09.08.11
Galileo
Nothing so illustrated the deep failure plaguing the country and the collapse of intellect than Rick Perry invoking Galileo in defense of GOP disbelief in science and global warming.
You see, when DD was a kid I was assigned to read Bertolt Brecht’s play, “Life of Galileo,” in its original German in an advanced language class. This was in high school in backward Schuylkill County, PA, in the early Seventies. (The above illustration is obviously not the original Deutsch edition. It was the closest-looking thing to it I could find on the web.)
The play tells the story of Galileo’s clash with the Catholic church, one brought upon him by his use of a telescope and his subsequent belief in Copernicus’s view of the solar system. The church threatens Galileo and, fearfully, he recants these beliefs. They put him under house arrest.
It’s all very depressing.
Last night, Perry trotted out a short incoherent dodge implying his “scientists” — scientists the referees of the debate couldn’t get him to identify — had the truth — global warming was “unsettled” science.
Then he unexpectedly blurted out that even Galileo “got outvoted.”
It illustrated, too, why it’s impossible to debate the GOP. Even semi-intellectual arguments are of no use when the “refs” — Brian Williams and someone from the Politico — can’t enforce any rules to penalize or discourage the emission of outrageous balderdash. The Republican Party employs tactics which nullify reasoned argument. This gives them a significant and very real advantage.
And this is what Rich Perry also apparently specializes in.
The very idea that he would liken Galileo’s suppression by the Church to the GOP dogma/disbelief in science is flabbergasting. In the eyes of anyone with intelligence throughout the world, the conclusion would be that the United States could easily become an unstable pariah nation because of the nature of its potential political leadership.
Rick Perry insults anyone with a scientific education, even anyone with just a vague memory of old Galileo from grade school many years ago.
When the US has evolved to a position where someone like this can be the governor of Texas, or even aspire to the Presidency, it only provides ample proof the country’s system has so changed it richly rewards and promotes only the incompetent but forceful.
Perry could easily be President. The rage vote against a powerless to do anything President can work.
Relatively speaking it’s difficult to muster any confidence that people will be able to distinguish a serious qualitative difference in 2012 between a man who made speeches that never delivered on jobs and the economy and a different man who firmly projects the image of a strong, assertive guy from Texas who professes absurdly that, like Galileo, his opinion is suppressed.
bonze blayk said,
September 8, 2011 at 9:27 am
Amen, Dick.
It appears as if the sole expertise required for attaining elective office in America today is that of pushing the right buttons.
bonze blayk said,
September 8, 2011 at 9:37 am
And for any of Dick’s readers out there with an interest in the story of Galileo, I’d like to recommend Galileo: Heretic by Pietro Redondi, who has developed the hypothesis that Galileo was condemned not for Copernicanism… bad enough!… but for arguments subtly poised in favor of atomism, which would destroy faith in transubstantiation, THE central mystery of The Church.
Galileo was spared death only because they basically respected him, his work had previously been encouraged by the Pope, etc.
It’s a rather difficult read, because it does deal in history of scientific thought, and one must accept that the scholars and researchers who rejected Galileo’s work were not backward dumbfucks… they had some good reasons for resisting his novel approach, the revolution in scientific knowledge which was founded on Galileo’s central insight: that natural phenomena could be analyzed through experiment, and, thanks to God’s Grace in delivering a predictable universe underlaid by universal laws, which can be described mathematically and then used as tools.
But the modern nay-sayers… they ARE dumbfucks, and an embarrassment to civilization.
Bluesman said,
September 10, 2011 at 6:56 pm
I am no fan of Rick Perry.Its Ron Paul or no one.The fact of the matter is gobal warming caused by human activity is a fraud.Do the research.Deliberate falseifing of weather data was exposed in 2009.Scientific knowledge is great but it should not be used to take away our freedooms.