In the 17th century, the Inquisition censored Galileo
Galilei's "Dialog" because the book contained lessons that were believed
by the Inquisitors and Pope Urban VIII to go against the teachings of the
Bible. By banning the book and stopping its distribution in Italy, the
ecclesiastics hoped to prevent the spread of belief in Copernicus'
heliocentric system.
Forced by the Inquisition to acknowledge his
"sins" most notably, that of teaching that the Earth moves Galileo
recanted his writings. Yet it is said that, after doing it, he murmured
"Eppur si muove" "But it does move."
The Inquisition's
action eventually became an embarrassment for the Catholic Church, which
took Galileo's book off the forbidden list in the 19th century. The case
was not formally closed until Oct. 31, 1992, 350 years after Galileo's
death, when Pope John Paul II admitted that errors had been made by
theological advisors in the case of Galileo. More important, the censure
did not achieve its purpose. Galileo's book became a classic, and the
heliocentric theory supplanted the geocentric view of the
world.
The truth, it seems, is more powerful than
authority.
History repeats itself. White House officials this month
struck scientific findings supporting global warming from an Environmental
Protection Agency "comprehensive" report, replacing them with ambiguous
phrases of dubious interest. In response, Christie Whitman, the EPA head,
deleted the report's entire chapter on climate change.
Such
maneuvers hardly seem a wise course of action for the administration of a
nation whose global preeminence owes a good deal to its emphasis on
science. Of more immediate concern to the current administration, it was
hardly an effective way to suppress the findings. On the contrary, just as
Galileo's trial made his previously published book even more prized than
it was before, the White House's action catapulted the omitted findings
into national headlines: The scientific consensus is that the Earth is
heating up, and it's probably because of human activities.
Perhaps
the administration will learn, if not from history, from its own mistakes.
For, as intimidating as President Bush may seem to the EPA's Whitman, the
Earth's temperature does not respect authority.
Eppur si
riscalda.