01/08/2025
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Galileo was math prof – worked on telescopes for navy to identify ships from farther
away
Started looking at and observing the heavens – noticed things
For example, moon had irregular line separating dark and light – showed there were
mountains and valleys, sun had spots
Aristotle had idea of sublunar vs superlunar – sublunar imperfect and decaying,
superlunar perfect
Galileo’s observations argued against this idea
Copernicus – sun is center and planets revolve around, not earth is center – Galileo
believed this
Paradigm shift from geo-centric to helio-centric model – paradigm shift requires a lot of
investment
Kuhn 1962 – argue that scientific progress is not linear, but rather based on
development of different models
Galileo got funding and support to do research full time – lots of excitement around him
Pope was important to Galileo – center of Catholic world, if Pope accepts then gives it
legitimacy
What is the source of scientific legitimacy?
o Truth
o Math
o Observation and experimentation
o Trust, more subjectively
o Reproducibility – scientific method
o Objectivity
o Collaboration
What delegitimizes science?
o Previously held beliefs – biases and prejudices
o Lack of accessibility
o Media
o Hysteria and fear
o Politics
o After WWII, science in US precarious b/c it had developed atomic bomb – so
scientists created federal funding program to be distributed among research
universities for benefit of society to legitimize themselves
o Currently reversal in trends with Trump policies
Brecht
o Anti-Fascist writer
o Galileo play: knowledge and politics relationship
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