theologians, the ones relying on scripture and common sense, turned out to be wrong. So, while it’s certainly true that there can be a consensus among learned people that is incorrect, you’ll do better putting your money on the scientists than on people going with their gut.
And if one side is simply denying that the scientists know better how to interpret the evidence? And if that side has a financial stake in people not believing the science?
This isn’t really that hard to figure out.
Well done, BooMan.
Maybe Ted Cruz thinks everything revolves around him?
Anyway, I think he asked Sarah Palin for her word salad recipe. The usuals will eat it up and ask for seconds.
Actually, I was taught in basic Physics that they orbit each other, the center of the orbit being the center of gravity which IIRC is close to the surface of the Sun, but I forget if it’s inside or outside.
Eppur si muove (la stupidità, non la terra).
Or logic.
The “greenhouse effect” is not even controversial, it is the kind of basic physics I got in college freshman physics course. And, you can observe it anywhere there is a rocky sphere with an atmosphere – Venus, Mars, Earth and Titan all demonstrate it.
What is controversial is the results of the heat retention, because of the positive feedbacks (eg, permafrost melting releasing methane, open water in the arctic, etc) and the movement of the heat from ocean and air currents. (eg, how fast the deep ocean warms instead of the ocean surface, etc.)
Greenhouses have been around for hundreds of years, and the greenhouse gasses obstruct heat radiation the same way glass does.
Yes, that would be a good response to all this nonsense. “Senator Cruz, are you saying that greenhouse gasses do not absorb infrared energy?”
This myth really traces to a misconception about Columbus. His contention that he could reach Asia by sailing west was not based on the claim that the earth was round — everybody knew that. It was based on the claim that it was only 2/3 of the size it actually is. (The actual size of the earth was measured quite accurately by the ancient Greeks.)
Columbus, in other words, was a lucky fool. If the Americas hadn’t gotten in the way, he would have starved to death.
if it were flat, he would not have gone in that direction.
He almost fell off once, I heard from a certain Mr. Friedman.
Well yes but that’s beside the point. Nobody thought it was flat, they just thought it was a) 24,000 miles in circumference (true!) and b) they didn’t know about America (false, but neither did Columbus). You seem not have actually read my comment.
it’s beside your point, but it’s central to mine.
If most people could be wrong in the past, then most scientists can be wrong today.
Another problem with this is that Cruz doesn’t offer any reason to think most scientists are in fact wrong about climate change. If you take Galileo out of it, his argument is that the global science community could conceivably be wrong about climate change, therefore they are wrong about climate change. Which is plainly idiotic, and hence the brain torture.
Listening to any GOP politician or conservative “Christian” leader, causes “dain-bramage” in the listeners/viewers/readers.
The problem is that we can’t shut them out, because our MSM doesn’t shut their bullshit down!
The problem is the GOP is de facto a cult, and cults use Appeal to Authority as preferable to observations and evidence.
The “party line” rules, facts and observations get tuned out, so it is pointless to attempt to educate the ineducatable.
Galileo:Copernicus as AGW scientists:GS Callendar
Galileo:heliocentrism as NOAA/IPCC:AGW
RCC:geocentrism as fossil fuel industry:climate change denialists
Galileo:RCC as NOAA/IPCC:GOP
Galileo:Cruz as STEM:fundies
This thing that hurt your brain is how Cruz talks. He has got words and labels he can string together to respond to any question. He reduced climate change to heretic/denier. When asked if he was going to sign up for Obamacare he reduced it no choice.
You have to consider his audience: Liberty University and the good people in Kentucky who go to the the Ark theme park. I would say the people who built the park, but I’m guessing they are merely gop entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity to fleece the people.
What do you expect from a man who read “Green Eggs and Ham’ aloud to Congress and completely inverted the meaning of the book; a concept that THREE year olds get.
Galileo was persecuted by the church, for heresy, not by his fellow scientists. It’s odd that religious zealots like to use his example in their own defense.