Historian on Why Church Really Banned Galileo & Were The Dark Ages Bad?

Summary

Camp Gagnon Podcast Summary

Title: Historian on Why Church Really Banned Galileo & Were The Dark Ages Bad?
Host: Mark Gagnon
Guest: Ivano Dal Pretty, Professor of History at Yale
Release Date: January 30, 2025

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1. Bridging Common Perceptions and Historical Realities

Mark Gagnon opens the episode by addressing a significant gap in public understanding regarding the history of science. He states, “There is a gap for probably 40 or 50 years between the common perception of what the history of science has been and how modern science came to be and where research is right now” ([00:00]). This sets the stage for a deep dive into the true nature of scientific progress during periods often mislabeled as the Dark Ages.

2. Debunking the Dark Ages Myth

Ivano Dal Pretty challenges the conventional narrative that the Dark Ages were a period of stagnation and despair. He asserts, “The Dark Ages were an amazing time of scientific advancement where the Church and science worked together to create some of the most amazing discoveries of human history until the relationship went bad” ([00:10]). This collaboration showcases a nuanced relationship between the Church and scientific inquiry, contrary to the myth of inevitable conflict.

3. The Flat Earth Misconception: Origins and Refutation

A prominent myth is that medieval Europeans widely believed in a flat Earth. Gagnon addresses this misconception head-on: “Most of the people just went to church and maybe they saw the story of the creation painted or in mosaics on the walls of the church and it was explained how it happened. The idea that they thought the Earth was flat is a complete invention” ([17:12]). Dal Pretty supports this by explaining, “There was never a medieval consensus that the Earth was flat. It was just one individual's misconception later propagated for various agendas” ([16:08]).

4. The Collaborative Relationship Between Church and Science

Contrary to popular belief, the Church was not always an impediment to scientific progress. Dal Pretty notes, “They actually, they were the ones who put their hands into nature and they made experiments and they did stuff and see what happened” ([07:23]). This highlights how the Church and scholars like Leonardo da Vinci worked together, utilizing alchemical and early scientific methods to advance knowledge.

5. Enlightenment and the Construction of the Conflict Thesis

The Enlightenment era marked a pivotal shift in the narrative of science and religion. Dal Pretty explains, “This narrative started being elaborated during the Enlightenment for political reasons and even for reasons of anti-Christian propaganda” ([20:00]). Authors during the 1700s and 1800s crafted stories that positioned the Catholic Church as an antagonist to scientific progress, fueling the myth of an inherent conflict between faith and reason.

6. Galileo's Trial: Myth vs. Reality

Galileo Galilei's confrontation with the Church is often portrayed as the definitive clash between science and religion. Dal Pretty provides clarity: “Galileo was sentenced, but it was a Pyrrhic victory because in the end, scientific rationalism could impose itself with the force of truth” ([13:48]). He further elaborates on Galileo's trial, emphasizing that it was less about science vs. church and more about political and personal dynamics: “Galileo was framed in a very interesting way and probably right as the fall of a courtier” ([72:30]).

7. Political and Religious Agendas Shaping Scientific Narratives

The intertwining of science with political and religious agendas significantly influenced historical narratives. Dal Pretty discusses how Protestantism and Catholicism used scientific discourse to assert ideological dominance: “Protestants wanted to establish Catholicism as a force that was foreign to the ideals and the assumptions on which the United States were built” ([22:36]). This manipulation of scientific history served broader political objectives, reinforcing power structures and justifying social hierarchies.

8. The Long-Term Impact of Misconstructed Histories

The constructed narratives of conflict have had lasting effects on how science and religion are perceived today. Dal Pretty argues, “Historically, it can be demonstrated that this is not true, that this is not correct” ([13:48]) and emphasizes the importance of reexamining these myths to foster a more accurate understanding of history. He advocates for the autonomy of scientific institutions to ensure that research is free from undue ideological influence: “It is important to understand this and to grant autonomy to scientific institutions” ([126:15]).

9. Conclusion: Rethinking Historical Narratives and Their Modern Implications

Mark Gagnon and Ivano Dal Pretty conclude by reflecting on the necessity of challenging established myths to appreciate the true complexity of history. Dal Pretty emphasizes, “This is a tragedy of American creationism. Even now you have a situation where you have to either accept the Bible or accept modern geology or accept a form of geology that doesn't make any sense” ([124:40]). By debunking these myths, they advocate for a more nuanced and evidence-based understanding of the relationship between science and religion.

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Notable Quotes

• Mark Gagnon ([00:00]): “There is a gap for probably 40 or 50 years between the common perception of what the history of science has been and how modern science came to be and where research is right now.”

• Ivano Dal Pretty ([00:10]): “The Dark Ages were an amazing time of scientific advancement where the Church and science worked together to create some of the most amazing discoveries of human history until the relationship went bad.”

• Ivano Dal Pretty ([17:12]): “The idea that they thought the Earth was flat is a complete invention.”

• Mark Gagnon ([13:48]): “Historically, it can be demonstrated that this is not true, that this is not correct.”

• Ivano Dal Pretty ([72:30]): “Galileo was framed in a very interesting way and probably right as the fall of a courtier.”

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Camp Gagnon, featuring historian Ivano Dal Pretty, offers a compelling reassessment of the Dark Ages and the historical narrative surrounding the Church's relationship with science. By debunking long-held myths and highlighting the collaborative efforts between religious institutions and scientists, the podcast challenges listeners to rethink their understanding of history and the origins of modern scientific thought.

Transcript

[A]

There is a gap for probably 40 or 50 years between the common perception of what the history of science has been and how modern science came to be and where research is right now.

[B]

This is Ivano Dal Pretty. He's a professor of history at Yale with a specialty on the Renaissance and the Dark Ages. Yes, the Dark Ages, the period in time where nothing happened and everyone was miserable and sad and got the plague. Or was it? Ivano Dal Pretty tells me the Dark Ages were an amazing time of scientific advancement where the Church and science worked together to create some of the most amazing discoveries of human history until the relationship went bad. He even explains why Copernicus and Galileo were persecuted by the Church. Was it because they were just making too much science that the Church couldn't handle? Or maybe was Galileo having a personal beef with the Pope and wanted to send a message? If you want to know the true story of medieval Europe, the Renaissance, and the Dark Ages and what really happened, what the people really thought about history, philosophy, and the creation of the universe, this is the episode for you. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. And then it's pronounced Ivano dal Prete.

[A]

That's right. Sorry. Gagnon or Gagnon?

[B]

Gagnon.

[A]

Gagnon.

[B]

Gagnon.

[A]

That's how you want me to pronounce the American way or the French way?

[B]

The American way is funnier to me, to be honest. Gagnon.

[A]

Gagnon.

[B]

Also, I just got these. I can't tell if they're actually ivory or if they're bone. I wish I could tell.

[A]

I have no idea.

[B]

I just love old things. I like how they feel. You can kind of. They just have, like a nice.

[A]

Yeah. I bring my students all the time in the. In the old libraries. In the library with ancient books and instruments at Yale, so they can touch and feel there's nothing better. The ancient food coming and feel the materiality.

[B]

The old leather, like, breaking off a little. Like, it's just. It's perfect.

[A]

Yeah. The open smell of mold.

[B]

Yeah. Little mold sometimes.

[A]

You know, I've been the first one to open them, like, for 100 years.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Sometimes it happens. Yeah.

[B]

Wow. You ever find any notes in there?

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Like, when you're going through ancient texts in the Yale library, you open a book that no one's opened 400 years, you find, like, letters and things.

[A]

Not letters you can find in the 1700s, sometimes you can find thin slice of salami.

[B]

Salami?

[A]

Yeah. Apparently they use them as, like, bookmarks. A bookmark?

[B]

Oh, no way.

[A]

Yeah, I guess. Well, of people would have eaten It.

[B]

How did it taste?

[A]

I didn't. I didn't taste it.

[B]

You didn't eat it?

[A]

I didn't taste.

[B]

Oh, come on.

[A]

But it is true. I should have. Because in the past, taste, there was a tool that was used commonly by alchemists or researchers. Researchers or even geologists. Even today. I looked a lot of documentaries on dinosaurs because of my son, Because I had a kid.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I once heard that geologists say, oh, you know, the layer, the famous layer with iridium where dinosaurs and dinos died? It tastes different from other layers.

[B]

It tastes different, yeah. In what way?

[A]

That I don't know. But alchemists or chemists use taste as a tool to tell one metal or one substance from the other, which could be dangerous because some of the substances were mercury.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Or other poisonous substances. And so some of them happen to be die. Poisoned by the substances that they keep tasting.

[B]

I mean, I'm not doing that if I'm going into chemistry. And they're like, oh, yeah, you can figure out if this is uranium by putting your tongue on it. I'd be like, nah, I'm okay. I'm actually.

[A]

But, you know, they didn't have many sophisticated tools. So they use their hands, they use their taste, they use their smell.

[B]

But in the history of science, which you've dedicated your professional career to, you don't have to taste anything.

[A]

That's a good question. We usually do not. But there is a lot of emphasis on materiality, on try to recreate experiments and try to see if the recipes of an alchemist, for example, if you can decode them, actually lead to something. And to try to figure out what they actually did.

[B]

To see if the recipes of an alchemist can lead to something.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And they did use the taste. I do not do these kind of things, but there are some of my colleagues that spent a lot of time trying to recreate those recipes. You need really to be conversant in chemistry. Okay. And I'm not. But those who have tried hard to figure out whether you could do something with these recipes, with these formulas that were handed down. And at times it's difficult because you have to figure out what they are actually talking about.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because they use a certain name for a certain thing. And you don't know that this. Exactly. Or maybe it could be a range of things. And so we have to try to figure out what it was about a.

[B]

Root from a forest. And you're like, which route? Which forest?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You know, a super rationalist guy like Isaac Newton he did tons of alchemy, and there is a mesh of Newton's hair in Paris at the old observatory. And they examined it chemically, and there was every kind of stuff in his hair.

[B]

In his hair?

[A]

Yeah. They found quicksilver, they found gold, silver, all these kind of things in Isaac Newton's hair. Yeah. Because he did a lot of alchemy and a lot of experiments. Actually, at a certain point, he decided to leave his position as professor of mathematics at Cambridge, and the job he took up was the overseer of the mint in London. Why the mint? Well, they coined. They made coins. Right. And one of his jobs were to make sure that they're. To check coins that circulated for making sure they're not counterfeit.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

They had to make sure that they are the right leg. And he had this expertise because he did a lot of this alchemy. It is not about really just finding the philosopher's stone. Basically, alchemy meant you take a couple of substances and you make something else. That was at its roots, alchemy. And then there were a lot of different kind of alchemies. And some wanted to make gold and some wanted to find this philosopher's stone. But basically, alchemy and chemistry until the 1700s are not really distinguishable.

[B]

Interesting. Yeah, that makes sense. That would make sense that the early proto chemistry would be some type of spiritualized.

[A]

It was not always, but in many cases it was. In some, it was spiritualized, depending on who did it and why, of course.

[B]

Which culture you're raised in, et cetera.

[A]

The important thing is that we tend to look down to these things, but they actually, they were the ones who put their hands into nature and they made experiments and they did stuff and see what happened. And so even if their absans and their guidelines, maybe they were not right, they actually did a lot of foundational work.

[B]

See, this is fascinating. And the reason you know all of this and why you're so versed in this is because you are a professor at Yale in the history of science, specifically looking at debunking, I guess you could say, or maybe adding additional context to our historical narrative of how people, you know, in 1000, in the dark Ages, how they thought, what they believed, and what kind of processes they went through to uncover the science of their day. I think we have an idea, or at least I do, that many people that lived in the Dark Ages or in medieval England were very backwards. They thought the earth was flat. They thought that we lived in some type of geocentric model where all the planets circled the earth. You know, famous scientists have been killed for their sort of opposition to the church on this topic. People didn't know about germs, that people were dumb. That is my general belief. And I think that our conversation today will likely be shed some additional light on that. I feel like my position is how many people today believe that the medieval and not fully ancient, but older period in time kind of believes things to be. Is that fair?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's totally fair. And I think that your definition of me as some kind of a debunker or someone that adds additional context, it is perfectly fair. And it characterizes pretty well what they do more or less, day in and day out.

[B]

So were the people of the medieval times, were they dumb people in the Dark Ages? Were they stupid?

[A]

No. The answer is unqualified. No.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Of course they started from different assumptions than ours. Now, the reason why I decided to go into history of science is. Well, first of all, a kid, I was an astronomy nerd and also a history nerd. And neither was particularly popular in the village and there was both. Then when I went to college, I decided to go for history, mainly because I was better at humanities than at hard sciences, especially chemistry. And then I discovered that there was this field called history of science. Then I thought, whoa, that's fantastic. Maybe I can put together my nerdy interests and do something fancy and funny. And then I also wanted to travel a little bit. And I didn't have any money, but university did and apparently I could get scholarships. And so I started little by little, it became a career. And while I was doing that, especially when I started teaching, particularly in the United States, I taught for a couple of years in the United Minnesota, in state universities. I was not always at Yale. I realized that what I was doing could be important. And the reason is there is a gap of probably 40 or 50 years between the common perception of what the history of science has been and how modern science came to be and where scholarship, where research is. Right now, unfortunately, we are not good at all at reaching out to the public. Scientists are much better. My understanding may be wrong, but my understanding is that general public has a much better idea of where science is or astronomy is than they have an idea where history is, especially kind of esoteric field like history of science. And yet this is super important. And the reason is the account of how modern science came to be. The narrative is foundational to what we think we are. Because since religious tolerance became common in the 1700s, or think of the American Constitution that was drafted in the 1700s, right? And there is the separation between state and church. Religion is no longer the standard for truth. It was replaced by science, by the capability of modern science, of finding facts that can be objective, that everyone can share, because there is a nature outside us that does not depend from human culture. And that's fine. However, there is no way we can look at nature without using the glasses of our culture. So it's like looking at a computer and you had the operating system, okay, and the operating system, maybe the computer behind is always the same. But then you can use Windows, you can use Unix, you can use different operating systems, and the computer will look different and will do different things according to what you use. So our relation with nature is not immediate. It is always mediated by our cultural assumptions. And now this narrative that we have and that we commonly share, that there was this dumb Middle Ages where science could not really exist because of religious prejudice and obscurantism and scientists were persecuted and so on. And then a few great geniuses had the courage to speak against it. And we will heard about Galileo's trial and how it ended up. And yeah, Galileo was sentenced, but it was a Pyrrhic victory because in the end, scientific rationalism could impose itself with the force of truth. Really, this is the story to modern science, which is now absolutely the foundation of our life. We cannot live without modern science. Everything is predicated on. On the science that we do. And we do a lot of science that doesn't have apparently any immediate practical application. But we assume that someone someday will find a way to make money out of it or to figure out some practical application of some abstruse mathematical theorem, maybe, I mean, encoding or maybe to produce more secure keys for financial transactions.

[B]

Or maybe AI can figure that and so on.

[A]

All right, this is our basic assumption. And a lot of what we think we know about history of science, I realized by practicing the field while studying these fields, is really about mythology. It is a mythology that was constructed in the last couple of centuries, mainly the 1700 and in 1800. And it made sense at the time. It sounded plausible, and so it was widely accepted. And yet a lot of the things that we believe we know do not have any historical foundation. If you check documents didn't go like that, it wasn't like this. It is not only an oversimplification, which can be understandable when you have to give some basic notions to people who have to work for a living. Actually they don't have time to study history of Science, Absolutely. But they are plainly wrong and they reflect assumptions that are just not correct. Like you just mentioned, in the Middle Ages, the Earth was flat. So usually I start my class on the scientific revolution with a poll among students, an anonymous poll, and ask students to answer a couple of question on what was the Earth like in the Middle Ages? Was it flat or was it a sphere? I don't know. Usually 80% of the students answered that the Earth was flat.

[B]

I still think it's flat. Okay.

[A]

And of course we still have flat earthers in 2024, so maybe we can cut some slack.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

People who live there, I don't know, 18 or 800 years ago.

[B]

Right. And just want to clarify, when you say Middle Ages, what exact time frame?

[A]

Let's say, okay, the Middle Ages for historians go from around 500 CE to about 1500. But I usually mean, let's say between 1000 and 1400. Okay, okay, let's say so. And there might have been flat Earthers there, but I do not know of anyone who had any reputation. I don't know of one serious scholar or one serious author that thought that the Earth was flat. That is a complete invention.

[B]

I was told that everyone thought their world was flat, that they were afraid that Magellan, when he was sailing and circumnavigating the world, he was afraid he was going to fall off of it.

[A]

This is absolutely nonsense. And it's not your fault, of course.

[B]

You're telling me Christopher Columbus didn't think he was going to fall off the world?

[A]

No, of course not.

[B]

Ivana, this is. You're lying. Okay, where does this idea come?

[A]

I can do what I do with my students.

[B]

Please.

[A]

Why do I believe you if you don't trust me? I take them to the library. I pull out a medieval manuscript producing 1200. And here is a graphic of how eclipses of the moon or eclipses of the sun work. Here you have the sun, which is a sphere. You have the moon, which is a sphere. Here you have the Earth, which is of course a sphere. And you can take the books where students studied Astronomy 101 in some medieval university, Oxford or Paris or Bologna, around 1200. And it starts with three canonical demonstrations that the Earth is round.

[B]

And how long do you think they've known the Earth was round?

[A]

Oh, since the Greeks figured it out around 400 BCE. This knowledge was never lost. Now, that story that they believed that the Earth was flat started circulating, I think, in the 1830s.

[B]

What?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Why?

[A]

Because someone started circulating this story. They pulled out a late Ancient author, a merchant who actually traveled between Egypt and India. There was a commercial route since Roman times between Egypt and India. He lived around the year 500. He was a Christian already at the time before the Arab invasions, Egypt was a Christian country. And he went back and forth from Egypt to India. And he wrote a book of travels. And this book of travels, he also relates that to him, the earth is like a trunk with a lid and the sky is the lid. Someone pulled out this story that didn't have absolutely any relevance to medieval science.

[B]

Because there was no medieval consensus that this was the idea. This was one guy's.

[A]

No, the consensus. The consensus was that this guy is just totally ignorant, doesn't have a clue.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And he was not particularly important. And someone pulled it out in this book and had the idea of writing that this was church doctrine.

[B]

And for what purpose? Like what. What was this for a political agenda? Or was this just like academic negligence?

[A]

Okay. Starting from 1700s, the mid-1700s, from enlightenment, basically, okay, you have this movement that want to really bring tolerance, to bring a new different world, to replace religion at the basis of truth with scientific rationalism, which really, we still live in that age because our constitution was drafted in the time. And there was a lot of propaganda going on because there were a political fight about it. You have to convince the public opinion that absolutism is wrong, that you have to replace it with a more rational system of government, that you have to get rid of what began to be called at the time, religious obscurantism, that you have to implement religious tolerance and so on. And there were strong political stakes towards a cultural and political battle. And as it happens, there was a lot of propaganda going on. And so a lot of the story, the narrative that you have now started being elaborated during the Enlightenment for political reasons and even for reasons of anti Christian propaganda.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And later, I can give you an example from my own work. And then this kind of continued during the 1800s. Now, by the 1800s, medieval science had been basically forgotten. No one knew anything anymore about it. It was obsolete and it was abandoned. And there was the idea that was becoming widespread that the Church, especially Catholic Church, had been a hindrance to the intellectual development of humankind and just made a lot of sense. And so these stories sounded plausible. And then later in the century, there were a couple of authors that were especially popular in the United States that wrote books like the Warfare of Christian of Christianity with Science and so on. And their thesis was indeed that there. It is called the conflict thesis by Historians of science and religion, that is, there is an inevitable conflict between religion and science. But they especially focused on the Catholic Church. And the reason is there were white Protestants and there was already a problem of losing our country to the new immigrants, that is mainly Italian and Irish were Catholic. And so they wanted to establish Catholicism as a force that was foreign to the ideals and the assumptions on which the United States were built. And so Protestantism was better because Protestants didn't try Galileo, the Catholics did. The Protestants accepted heliocentricism much earlier than the Catholics and so on. So even there, there were these political stakes and this political context around it, and also sounded plausible to a lot of people, not to everyone, but it sold well.

[B]

Wow. Wow. So basically, if you have this power source in the, you know, this medieval age, this kind of middle age we're talking about, and they are prosecuting these people and they are antiquated, they have these backwards ideas, let's throw out these old books, don't look at them anymore, and let's bring in this new philosophical idea of Enlightenment. Protestantism fits well within this idea. And now you're able to malign the prior ideas with these random texts that say, look what they believe. These people were idiots.

[A]

Yeah. The idea at the time was we need to keep America Protestant.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Fundamentally. Because Catholicism is not good, is not a good force for the material and intellectual and scientific improvement of our country. And already in the late 1800s, it is really the time when science becomes a component of the industrial and productive apparatus. It is in the late 1800s. So in order to keep ahead of other countries, in order to develop our science, in order not to become backwards, we need to remain Protestant because the scientific revolution was considered to be mainly a Protestant thing and a very Anglo centric thing.

[B]

I see. So Protestantism created the Enlightenment or it was just compatible?

[A]

No, it not created Enlightenment. Actually, the core of the Enlightenment was in France, a Catholic country, even though much of it was anti Christian and anti religious. But then in the United States, certain trends that started taking place during Enlightenment were developed. And these works helped create the understanding that there were these Dark ages that were dominated by a Catholic Church that made it impossible to pursue scientific research.

[B]

And then after these ideas become widespread within the new America, does it then go back to Europe and then Europeans now believe this, or do Europeans throughout this whole time period think, oh, we never believed that, you know, the earth was flat, we never believed these lies.

[A]

I think this is pretty widespread even in, even in Europe.

[B]

And so it came back.

[A]

Maybe it is not as a big deal as it is in Europe, because in Europe, you don't have creationism or young earth creationism as a political and cultural force, as in the United States.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And younger creationism is predicated on the idea that the Earth was created recently had always been a church teaching and church doctrine until in the 1700s or 1800s, this goddess science came and overturned the tables. But if you want to keep in the tradition of Christianity, you should believe that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago and take the creation story of the Bible or Genesis a little literally, okay? And this is where debunking is important, because everyone can believe whatever they want, okay? This is a free country. Thankfully, however, historically it can be demonstrated that this is not true, that this is not correct, that all of the story that have been told in this case, that until the 1700s, everyone believed that not only the Earth was flat until a bit earlier, but until the 1700s, that the Earth was just a few thousand years old. And then finally the Enlightenment comes and modern science and modern geology starts developing, and they soon find that the Earth is actually much older. And this happened between 1700 and 1800. Okay. And more or less, everyone believes that if you take a book on the history of geology written by perhaps the professional geologist, it will say the same thing. Okay. With maybe a few exceptions here and there. Okay. But I mean everyone, both in the history, the creation story of the Bible and its time frame until the late 1600s. And this is what I tried to debunk in my latest project. I published a book a couple of years ago where I had to debunk this thing. I don't debunk it for the sake of debunking, but because at a certain point, studying early geology, so to speak, I realized that this story did not hold water because there were too many documents of the previous centuries showing people talking about much older Earth, even thermal, and apparently nothing happened to them. And it was fine. And some of those documents had been known even earlier to previous historians, to other historians of science, but they were usually cataloged as, you know, a few sporadic geniuses ahead of their time. Now, what is one of the things that I do? Build contexts. So let's start building context around these geniuses ahead of their time. The typical example is Leonardo da Vinci, the author of Mona Lisa, that also left hundreds of pages of geological observations and ideas on the geology of the Earth. Okay? Amazing. Totally amazing. And it never crosses his mind that the Earth can only be a few thousand years old. He doesn't even talk about it.

[B]

Does he talk about a much older Earth?

[A]

Oh, yeah. He assumes that the Earth has an indefinite age. It never talks about how the Earth formed. It talks about how geological change happens and can happen on the Earth. Now if you start looking at contemporary literature, you find more and more of these geniuses ahead of their time. Until a certain point one thinks, wait a moment. But this thing is basically mainstream.

[B]

Yeah, you have 50 geniuses that are all talking about this old man even.

[A]

More, and it seems to be commonplace. And the ones seem to have a problem with that. And a lot of these people have medieval sources. Renardo Vinci was using. Far from being someone two or three centuries ahead of his time, his model of geological change was based on a theory elaborated about 150 years earlier by a scholar in Paris. And then his idea was spread around and he found it probably one of the books that he had.

[B]

And were these people, these fringe geniuses that believed this older earth where they persecuted by the Church, were they reprimanded for their ideas?

[A]

No.

[B]

Did the middle aged church or even earlier church believe or have any type of official position on the age of the Earth?

[A]

They didn't have an official position, except that the Earth was created at a certain point. The how and when was never determined. And if he don't have to think that the Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago, that was never the official position of the church. So what we have was a big plurality of positions. Now the overwhelming majority of people just went to church and maybe they saw the story of the creation painted or in mosaics on the walls of the church and it was explained how it happened. Most of them were illiterate and they just bought into it, no problem. But as soon as you start studying, for example, the Greek philosophers that were super popular and super important in university teaching, say Aristotle, well, that's a completely different world that opens up to you and it becomes immediately obvious that a lot more possibilities are there. So there was a tradition, it was called Christian chronology, where a lot of people thought that actually, yeah, the Earth has been created a few thousand years ago. And we even tried to figure out what day and what hour precisely. Okay. The most famous of them was famous Bishop Usher, who established a certain date for the creation of the world in 1600s. He was just one among hundreds. Okay. And then there were alternative positions. When? As long as you admit that the Earth was created a certain point when exactly, it's not a problem. The important thing is that someone, God at a Certain point created the Earth now until the early 1200s. So for like 1000 years in the history of Christianity, it's a lot of time. It was not even necessary to think that the earth had a beginning or that the universe had a beginning. The idea was that, yes, God creates the universe, but this creation does not need to happen in the dimension of time.

[B]

Right?

[A]

That's what we experience. But the dimension of time is eternity.

[B]

What's up, guys? Let's take a break really quick because you're nostalgic. You remember in your childhood, sitting down, watching cartoons, having a big old bowl of cereal. I tried doing that now as a 28 year old father, okay, I sat down with my little baby, I bought cereal from the store, I sat down and I looked at the box. Immediately was like, this is the craziest thing ever. It's so sugary. I tried taking six bites. I felt nauseous afterwards. I mean, it's insane that I used to be able to eat this stuff as a kid. And then I found out about this company called Magic Spoon. Yes, Magic Spoon is an amazing, wholesome, high quality alternative to some of the, you know, cereal brands you used to eat as a little kid. I mean, they have amazing flavors. They got fruit ring circles. No idea what that could be. They have cocoa, not the P word. They got cocoa loops. And I wonder what that is. And you already know what it is, okay? And here's the crazy thing. It tastes as good and has less sugar and is actually great if you're someone that's counting carbs. If you're a carb conscious connoisseur, Magic Spoon is a thing for you. It's absolutely amazing. It tastes great. And I mean, in every, every serving you're gonna get 12 grams of protein on the go. When you get the Magic Spoon cereal bars, you remember these cereal bars from when you were a kid, you would sit down, you would crush like a whole box of these. But now Magic Spoon has the alternative that is going to taste as good, if not better, with 12 grams of protein on the go. So if you're interested in trying out some Magic Spoon, specifically the cereal bars, you can probably go to Amazon or find them at a grocery store. But if you want to be frugal, you want to, you know, save some money, use the promo code camp. That's right. Secret for all the people listening to this program, the promo code camp, C A M P. When you go to magicspoon.com camp, you're going to save $5 off your next order. So have some fun. Feel like a kid again. Sit down with your kids and enjoy a nice big old bowl of cereal without all the guilt. Let's get back to the show. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because if you're anything like me, you're probably running late. You might be running late right now listening to this podcast. All right? You're just trying to get out the door and you realized you didn't have time to have a nutritious meal. And that's why I want to talk to you about Huel, because hu is your ontog complete meal in a bottle. That's right. Everything you need in this little bottle right here. We got 35 grams of protein, 27 vitamins and minerals. I don't even know if that's a lot. I think it is. 27 vitamins and minerals. I think testosterone is one of them because I feel amazing when I drink this. And 7 grams of fiber all in this bottle right here. It's got everything you need to get you powered through the day. To perform better at the gym, to perform better at work, probably to perform better in your intimate time with your husband or even your wife. All I'm saying is that if you are running behind on life and you need a nutritious meal in a bottle, Huel is the way to go. It's perfectly balanced, it's got everything you need and tastes amazing. I mean, this one right here is like a chocolate milkshake. It's crazy. It, like, tastes actually super good, but it's not chocolate milkshake. It is actually all the nutrients you need to get through the day. If you're interested in trying out Huel, I have great news for you, because listeners of this program, when they go to huel.com, that's h u e l dot com, and use the promo code Camp, you're gonna be getting 15% off plus a free gift for new customers. What is that gift? I think it comes with cocaine, probably. Anyway, huel.com, use the promo code camp, unlock a healthier, easier way to eat with Huel. Completely nutritious meals in just a few minutes so you can focus on what really matters. All right, Being productive and listening to podcasts. Let's get back to the show.

[A]

We're so done with New Year, New.

[B]

You this year, it's More youe on Bumble.

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More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with Showtime.

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More of you finding Geminis because you know you Always like them.

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More of you dating with intention because.

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You know what you want.

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And you know what?

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We love that for you, someone else will too be more you this year. And find them on Bumble.

[A]

And so you can find scientific poems or scientific books written before 1200. Okay. In Europe that basically assume a cyclical universe. And so the story of Genesis is the story of how the present iteration of the universe came to be. Who said that there was another universe before with other people and there will be another later. After all, the cause of the universe, God is eternal. And so why shouldn't the effect be eternal?

[B]

Interesting. This is an idea that's found in Hinduism as well.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This idea of the yugs that sort of repeat.

[A]

And the Stoics. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I guess.

[A]

In ancient Greece and Rome.

[B]

So it seems like many people in this early church believed that the world was either eternal or it was extremely old, made by a creator. And then this changes. And what I'm curious about with this change is that many Protestants today still believe in a young Earth.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Idea.

[A]

So a lot of people always believed in the young earth idea. Okay. The thing that is important is that there was never a pronunciation of the church that you have to believe in a young Earth as long as at the myth that it was created. And this only happened in the early 1200s. There was a council. And this council, it was decided. And since then it has been considered a Christian dogma that actually God made the universe at a certain point. Okay. But when it was never decided and never said so as long as you admit that there was a creation, you are free to imagine that the Earth can be as old as you want.

[B]

And so this changes in the Enlightenment time as well.

[A]

I'm gonna get there. I need to premise a few things because it is a bit of a long story. I hope not too boring.

[B]

Not at all, please.

[A]

Yeah. So. And there was an active debate on how old the Earth could have been. And around 1300, more or less. Some said, look, the Earth cannot be that old. And the reason is we have erosion. If the Earth was immensely old, all mountains would have been flattened already because they were totally aware of the power of erosion and of geological change. And some other counter. And there was especially fantastic natural philosopher, how they were called at the time at the University of Paris, who was himself a clergyman, because immediate Middle Ages, all these scholars were clergymen. Right. And he devised a counterpoint. He elaborated what we would call now an orogenetic model. That is a model where you can show that Mountains that are eroded can be replaced by new mountains. The Earth is active. And he imagined that the Earth is kind of a self sustaining machine that can replace with new mountains the one that are eroded indefinitely, basically as long as the sun shines.

[B]

And what year was this that he developed this?

[A]

The mid-1300s.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Now, this guy was considered the most famous, the most important natural philosopher at the University of Paris. And the book where he wrote these things was used in university teaching for a couple of centuries, until the early 1500s.

[B]

I mean, he's touching on. It seems like an early version of tectonic plate theory.

[A]

It is not tectonic plate theory. It is a different theory from our point of view, it is not correct. But the important thing is he wanted to point out that you can have in nature an Earth that is as old as you want first and that this is not against the faith and this could be taught without any problems. He, of course, acknowledges that there must have been a creation. At a certain point, this was even easier, because at the time, the idea is not that you have to find out among a range of theories, the one that is right and all the other ones are wrong. You want Moore to explore all the theories that are possible. And he considered this theory very possible, plausible and even likely. He called it probable. And he said there is no other way that mountains can be made. Now, of course, he knew that all the mountains, the ancients, we are talking about the Romans or the Greeks, 15 centuries earlier, they were still there. There had been adjustments in the coastlines. Some cities that in antiquity were by the sea, now were a couple of miles away, perhaps, but very small adjustments. And he even tried to figure out, based on this adjustment, how long an entire geological cycle of the Earth would take. And it was in tens of millions of years. Now, this is not considered evidence that the Earth was old. Maybe God made the earth 6,000 years ago, and he made it in a way that, to our limited understanding, it looks to be very old.

[B]

Perhaps.

[A]

Perhaps, however, he wants to make clear the Earth can actually be very old. This is not against the fate and is not against the laws of nature. This is a real possibility.

[B]

Wow. Would he be considered a fringe genius? Or was this.

[A]

He was mainstream. He was the Master of Arts at the Faculty of Arts in Paris. He was the most important natural philosopher of his time. And actually he was very serious as a clergyman. He was very serious that the Earth cannot be eternal. And he signed himself the decree that condemned to arson the books of a colleague who actually claimed that the World can be eternal.

[B]

Because that would be more heretical, I guess.

[A]

Yes, that would be heretical. At a certain point, you need to have a creation, okay. You could not say any longer for another 50 years, more or less, that the world always existed. Okay. But as long as you acknowledge that it was made at a certain point, it can be as old as you want. And around 1500, this thing kind of trickled down even to people who did not attend university, who did not know Latin, even to people like this Leonardo da Vinci, this universal genius who actually fit very well in the context of his time. You have to rebuild this context. So, for example, there are his notes where he draws a parachute. Okay. Now, a kind of parachute can be seen in the nose of another engineer from Tuscany six years earlier. So he was trying a different model because apparently the old model didn't work.

[B]

Well, I'm curious how that went down.

[A]

Yeah. So he was building on a tradition of engineers that existed at the time. And of course, he was building on a tradition of painters. I mean, when he was like 12, he was sent to the. To the workshop of a painter in Florence to learn the job. And in that place, he learned to do a lot of things because at the time that the artist was really considered a craftsman, someone who had a various kind of expertise. So if you work like he did for the Duke of Milan, for example, okay, the Duke can tell you, look, I need to dig a canal, work on it. So he worked as hydraulic engineer, or.

[B]

They would employ the artist to work on it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

The artist is just a man who works with his hands.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And these were things that most artists would learn to do. So a lot of artists work also as engineers or architects or they worked in mining. It was pretty normal. It was not just him. And then some specialized. For example, he never scout. Oh, well, it's not even true. But someone who. Like Michelangelo, for example, he really was a sculptor in his bones. But he also painted or did architecture. Someone like Raphael didn't sculpt. He was really a painter, but many did a little bit of everything. And so one of the things that he did was hydraulic works, was engineering, was architecture. And when you do architecture, one of the things that you may want to do is, for example, bring water to some city on a Tuscan hillside, on Tuscan hill. They may have in the southern part of the country. They could have problems in summer with water. Okay. And so they would study the geology of the hills and the strata, because they knew that between this strata and this Strata between. Between this kind of soil and this kind of soil here. Water is like to pool. So they bore the hill at this point until they found a pool of water. Or you may examine this straighter because if you are. If you want to build some construction, you don't want it to be like Peter's leaning tower. Right. You want to have a better assessment of the soil. Okay. And you want to make sure that there are no infiltrations of water. Okay. And so this is one of the reasons why they studied geology and a lot of this science that looks like science to us, but it was done for practical reasons by people who are not natural philosophers and were not considered natural philosophers. Imagine a scientist that cannot read English. You're cut off. Leonardo could not read Latin. He tried to learn it, he learned a little bit of it, but not much. And yet in his mind, he tried to fit the detailed knowledge of the geology of the earth that he had he himself, and that he learned from his colleagues, from his teachers and so on. This was Leonardo, Leonardo. And to fit it into a theoretical framework. This theoretical framework, he called it basically from a colleague of this French natural philosopher whose name was Jean Buridam. And a colleague of him divulged his theory in books that were published both in Germany or in Italy. And he had a copy of this book, it was in Latin, but he got it right, he managed to read it correctly. And so he used the, what they call the orogenetic theory of this 14th century philosopher in Paris as the engine of geological change. He modified it, he changed it, he did a fantastic, amazing work, but still he based his work on a medieval theory.

[B]

Wow. And what years did Leonardo da Vinci live?

[A]

We are talking about around 1500. He died in 1519. But most of his geological notes, most of his work in geology was done probably between 1500 and when he died.

[B]

Interesting. That makes so much sense, this idea of art and science being so closely.

[A]

Yes. I don't know how to teach early modern science without teaching art as well, because they are so closely interrelated.

[B]

I feel like on universities to this day, you still see arts and sciences are kind of said in sort of the same sentence. They're kind of combined.

[A]

You still have a faculty of art and sciences. Right.

[B]

And this is sort of a piece of antiquity of this idea that art and science.

[A]

Yes. Actually arts didn't have university had a different meaning. So the faculty of arts were basically the college and then you had the professional schools that were at the time only theology, medicine and law. Okay. So the faculty of arts was kind of propagated to the professional schools, and not everyone then went on to study geology, medicine and law. Many of them just got their undergraduate degrees, as to speak. Okay. But the meaning of arts in the university context was the faculty of arts, that is where you learn the basics. Your Astronomy 101, arithmetic, some geometry, music, a lot of natural philosophy.

[B]

And how many people in this time would be attending a university or have access to some of these more sophisticated pieces of. Of text?

[A]

That's an interesting question. Much of my work has been on scientific literature in vernacular, because since the late 1200s, you start having translations into vernacular languages, especially Italian and French, and these translations circulated. And my hunch is that theories like this orogenetic theory elaborated in a university context, they trickled down and they came to be known to anyone who wanted to know them. So a lot of these things really came to become like kind of common sense. So it was commonsensical in the universities, when talk about geological change, of how the earth changes, to assume that the earth has an indefinite age. And Leonardo does the same because it was common sense. He absorbs this. And so it was quite widespread.

[B]

So if you were at a bar in middle age Italy and you were to be like, oh, the world is extremely old and it had a creator, everyone else in the bar would be like, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I mean, you don't have the bar, but they did this kind of conversation probably in apothecary shops. Apothecaries were what the coffee houses became later. It were a places where people gathered. And yes, you could get your drugs, but then you could read later, after the invention, the printing press, the latest books, you could have your mail sent to the local apothecary. And the same way I can meet my students at the coffee house or the bar, professor or university professor could meet their students at the apothecary shop. And in many cases the apothecary would have a museum of natural history with all of his curiosities and things that could be studied and shown inside the apothecary. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Or maybe in the back shop.

[B]

But it was connected.

[A]

Oh, at the second floor.

[B]

Yes, absolutely.

[A]

So there was a freedom of speculating that was really wide. There were only just very few points that you don't want to touch. If you are a natural philosopher, you can basically say around 1500, everything you want, as long as you say that philosophically speaking, it's kind of a magic word that they used and put it there from time to time. This means Look, I don't want to get into any troubles, okay? If this is considered to be not true by our religion, say I've just given my students a demonstration, Aristotle's typical demonstration that the earth is eternal.

[B]

Philosophically speaking.

[A]

Yeah, philosophically speaking. That's it. And then what happened? Especially after the invention of the press, these vernacular books became much more widespread simply because they were looking for more and more markets for the new technology. Right. They want to spread it. They want to sell. And so there were humanists or scholars that specialized in translating or simplifying or popularize the works of the. Of the authorities or the great guys who taught in universities to make money. Yeah. That's to bring to their job just.

[B]

How we are today.

[A]

Yeah. And so a typical example. Everything started, as far as I'm concerned, with a book that I found in a library in Venice. This book was printed in 1542, and it is a book on meteorology. Meteorology. There is a book by Aristotle called Meteorology. Guess what it is about? Yeah. It defines the field of meteorology that we still have today.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. All our physics comes from a book by Aristotle called Physics, which was about the science of motion, which is what physics is at its roots, the science of motion. And now it's much larger, of course, meteorology. Our meteorology, on the contrary, became smaller field because at the time, Aristotle also examined in his book the interaction between the atmosphere, the ocean and the earth. And so basically, meteorology was also about today's geology, which did not exist really, as a separate field until 1700. Okay. And so this book also deals with geology. And it was a booklet like this, about 60 or 70 pages in Italian. Okay. And it was just meant to popularize natural philosophy. It is a book that could be bought by. By apothecaries, by physicians, by surgeons that at the time were barbers. Right. Or by women. Women, if you are the wife of apothecary. You just learn the trade and you prepare drugs and you do botanical research. It was absolutely normal. And we have actually books by my wife, swapothecarist, on natural philosophy in the 1500s. Yes. And so this book, at a certain point, talks about the origins of mountains. And what it says is that it explains various ideas on how mountains can form. And they're all very slow processes. But, you know, the author says this is not a problem because the earth is basically thermal, so you can take as much time as you want. So what he did was to take the book of a professor, university professor, who wrote a sort of synthesis of Aristotle's book on natural philosophy for his students. So they didn't have to look for very different books. They had everything. A big nice summary. He took this summary and opened it and translated and further summarized it into Italian for a general public of people who did not attend university and could not read Laddin. And they were learning exactly the same things.

[B]

Wow. And you felt like, were the theories that were laid out in the book generally, you know, like, did they have any credence to them? Do they seem like they were cogent in any way?

[A]

That's an interesting question. Because when he writes the word is basically eternal. You can think, well, okay, but we know that it is an assumption among natural philosophers. But I know that the earth was created 6,000 years ago. Or you can read it as. Yeah, of course, the Earth is much older than 6,000 years. And the six days of creation are just a metaphor that is used to explain to primitive people or literary people the concept that there was a God that created the world. Right. And that was a super common interpretation. Absolutely. Or some could say, well, of course the earth is eternal and the church has it wrong. They will not say it out loud. But the interesting thing is that the author was not even forced to specify what he meant. No. Because even among the hierarchies of the church at the time we are talking, and the year is 1542, there was the idea that natural philosophy, what we would call science, is about natural philosophy and theology should not interfere. Okay. Of course, we assume, we hope, that they don't really mean it and that they don't mean that the earth is eternal, just at most indefinitely old or very old. Okay. But not really eternal. But they didn't have to write it. And so imagine that you are someone and it is a real case that has been studied. It is very famous among historians of. You are a miller, that you live in northeastern Italy, not far from Venice, and you like reading. You learn to read, not Latin, but you read whatever you can and you form your own cosmology. And from time to time, you travel to Venice and you try to buy vernacular books on science or religion from an apothecary and helped our booksellers. It was plenty. At the time, Venice was probably the most important printing center in Europe. There was hundreds of presses that worked. And it was a big economic activity in town. Yes, it was a big cultural center, really big. Traditionally, it was the city that connected Western Europe with the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle east and India. It was being skipped now by the Spanish and The Portuguese. But still it was still a very important trading center and center for exchange of information. I see with a thriving press industry. And so this Miller went there, I could buy this book. And he could have, I don't know, but he could have bought a book like this for the equivalent of a few dollars and open it and this will tell you that the earth is basically thermal. Now, what happened to the author of this book? Absolutely nothing.

[B]

And the person that read it? Absolutely nothing.

[A]

Absolutely nothing. At the time, there wasn't even an inquisition in town, an ecclesiastical inquisition. And there was no ecclesiastic censorship of books as a centralized organism. What happened later, and I mean just a few years later, and you can see it happen here after year, was the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic counter offensive. Because with the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church felt under siege. And the Protestant Reformation, starting with Luther, really in many cases wanted to get rid of this pagan science that they thought should not have place in a Christian country. We consider too much to the ideas of those Greek philosophers and keep elaborating on them. But they were not Christians. They knew nothing about the revelation. This is not a Christian science. We want to elaborate a science that is more Christian. And on the other hand, the Catholic Church felt threatened, of course by the Protestant Reformation. And so they starting reigning in on intellectual freedom. They were especially fearful of heresy. Actually, what they did in this field was simply to require authors that if you demonstrate, if you give Aristotle's demonstration that the earth is eternal, you explain explicitly that this is what Aristotle thinks, not what I think of what the church teaches. Because before 1550 you didn't even have to do that.

[B]

Wow. But that still isn't like a big clampdown or censorship. Just saying. And as a disclaimer, this is not what I think. This is what Aristotle said.

[A]

Yeah. And it doesn't seem a big claim. What happened is that many people actually were convinced that indeed we considered too much to this pagan science and we should start building a science that is more Christian and more respectful of the revelation. And so alongside this traditional idea that the earth can be very old, you start seeing a new kind of meteorology that tries to be. That tries to bring revelation inside.

[B]

And when you say meteorology, you are talking kind of geology.

[A]

Geology, Geology. Yes, in this case, this part of meteorology that really to us is geology. Right. And so, for example, you see author that start working in a context of just a few thousand years, authors that start saying that, you know those fossils of fish that you find on mountaintops According to Aristotle and to much of previous authors, in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, we found them there because who knows when ages ago, what is now dry land used to be the bottom of the sea. But because of the geological revolutions of the earth, at a certain point, the earth, the sea withdraw, and of course, it left there the remains, the petrified remains of fish and shells. But in this age, you start seeing a certain pressure, cultural pressure really, towards explaining fossils and mountains. With Noah's flood, it was never a matter of faith. Again, the Bible doesn't talk at all about fossils. And if you ask the natural philosopher in the 1500, what do you think of those people who believe that fossils out of mountains and we have this kind of fish up there because of no flood? They would answer 90%, 99% of them. Oh, this is just a popular story. Yeah. I mean, we had common people believe that. Okay. It's nice, but it's not how it worked.

[B]

And in what sense? That they didn't believe that there was a global flood, that this was a regional flood. Interesting.

[A]

Yeah. Most of them did not believe that there was. There can be a global flood. Didn't know where the water can come.

[B]

From or where it would go.

[A]

Yeah. Aristotle, whose theory of the earth was the foundation of what they used, didn't believe that you can have a universal flood. Big regional, devastating floods. Yes, but not that the earth can go completely underwater.

[B]

And this idea came about to try to create more Christian science, to say, okay, we have some science and we have some Bible. Let's throw them together in a way that makes sense.

[A]

It is a time when what we call the scientific revolution was taking form. And we have this idea that this is a time when science, when science and theology began to diverge. It was the opposite in the Middle Ages. They were kept completely separated until 1500s.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And then during the time that we associate with the scientific revolution, they start to converge. And it became even difficult for natural philosopher to just speak philosophically. And so you start seeing all of these justifications, and you can still write that the earth is very old or not given temporal frame, but you must be careful not to say that the earth is eternal. Okay. You cannot do that anymore.

[B]

Could you say Aristotle thought it was eternal?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay, so that's still fine?

[A]

Absolutely. That was totally fine. Continue to be taught at universities. No problem at all with that.

[B]

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Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. At a certain point you start using the Bible or the revelation or tradition of the church. For example, in astronomy, they started doing that about 1570. If you think of Copernicus book on heliocentricism where he explains that in his opinion it is the earth that revolves around the sun and not the opposite. This was published in 1543. It was dedicated to the Pope. He worked himself. His job was he was the administrator for a cathedral in Poland.

[B]

Copernicus, yes.

[A]

And he was urged to publish his book because everyone knew that he was a great astronomer and he had been working in his theory for his whole life. And his employer, that was the bishop, ordered him to publish it. So he published the book while as he was dying and he dedicated to the Pope and recirculated. Actually, there was someone who didn't like it. And there were more Lutheran theologians rather than Catholics.

[B]

The Lutherans didn't like the last centuries.

[A]

Yes. No. Luther has explicitly condemned Copernicus because he was much more of a literalist than the hierarchies of the Catholic Church.

[B]

Oh, wow. So what did the Pope think of Copernicus idea?

[A]

It is about astronomy, okay? It works better. It is a scientific theory that can explain the motions of the planets. That's fine. A very common idea that exists at the time is that astronomy really is about computing planetary motions. Okay? Now what's behind it is a different matter. You have these different mathematical models and you can use whatever you want, okay? As long as it works right. And whether the Earth is stable center of the universe or not, it was never a matter of faith until the late 1500s, when you have this surge of biblical literalism when now we have to explain even scientific theories and justify them before revelation it started in the Protestant world, but very quickly it took hold even in Catholic countries. And that's why 70 years later, in 1616, Copernicanism was condemned. 70 years later, it took 70 years to get there.

[B]

He had already died.

[A]

Oh, yes, he died as his book was being published.

[B]

So he's already dead. And then there starts.

[A]

For 70 years, the book is published and read without a problem. There was not really real physical evidence for the motion of the Earth. Okay. It was just a theory that explained the universe way better. It was a simpler system. It made more sense. Okay. But there was no physical evidence for the motion of the Earth. And I mean, before starting saying that this thing is traveling around the sun at 30 kilometers per hour, you want some evidence?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Pretty hard, right? Okay. But then Galileo invents the telescope and start making observations that make this plausible. And so someone in the Holy Office screws up and then decide that they want to rule on a matter of astronomy that had never anything to do with the faith.

[B]

And who decided this?

[A]

A group of theologians who decided that this theory was probably heretic and in any way suspect. So basically, Galileo was told not to teach it. And then, of course, like 15 years later, he published his book, his famous Dialogue on the System of the Worlds, the book that brought him before the Inquisition, because, of course, his project was approved by the Pope. But then he did something different. The Pope told him, okay, you can write this book, but presents different astronomical hypothesis as a hypothesis. Okay. Fairly brings opinion for and against. And yeah, try to do something fair. Because still the time Galileo did not have hard habitants that the Earth moved.

[B]

Galileo didn't have hard.

[A]

So he writes this book and he does the opposite of what the Pope says. And when the book is published, the Pope is outraged. And everyone knew that he was a friend of Galileo and he always protected him against his enemies. And he made a lot because he was a proud man, very smart. He made enemies unnecessarily. He said, I'm not backing you anymore.

[B]

Oh, wow. And why did he go against the Pope's wishes?

[A]

That's a good question.

[B]

We don't know.

[A]

If I knew, I could write the bestseller.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Probably. He had always outsmarted everyone. He was really smart, if you read him. Well, that's brilliant. He was brilliant. The way he writes, he was really brilliant. He was 70. He wanted this thing to go out. He wanted to pass to history as the man who really changed the universe and the conception that people had of the universe.

[B]

So he didn't want to water it down with a pro and a con and make a measured book.

[A]

In theory it does. But then there is a dialogue, you know, and one of the protagonists supports the idea that the Earth is at the center of the Earth, of the universe, and doesn't move. But he's always wrong. And for 400 pages he makes of himself a fool. And then the Pope recommended Galileo and in your book even put this idea, which he kind of shared, that is, you know, astronomical systems are mathematical models and we may never be able to know what the actual structure of the universe is. Was how God really arranged the universe. And Galileo does it. And he puts the opinion of the Pope in the mouth of the Aristotelian philosopher who has spent 400 pages making a fool of himself.

[B]

Oh, wow. Oh. So he just completely turned on him.

[A]

How did he think that he could get away with it? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. What happened is. Has been framed in a very interesting way and probably right as the fall of a courtier.

[B]

The fall of a.

[A]

Of a courtier. Someone. Yeah, he was. It was a. A Catholic society. You have the prince, you have the Pope, you have the grand duke, and with a court outside. Galileo was a courtier, a courtier who enjoyed the favor of his prince and of the Pope. But, you know, he need to know your place. Galileo forgot this place.

[B]

He said, I'm smarter than these people. I know more than these people. They should be listening to me. I don't need to listen to them.

[A]

I guess so.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So you see that there is all of these movement, these kind of religious radicalization where for political reasons a lot, the church and religious authorities in general, both Protestant and Catholic medals, more and more into what used to be a completely independent field of natural philosophy.

[B]

Do you think that the early Catholic Church or the Protestant Reformed Church, felt threatened by the Advent and sort of the hold that these sciences and natural sciences had on the people?

[A]

I do not believe this is the right way to frame it. I do not think that it would have taught it this way. Because the most important scientific society of this 17th century, when it comes to scientific contributions, was the Society of Jesus. It was founded as an intellectual elite. Their idea was to reconvert Europe to Catholicism and convert also the rest of the world. So they sent missionaries to China. They obtained admission to the court of the emperors in Beijing as mathematicians and astronomers because they were so good. So the idea was we are an intellectual elite, and with our scientific prowess and reputation, we want the elite to send their children to us to receive an Instruction. And if we recathorize the elite or we convert the elite, the rest of the Society will follow.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And they were overall an amazing scientific society. Of course, the aim was not to improve scientific knowledge itself. That was a tool, okay. To affirm and expand and reassure Catholicism. Right. But we have letters when Copernicanism was condemned, we have letters of Jesuits writing, you know, I would support Galileo if I could, but I have order not to. They gave me order to stick to Aristotle. And the real reason is that the status Jesus ran colleges and educational institutions. I mean, from Peru to Manila.

[B]

Wow. And it's called the Society of Jesus.

[A]

Yes. The Jesuits everywhere. And one of the strengths was they wanted to have a uniform teaching. Okay? And this Aristotle provided a solid philosophy that covered all of the fields and to still consider the basis of the education. And it's not like one of us can teach Copernicus in one place and the other one is not convinced. So he keeps teaching Aristotle the same thing everywhere. I mean, no, okay, we have this consistent natural philosophy laid out by Aristotle and by all of the literature that developed in centuries over him. Okay. Stick to him, please. Unless it contradicts patently.

[B]

Right. And they could have co opted Galileo and Copernicanism, but because he had sort of gone against the Pope at a.

[A]

Certain point in 1616, before Galileo was disgraced, the Holy Office already decided to ban, for the moment, Copernicanism.

[B]

Before Galileo, before he had published.

[A]

Before he had published his. He had already published his observations of the moon. And so he was making this thing really plausible. He was showing that the moon actually is another world like the Earth. Leonardo da Vinci already thought it. A lot of the ancients already thought it, but it was not mainstream, really. But he was demonstrating that the moon is not just a kind of ethereal sphere made of the fifth element. It was really made of the same elements as the Earth is with mountains and valleys, maybe an atmosphere or seas, who knows? It was not clear at the time. So did this idea that the Earth is just one world among many start becoming very plausible, even without very hard evidence?

[B]

I see. And why did the Church, why were they clamping down on Copernicanism? Like, was it just a backlash to them losing power, to the Protestants? And they were like, okay, let's just rein everything in and see what everyone's talking about? Or was it just a mistake by Church leadership?

[A]

I can give you my hunch. And one of my colleagues could disagree. The Church was made of people. These people in previous decades got used to meddling more and more in things that never belonged to the main of the church.

[B]

That was a mistake of the church.

[A]

Astronomy of natural philosophy, okay? And they were backed by the police and by armed forces and so on, okay? And they got used not to be contradicted and to be right even when they were wrong. And they decided to. They want to decide this question and this problem, even if this had nothing to do with faith normally. I mean, you said that there is a chapter in Joshua where Joshua says, stop you sun. Right. And so. Oh, it means that the sun is going around and not the Earth. I mean, this was childish. Yeah, this was almost childish.

[B]

Yeah. One random excerpt, like, I still say that to this day. Oh, sun, don't go down. Yes, I want to stay outside.

[A]

And Galileo elaborated a counter argument that was perfect, even theologically said, you know what? It's not like the sun goes around the Earth in 24 hours. The whole of the sky goes around the Earth in 24 hours. The motion that is proper to the sun is moving slowly through the sky, so causing the seasons right along the line that is called astronomers called the ecliptic by about one degree a day. So we have in an year, he does 360 degrees in 365 days. Right. Okay. So in traditional geogenetic astronomy, there was the outermost sphere of the heavens that turns around in 24 hours. So he wanted to really have a few more hours of light to win this battle and finish it. He should have said. And he wanted to teach astronomy as well. He should have said, stop thou eight sphere of the sky. Because otherwise, I mean, the rest of the sky keeps turning. Okay, the sun stops. And you know what? You have a slightly shorter day by like four minutes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he read all this argument. It was perfect.

[B]

He said this.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

He wrote it down.

[B]

That's brilliant.

[A]

And yes. And. And he was a brilliant. He was totally brilliant. And he also wrote it clearly. Look, when he had the news that the church could have banned Copernicanism in 1616, he lived in Florence. He catapulted himself to Rome, trying to see if he could do anything. And he said, don't do that, because it is true that I don't have evidence for the motion of the Earth, but I think I will have it one day. And if this happens and you have condemned Copernicanism, I mean, the whole world will laugh at you, at us, because he was himself a Catholic, whether he cared or not. But I mean, this place, he had to be a Catholic.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Whether he liked it or not.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Okay. And his reasoning was absolutely correct. It was a matter of power and who gets to decide who is right or who is wrong.

[B]

So what happened to Galileo? He went to trial.

[A]

He went to trial and he had to recant. And he was not tortured. Okay. And he was sentenced to house confinement in his villa in overlooking Florence. I mean, I've been there. It is a very large house with a very large garden with olives, vineyards. I mean, lots of Americans would sign up for retiring in a place like this and staying there.

[B]

It'd be a nice Airbnb. It'd be a nice little situation.

[A]

Well, that was a very nice place.

[B]

Still, you don't want to be confined.

[A]

I mean, house arrest was under surveillance. And every day he had to confer with his confessor. And he wanted to leave this house and go to Florence or visit his daughter, who lived in a nearby monastery. She was a nun and he was a real intellectual companionship to him. They had a correspondence. He had to ask for permission.

[B]

That's annoying.

[A]

That's annoying.

[B]

That's not fair.

[A]

But I guess that's not fair. And he kept writing since he was there, he stopped working on astronomy. So he put together a lot of notes and experiments that he made when he was younger, before he invented a telescope. This is the thing that made him really important and famous overnight, really. But he did a lot of work on motion, on the laws of motion. Before Newton, he really started using the principle of inertia in physics. He made his famous experiments of the inclined plane and so on, and he put them together and he wrote another dialogue on these two new sciences. And one of those two new sciences, the science of the materials really, as they study in engineering. It was founded by Galileo that using mathematics, you study mathematically the properties of the materials in engineering, because he was also a practical man. And indeed, this second dialogue is funny. They are the same protagonists as the dialogue on astronomy, but this time they meet at the Navy shipyard in Venice because it was the most important, probably pre industrial establishment in Western Europe. They even had a sort of assembly line for war galleys.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Yeah. So it was a place of technological experimentation.

[B]

That seems like a good setting for this book, this dialogue.

[A]

Yeah. And so this is not just about astronomy. I mean, this discover all other field, but in the field of geology, if you keep saying. If you avoid saying that explicitly that the Earth is eternal, you're fine.

[B]

And was he persecuted for any of his other dialogues after?

[A]

No.

[B]

So that was it. Did he stay on house arrest, basically for the rest of his life?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And how long was that? Like 10 years.

[A]

He died in 1642, so. 10 years, wow. The last 10 years of his life. And then he also became blind. He could be visited by pupils by other. Milton, the famous poet, visited Galileo while he traveled through Italy.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Yeah. The author of Paradise Lost.

[B]

And did his daughter carry on any of his work in any significant capacity?

[A]

Not really. She had no chance of doing that. So what happened is that he had four children with a woman of Venice that he never married.

[B]

Wow, that's huge.

[A]

He was not really nice. He had three daughters and one male child. The three daughters were sent to monastery so that he didn't have to pay a dowry for them.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

It was common. Many people did that. And so his son inherited everything. And actually the monastery where this, the smartest daughter went was a very poor monastery. And sometimes he wrote to him asking for no blankets or food.

[B]

Oh, wow, that's. And he never married the mother. Was this frowned upon socially?

[A]

Well, no. Well, he was a professor, a university professor in Paula University. Then when he became famous, he went back to Florence to become a courtier because it was a much better position, much better paid. He became the mathematician and philosopher of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Didn't have to teach students. He could do whatever he wanted. And when he left, he abandoned this woman. He left her.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Yes. And we know that when she brought her children to be baptized under Father, she wrote unknown.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yes, as if she was a prostitute. I mean, he wasn't really nice.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

I mean, these heroes, I mean, they are human beings and they had their. Their nasty sides.

[B]

Was there public discourse regarding his trial and house arrest?

[A]

Well, house arrest, yes. It was an immense scandal and the Church wanted to make sure that everybody knew what happened.

[B]

And what did people. What did people think of this? Like, was there.

[A]

Oh, the Protestants thought that it was an immense abuse. And the Catholics as well. Yeah, I guess most of them. It was quite shocking. He was the most famous. One of the most famous men in Europe. Really?

[B]

And did it quell the ideas of Copernicanism or no?

[A]

No, what happened is that for another century or so, Catholic astronomer did not explicitly endorse Copernicanism. So you find books with a preface saying, oh, by the way, in this book I'm using the Copernican system. But all of these phenomena can be explained in other ways, so do not take it as support for Copernicanism. But many of them were actually Working so as to find hard evidence for the motion of the Earth. And this only came in 1729. There is a phenomenon called the aberration of light that can only be explained if the Earth moves and faster on the sun.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Yeah. It only came 1729.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Yeah. And a few years later, the new Pope decided to be done with this stupid thing and to take away Copernicus and Galileo's book from the index of the Forbidden Books. Actually, Copernicus book was never prohibited. What was done was to recommend some passages where Copernicus explicitly endorses the motion of the earth as a real physical phenomenon, not just a mathematical theory, should be deleted. You can still go into libraries and take copies of Copernicus book and some of them will have some passages deleted.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And when it was published, when the book was published, it was actually published hundreds of miles away from where Copernicus lived, or rather was dying. And the pupil of his, who should have supervised the publication was not there at the moment. And so the final publication was supervised by a scholar who was a Lutheran theologian. And he knew that Luther did not like these ideas. And so he wrote a preface, just one page that was not signed, writing, basically saying, this book. Well, it should not be taken seriously. It's just a mathematical theory, which is not what Copernicus meant. Yeah.

[B]

And he never knew that it was inserted into the book.

[A]

No.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

But many people knew that the author was not helicopernicus. And so at Yale, in the library, in the Beinecke Library, we have a copy of Copernicus book. We have more than one, actually. But one of them is especially interesting because this preface is cancelled like this. And some hands wrote in the 1500s, because you can say from the hands in what century this was written, the orthography changes. Oh, this is not something that was written by Copernicus. This was inserted by Osiander, which is this Lythian theologian. And so this reader, which was well informed, obviously cancelled with a pencil. This preface.

[B]

Oh, wow, that's badass. That's like punk rock.

[A]

It was known. It was not a mystery.

[B]

This is wild. So this idea that the Church was trying to suppress scientific achievement all through the Middle Ages is not true. They coexisted quite happily up until some, you know, church leadership made a mistake. And then Galileo got into a beef with the Pope.

[A]

Yeah, it was not Galileo. Galileo comes after like 80, 70 years of progressive, how could they say, of radical religious radicalization and biblical literalism, where you want to Explain even the physical world using the revelation, which was not done in the Middle Ages. There was this accommodation when theology is theology and you deal with theology and natural philosophy is natural philosophy, and the.

[B]

Biblical literalism is slightly predicated by the Protestant Reformation.

[A]

Well, I think that he. Yes. And he became widespread even in the Catholic world, actually started. Even Catholic scholars around 1520, especially in northern Europe, became a bit concerned with this totally heretical theory that were taught in universities without any problem and started to elaborate a science that was also respectful of the word of God. And this was an explicit program. And it started more or less the same time as the Lutheran reformation. So around 1520. Wow. That the church didn't really care until the Lutheran Reformation became a big political and ideological challenge. And so it is really in the late 1500s and 1600s that the mess started. This messing of natural philosophy or science and religion started.

[B]

What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I got to tell you about an amazing service known as BlueChew. That's right. BlueChew is a service that basically delivers this chewable tablet to your door whenever you want, once a week, once a month. I don't even know if they could do it that frequently, but they'll send it right to your door. You don't have to go to the doctor and have some awkward conversation with some guy in a lab coat, some dude that's judging you probably, if I had to guess, with Bluechew. It's super discreet. The packaging is discreet. It's just a couple questions on their website. And they will send you chewable tablets that have basically the same active ingredients as like a Viagra or a Cialis, but at the fraction of the cost and in a chewable form. It's great. It truly is. I mean, one time I was in the woods and we were cold and everyone. It was raining, and I pitched a tent with the help of Bluechew, and everyone gathered under it and we were safe. And it saved me and a lot of lonely people. So if you're interested in bluechew, here's how you get it. You're going to go to bluechew.com and use the promo code. Gagnon. That's right. G A G, N O N. It's kind of funny. Gagnon has the promo code. I don't know why exactly, but it is funny. And you're gonna receive your first month for free. That's right. Bluechew.com use the promo code. Gagnon. Check it out. Bluechew let's get back to the show.

[A]

And when it came to geology, it is funny because the first one who really tried, in, as far as I can see, to build a theory of the evolution of the Earth that was compatible with Genesis was one of the big heroes of early geology. He was a Dane called Stenson Stino in his Latinized form, when he wrote in Latin. And this started as an atomist. And then he moved to Italy. He converted to Catholicism, but he had this Protestant background, and he is considered the father of modern stratigraphy. He started studying the Strait of the Earth to do something that Leonardo da Vinci never thought of doing, that is to see if by studying this strata, you can prove that there was a global flood in a relatively recent time that can explain the geological appearance of the Earth. And so stratigraphy as a science really started because they wanted to start to begin to prove revelation using science. And this was about 1760s, early 1770s. Sorry, 1660, 1670.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And you start seeing people who build on this. And he didn't identify. He didn't give a date of the strata that he examined. Okay. He just wrote that the geological appearance of the Earth is compatible with a universal flood. That happened more or less when the Bible says that.

[B]

And how was he getting information about the Earth's crust?

[A]

He studied the geology of Tuscany, very especially from the geology of Tuscany. He studied the strata. He saw that some are parallel to the Earth, which is what should happen if sediments deposit underwater, but then some are broken. There was also this underlying theory that the interior of the Earth is really kind of hollow and there are a lot of subterranean waters running. That was very common until the 1700s.

[B]

People believe that.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, have you ever read Voyager to the center of the Earth or see the movie Jules Verne?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What do they find?

[B]

Right. But this was an idea that was.

[A]

Accepted at the time Jules Verne wrote this book in the. What was that? The 1860s. At the time, it was completely old. And so the protagonist is a scientist who is not mainstream at the time. Okay. But this idea that the Earth is hollow and you can find waters running waters and ocean in entire ocean under the crust. It was very common until 1700, more or less. And so Jules Verne is talking of a theory that was quite commonsensical until not much earlier.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Yeah. This is where it comes from. I have a. I had a class where at certain point we took classic science fiction like Juice Verne, HG Wells and so on and disassembled it to See where all these ideas came from?

[B]

Oh, interesting. And they're all predicated by ancient science or H.D.

[A]

Wells, you know, the Martians that come to invade the Earth because at the time, astronomers thought that they could see evidence of an intelligent civilization on Mars.

[B]

Okay, we're gonna. We'll get to that.

[A]

We'll talk about it.

[B]

We'll talk about that.

[A]

Okay, but. So this is the late 1600s is really when geology starts forming. And much of it was done in order to prove what, to a modern geologist is totally counterintuitive. That is, if you study the Strait of the Earth, you will find that the Bible and the chronology of the Bible is right. So you find a count like, oh, okay, so I went down the pit, a very deep pit in my hometown, and I use the chronicles or my town. So here I see a layer of a volcanic layer, say that this exploration happened near Naples, where there is this volcano, the Vesuvius. Okay. Oh, this must be the most recent great eruption. Underneath you find a layer of sediments underneath another layer of volcanic rock. And since the place had been inhabited since ancient times, you can't date them, because this is the history that he can use. And at a certain point, he finds in Astrata archaeological remains that he can date to the Roman Republic. And so the volcanic layer immediately above must have been the great eruption of 79 that destroyed Pompeii. And he assumes that these big eruptions happens at regular intervals. It is not correct, but is a reasonable assumption at the time. And he goes down at a certain point, what does he find? He finds a thick layer of limestone, very thick layer of limestone that deposits underwater. And he said, you know what? This thick layer of limestone happens exactly when we would expect to find the universal flood of the Bible. And so this time you start to want to prove revelation using science, and it start becoming a bit. I wouldn't say dangerous, but uncomfortable to say, you know, wait a moment. Natural philosophy. Natural philosophy. There's never been a thing I've always been able as a geologist, if you want, the world did not exist to say that the Earth is much older and that fossils were not made by the flood. And now you're telling me that if they. I do not believe that the Earth is young and there was this universal flood in historical times that created the fossils. And these are the evidence for the flood. I cannot be a good Christian. That was new. It was around late 1600, early 1700s.

[B]

And that's the problem, because now every scientific discovery you make has to be compatible with the Bible. And if it's not, then you have to either throw it away or reinterpret your scientific discovery.

[A]

And I wrote myself on the writings and the correspondence of a naturalist who wrote in the 1720s, and he lived in Northern Italy. He was like. He was a Catholic, probably he was kind of a libertine. But anyway, he pretended to be a good Catholic. And he was totally incensed at this. This is new. What is this thing? This never happened. Since when? He had to believe that the fossils were made by the universal flood. It is not in the Bible. It is not in the Catholic tradition. We have always been free to investigate other causes and to skip this hypothetical flood of which we have no evidence. Hey, maybe it was God's miracle.

[B]

Yeah, who's there?

[A]

No problem. Okay. I don't want to impeach onto theology. Theologians will say whatever they want. And in this book, he also had a letter by a theologian who confirmed that, yeah, he is right. This is the tradition. The Catholic scientific traditions are that you don't need to believe in geological evidence for the flood in order to be a good Christian. But there was this big movement which was especially strong in Great Britain. And during the 1700s, when especially French philosophes started accumulating argument against Christianity, that was perfect. They seized on this idea. They elaborated a narrative that is a relatively recent idea, that in order to be a good Christian, you have to believe in a recent creation and that the fossils were created by a universal flood. That was always the teaching of the Church and church doctrine. It was not true. It was 50 years old, maybe.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

They elaborated this narrative. If I am right, and I think I am, but there is work to do in this field. What happened is that the conservatives. And there was all these political stakes at the time, right? Because what they were saying was that, you know why the king of France has a right to be king of France? Who gave him this right? The people God. He governs by grace of God. And when the king of France is incarnated in Reims, this is a repetition of the ceremony that takes place in the Bible when Saul, the first Hebrew king, is proclaimed king by the prophet, by Samuel who pours holy oil onto his head. And the same thing happened there where they used oil, holy oil, they poured it on the head of the king. Now, it's not a generic God. It is a Christian God that gives the king of France the right to rule. Right? Now, if you attack Christianity, you attack the ideological basis of this political edifice. Okay? If the Bible is just A human account of events that happened in the past of the history of the Hebrew people. And maybe there was some big inundation that is recorded in the Bible, because, after all, even the pagans have this. Even, for example, the Roman poet Ovid, in his metamorphosis around the beginning of the current era, he talks about the universal flood himself. So there was this idea, it was not an exclusively of the Hebrew. And the Christians look at that and said, you see even pagans who had lost the knowledge of the true God, but they still have a memory of that great cataclysm that happened relatively recently. So they saw that as something that supported the biblical account. But if you take away all of this and you attack religion, then you attack the foundations of political power, and then it is just a contract. And if the power doesn't come from God, it can only come from the people. And if the people is not happy, they can revoke this power.

[B]

Oh, wow, right? This divine right of kings really preserved.

[A]

The king's power because that was the ideological foundation. And so geology, Earth history, became a big deal because all of these philosophers, really, many of them were journalists, authors, propagandists. They were trying to show either that this big flood never existed, really, or that if it existed, it was just a purely natural event and only the latest in a long chain of universal floods. And it was a very old idea. Nothing was invented there. They were recycling all theories that circulated. The Middle Ages, there were some who believed that you can have universal floods and that no flood was just the late one, the latest one. And they said there was this big flood. And the survivors, they were totally terrified, the few that survived, what do you think? They reframed it as a divine punishment, even though it was a totally natural event. And this is the foundation of all the theocracies that followed thereafter. And so there were these big political stakes on geology, because if you are.

[B]

Pursuing geology too heavily and you undermine in any way the divine nature of the Creator and of God himself, then you are ultimately undermining my power as king.

[A]

Yeah. What conservatives said was not that you are pursuing geology too heavily, you are pursuing geology in the wrong way. Geology rightly pursued, we demonstrate that the Earth is actually young. And, for example, the largest collection of fossil fish in the 1700s actually happened to be in my hometown in the late. In around 1790. There was a local nobleman. There is a quarry in the mountain in northern Italy, like 70 miles away. And this quarry has one of the most important. It's one of the most important Place for fossil fish. It used to be 60 million years ago. It used to be a tropical lagoon. And fish that died, deposited on the bottom, they were covered by sediments almost immediately. There were not much oxygen and they were preserved wonderfully. You can still see the scales on the skin.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Yeah, it is, it is a terrific place.

[B]

Like mummified?

[A]

Yes, almost like mummified. And these specimens usually used to be in the workshops or the shops of the apothecarys of physicians and so on. But at a certain point during the 1700s, aristocrats start buying them, especially conservative ones, and they put him in their houses and they make these galleries. And the reason why this nobleman put together this great collection, he was both part of the quarry, was to use this fossil fish to prove the reality of the Great Flood. What they did was at the time, you could have fish coming from Tahiti or from southern Pacific or from tropical places. Now, that lagoon used to be a tropical lagoon 60 millions of years ago. And sometimes you could find one fish, one fossil fish that is so well preserved that they can compare it to actual fishes. And so their reasoning was, well, you know, these fish, this petrified fish that I found in the Alps in central Europe is very, very, very similar to this tropical fish. How did it get there? Well, it must be a global catastrophe that mixed up the world. So a lot of outstanding paleontological research and geology was done until the time to prove the reality of the Bible. They were already backwards by the time. But the fact is these conservatives, instead of saying, no, this is not true, we always had a tradition in Christianity of freedom of research and speculation about these things. As long as you admit a creation, then there are no particular constraints. They didn't do that. They doubled down on so called diluvialism.

[B]

Why did they double down? I just don't understand still, is this to preserve the power structure?

[A]

Think what is happening now, American politics. Okay, most people probably are in the middle, but you almost always hear only from the extremes. This is what was happening at the time. The middle ground lost the public opinion battle. And the voice that you really heard was those of these philosophes and those of the conservative reaction. And what happened in the end was that Napoleon arrives, the French Revolution arrives before him. And when the French Revolution happens, conservatives say, you see, this is what happens. If you allow science to be completely unleashed from religion, that will overturn society.

[B]

That's not really what happened. But yeah, that's a long story.

[A]

But this was, this was the narrative. And they, many of Them actually believe that this is what happened.

[B]

They bought it.

[A]

But then what happened is that after the French Revolution, Napoleon arrives and restores a very conservative society and the remainder place. So the basis of Napoleon's power was he arise and he said, don't worry, I'm not bringing to you democracy or the French Revolution. The aristocracy does, the elites can stay in power. Okay, no problem. And I guarantee your power as long as you're loyal to me. Okay. And in my opinion, this is one of the ways that geology lost the political impact that used to have, because in the end did not produce this subversion of the society that was feared. So.

[B]

And also, Napoleon doesn't need God. He's not, you know, divinely, I guess it's not socially accepted. He's divinely coronated. No.

[A]

He liked the scientists and he liked science. As for God, he didn't want trouble in the beginning with the religion that majority of the French.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then he got upset with the Pope and arrested him and for quite a few years occupied Rome. And the Pope was. Was arrested for a few years until Napoleon fell. And then there was the Restoration.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah. And there was an Italian movie about the first year after the Restoration, after the fall of Napoleon's empire. Okay. But with Napoleon, a lot of new ideas came and many people kind of served Napoleon, hoping that they would learn how to fight and how to modernize their own countries to become independent. And so there were plots to overthrow, for example, the Pope or local rulers. Okay. And there is this movie on some of those plotters in Rome that are trying to organize a coup. They are discovered, they are caught and they are sent to the guillotine because this had remained. And so at the end of the movie, one of them is going to be beheaded, takes a look at the guillotine, then he says to the oh, who is the guy who is going to operate it in. What's the name in English?

[B]

The Executioner.

[A]

The Executioner. You know what? No, but why we are laughing? We are going to die. Oh, because I thought a funny thing. Good for you. What is it? I thought, you know, the French arrived and everything changed, and then the Pope came back and everything, and they wanted everything to return as it was before, but they kept one thing, the guillotine. You know, you are the most modern man in Rome.

[B]

That's funny. That's funny.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So could you just explain again how we get to this point where you have research and scientific, you know, sort of expedition that's going extremely well, and then theology and Matters of God and the Church and that power structure, how they coexist for so long. And then in the scientific revolution, they merge. I don't understand exactly still why they created this conflict and then persisted with it, like through Galileo, like why that, you know, this church leadership made a mistake with Galileo, but then they continued to double down and prosecute people and not let people do research without sort of confirming the Bible.

[A]

Okay, it is complicated and in the hard to grasp because we are not used to thinking in these terms. Right. So first of all, when I said that it happened during the scientific revolution, what we call the scientific revolution, it's not that it happened because of the scientific revolution, but more or less in that time frame, I wanted really to emphasize that it was in this time frame that that science and religion got enmeshed, while before they kept separate, they could keep separate tracks. Now, why it happened, the main reason was a sort of surge of religious radicalism when there was a rejection, a growing rejection of pagan science. Not everywhere, not by everyone, but it was a growing movement. And then there was the radicalization brought by the Protestant Reformation that wanted to break with this pagan philosophy. They were not able to do that entirely. Even in Protestant universities, you still teach Aristotle. We tweak it and change it so as to make it less dangerous. But it took a lot of time to elaborate an alternative natural philosophy, so as to speak. There was in Catholic countries, by the Catholic Church, a strong reaction because they felt threatened and they had to stop heresy. They wanted to establish a firmer grip on the circulation of ideas. And in many cases, someone is questioned by the Inquisition just because he read certain books that were written by a Protestant author.

[B]

And this is a thread.

[A]

Why do you read this Protestant? Look, this Protestant is Kepler. He's talking about astronomy. Yes, okay, but if you read this Protestant author, maybe you're reading more. So in those decades, there were the strong radicalization, and there are even arguments that this actually in some way helped the birth of what we call modern science. Because this was a strong reaction against, for example, Aristotelian eternalism. And so the idea of a linear development of the earth that forms and then has geological evolution and that it ends, that is more compatible with Christian teachings because you have a creation and an end of the world, but not in Aristotle. And so for many centuries, it was no longer mainstream because the idea was Aristotle's timeless earth. And one of the reasons why a directional earth was recovered. And this is how we think things happened, that the idea formed a certain point evolves geologically it will end at a certain point. And one of the reasons why it was recovered it is because it was more compatible with.

[B]

I see, so the Christian teachings, this idea of religious sort of fanaticism grows as a reaction to the power being taken through the Reformation. And then because of this radicalization, science either has to go or it has to become enmeshed.

[A]

It has to be brought in line.

[B]

Right. And it's not going to go anywhere. So we have to co op it, which I guess we've seen in different versions within early Christianity, which co opting other religions or other traditions, religious festivals that might be pagan and saying okay, we're not going to get rid of it, but we're going to make it Christian. And they did a similar thing with.

[A]

Science in a way sometimes really it doesn't take much. You can still discuss basically timeless Earth just right. That is not determined.

[B]

Put a disclaimer, put a disclaimer or.

[A]

Just do not mention timescales at all. I mean it will be fine.

[B]

But it is censorship.

[A]

But it is still censorship and can be pretty mild censorship, honestly. But it's still censorship. And before this censorship was even milder or almost non existent.

[B]

And then this is when we started to see the banning of Copernicus ideas, the persecution of Galileo. And then from there is a continued double down. We have the Inquisition, things like that.

[A]

And there, I mean when an organism like the Catholic Church takes such a momentous decision, it takes time to walk it back. Actually Galileo was totally rehabilitated only in 1992.

[B]

Oh really?

[A]

Yeah, when the Pope at the time was John Paul ii. He said Galileo was right. Even from a theological point of view. He was right that it was a decision that was rushed to not have been taken. He was right to say that yes, I don't have evidence for Copernicanism, but I could have it soon. Okay, it's not a good idea at all to start decipherating on things you don't have evidence for either. And it is not the ambit of the Church, it is astronomy that we are talking about. Okay, why do you want to enmesh religion in these topics? And then his theological arguments were sound, right?

[B]

Refuting Joshua, things like that.

[A]

Yeah. I mean it is not a problem. In the Middle Ages. The same philosopher that elaborated this model of the Earth that was used in a modified form even by Leonardo da Vinci, he also writes of the possibility that the earth spins around this axis. I mean the whole new universe spinning around the Earth in 24 hours. They knew that the universe was much, much, much larger than the Earth. Okay, isn't it simpler if the earth spins around this axis? And you know, I don't have strong real evidence for that, but to me it is more probable than the opposite. And he wrote it in his commentary to Aristotle's Meteorology. Same book where he discussed his orogenetic theory. And this thing was taught without any problem in the universities for a couple of centuries. It became a problem only in the late 1500s.

[B]

And then how long does the church sort of co op science and enmesh it into theology? How long does that persist for? Or do you think it's still, still going on to this day?

[A]

I don't think it's still going on to this day. And even what you said is really an oversimplification because it was really complicated what was going on. And in different contexts I could have done different things. Whether a book is banned or not. Well, it depends on what local inquisitor thinks. You can have a book that is published and then a new inquisitor comes, looked at the book, said, you know, I don't like it. And so he questions the author, even though the previous inquisitor was perfectly fine. And maybe. And here how well protected and covered is the author? Is he rich, is it poor? Or she? Sometimes it's a she. Is it poor? Can she or he hire a good lawyer? Are there other reasons why someone, where someone wants him or her in trouble?

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

It is really a lot about politics and power rather than any fundamental problem inherent in science versus religion.

[B]

Yeah, it's so interesting and it's so fascinating that they were compatible for so long and then due to radicalization and the threat to the power, they became enmeshed, which then probably negatively affected theology in some ways and certainly negatively affected science. Yeah, it was such a, such a shame.

[A]

On the other end, a lot of research was done to prove that the Bible was kind of right. Especially in geology.

[B]

Right. Which I don't know if you need to prove the Bible to be right. You can just have faith.

[A]

Yes, but at the time they thought that it was important, especially in the late 1600s, what happened? You know, after 150 years of Catholic and Protestants fighting over the meaning of Scripture, someone started, began to think maybe there is not any uniical meaning of scripture. You know, maybe they're bringing up so many contradictions that maybe it is not inspired by God, maybe it's just a human product. The late 1600s. And so there was always this current, it was Called at the time skepticism or libertinism. Now, a libertine is a womanizer.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But at the time it meant something different. The libertine is so dedicated to the pleasures of this world because it does not believe in another.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

That's why libertine, because it was more about intellectual freedom.

[B]

Libertine.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I had never heard that before. Libertine.

[A]

Yeah, you take. I know. Have you heard of Casanova?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[A]

Liberty.

[B]

I see. Interesting.

[A]

The word still exists in English. It's not so common perhaps anymore, but still.

[B]

And this is like someone that's hedonistic, that's just obsessed.

[A]

Hedonist, especially womanizer. But at the beginning, it had more the connotation of intellectual freedom. And so they thought that it was important to establish, using their same weapons, that there is an objective foundation to the Bible, that it is literally true, that actually it is a divine work and not just the story of the Hebrews written by someone without any divine inspiration. And so maybe since now we have. This is science that can establish facts. If you can prove using science that there was this gigantic flood 4,000 years ago, well, they will have to believe the Bible. The other hand, of course, the other side of the coin is that if you don't find this evidence, then you're toast.

[B]

Right. Or you could just say, oh, it's metaphorical.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They just meant the known world. They don't mean a global flood. And that's still compatible.

[A]

But the idea was to find this evidence. And the problem is that when you want to find, when to pull religious truth or the truth of a religious book using scientific evidence, if you cannot find it, you are in big trouble. And this was not the time. And there were authors who spoke against it. And I think it is a tragedy of American creationism. Even now you have a situation where you have to either accept the Bible or accept modern geology or accept a form of geology that doesn't make any sense.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It doesn't have to be this way. Historically, it wasn't this way.

[B]

Yeah. I wonder if this still happens in some capacity today. Not obviously, in the same sense, because we're no longer, you know, living in these theocracies. But I wonder if there's a way that, you know, science and scientific research is used to, you know, empower the politicians and the power structure that exists in America and around the world. And scientists are sort of, you know, encouraged or motivated in a way to not upset that power structure. I don't know exactly how that would manifest, but just Makes you wonder. I mean, this was not that long ago. You know, 500 years is, is relatively short in the scope of human history.

[A]

To think that just because science deals with nature, which is supposedly outside human society and exists independently, but science is still done by real people. They don't live in their labs, they live in a world that has pressures and they need money for their research. And money is given here or there, depending on what is considered interested and important and large in society. In 50s and 60s, atomic research had a lot of money. Right. And in the 1960s, well, you have to go to the moon before the Soviets, otherwise people think that their technology is better than ours. And so you shovel, you give NASA a blank check, go to the moon, do whatever you want, just go there before the Soviets.

[B]

Right. So this rocket propulsion is discovered because of the power.

[A]

Yeah, I wouldn't say the discover, but.

[B]

The speed at which it was discovered.

[A]

Yes, the speed. And it becomes a big deal because there was this power competition with the Soviet Union and the rocket technology was the forefront of technology. And when the Soviets sent into orbit first a satellite and then a dog and then a human and the United States couldn't. Well, they realized maybe their enemies look at them and said, well, maybe the socialism is better than capitalism, maybe they can produce a better technology than yours. No way.

[B]

That's a big threat.

[A]

So Congress, Kennedy and Congress give NASA blank check, go to the moon before the Soviets and demonstrate that no capitalism is superior system and America is better and we have an edge over Soviet Union, which was true.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

This is just an example. So I mean, it would be completely disingenuous to think that scientific research can be unhooked from what's going on at large. I mean, you have Covid, you have this big tragedy and I mean you immediately shovel as much money as you can in order to find a vaccine as soon as you can at world speed. Instead of taking seven years or 10 years, they did it in one year.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, it's not like it was unhooked for what was happening around them.

[B]

Yeah, the connection with science and power.

[A]

Yeah. So it is disingenuous to, to think that this connection does not exist. It also existed and it existed in Galileo's time as well or later. I mean, it existed then in Soviet times. In Soviet Union you won't, you don't you start distinguishing between capitalistic science and socialistic science. Socialist science, wow. And in Nazi Germany you ban Einstein because he was a Jew.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So it is complicated. I think it is important to understand this and to grant autonomy to scientific institutions. To have strong institutions that are reliable, that, that people at large will consider reliable. And after all, do you think that the earth goes around the sun and spins around itself in 24 hours? Do you believe that?

[B]

That the earth goes around the sun?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because.

[A]

Because what? Did you make the experiment? Did you made your survivors?

[B]

If you look, it moves one degree for every 360 days. 365 degrees and 360 days.

[A]

That's how I know it could be the sun.

[B]

Damn it. That's a good point.

[A]

The reason why you believe that is that you have always heard that and you trust those who told you, okay? You have to act like this because you cannot know everything. You have to have trust in these institutions that tell you, okay, this is what is happening. And we discover this and this and this. And of course, science can be wrong at times, History can be wrong, narratives can change, okay? And I am almost a professional debunker, okay? It doesn't mean that science or history are an opinion, okay? When I decided that I needed to debunk this story of deep time, that it was completely different from what we think, the first thing I had to do, the first thing that I thought is, wait a moment, if this is true, someone smarter than me should have taught it already.

[B]

That's reasonable.

[A]

That's humble, right? Okay. So I spent years trying to debunk myself, my own hypothesis and trying to see if there I was just forgetting some documents or just I didn't know enough and kept widening the range of my readings and becoming almost a medievalist, even though I was not trained as a medievalist. And so I had, I spent a boatload of money having copies of that French manuscript sent to me from Paris from Bilutech national, because I wanted to read the original and so on. And after a few years I could not prove myself wrong. And so that's when I decided that I should do that. So you do the banking because you have strong evidence, very strong evidence that this is the case.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Okay. So maybe someone will come later after me and show that there need to be corrections that where I was wrong on this and this. But the thing stands, the traditional account that we have deep time was discovered in the 1700s, 1800s. This cannot be reasonably supported. There is too much evidence against it. And so a scientific theory can be proved wrong tomorrow, okay? But just because of that, you cannot think that science is just an opinion. At least it must be reasonable, right? This is what you do in life. Just not take decisions, hopefully, upon what you wish to be true.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Okay. If you have to do an investment, you know, it could be wrong, but you try to invest in the stocks that you think will go well because you try to gather data, okay, maybe you will be wrong because, I mean, nothing is certain beyond taxes and death. But there are people who don't pay taxes.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

And some say that you resurrect. Right. And so the same should be done here, honestly, and not just decide, okay? Scientific theories can change, and so this is an opinion, okay? Historical narratives can change, and so this is not an opinion. Okay? They can change, but they change for a reason, because you have new evidence. Okay? And so this is what you must do. And it is important to understand that and to be very critical towards yourself. If you're doing research, if you're not doing that, you're not doing research, you're pretending.

[B]

Absolutely. I think that's well said. That's. Yeah. That's brilliant that you have gone through the work of actually reading the original manuscripts. I mean, that's. That's unbelievable.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, it's normal. This is what you do for a living. And now what I figured out is, of course, there were people before me who realized that there was something wrong in these. In these account, because they were also documents that told that, wait a moment, there must be. Must have been more freedom, more intellectual freedom when it came to the age of the Earth than we normally assume. But what happened is that no one had gone through the work of rewriting the whole history of deep time as a big chunk of the history of science from scratch. Because it was crazy. Took me ten years.

[B]

Wow. Well, you explained it in two hours, so that's. That's pretty well done. Ten years of. Ten years of research in two hours. Now, Ivano, I have a question. Can we talk about extraterrestrials?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Amazing. If you've made it to the end of this episode, that's because you rock with us. And for that, we rock with you. You are sophisticated. You enjoy honest, true communication. A highbrow type of person that understands this history is not just dates and names. It is a tapestry of human triumph and tragedy from the day Nostradamus made his first prophecy to the morning Paul Revere took his midnight ride from ancient oracles to modern revolutionaries. That is why I need you. If you have not already, please sign up for Today in History, our free newsletter. Today in History brings you the stories that matter the moments that changed everything and the secrets hidden in time. Join thousands of history enthusiasts who get their daily journey through time. Don't let another day of history pass you by. Take the conversation to your inbox. Sign up now through the QR code or link in the description Today in history. Because history's stories shape tomorrow's world. Thank you for watching the episode. We'll see you next time.