Galileo and His History - Term Paper Example

Galileo was one of the greatest scientists of our time who has made significant contribution in the field of physics and astronomy. He propounded thetheory of inertia and laws of falling bodies. He also contributed greatly in the area of Astronomy where he defended the work of Copernicus who had described the Sun as the stationary central body around which the other planets like earth move in a set pattern. The credit for the invention and innovative use of telescope in the research of celestial bodies and planetary system also goes to him. But Galileo was different from the rest of his colleagues in the sense that he intrinsically believed that faith and science should be used to complement each other because both are essential part of human life and efforts must be made to interpret religious scriptures in accordance with the scientific truth which are proven facts with requisite evidence. In spite of his vast scientific knowledge, Galileo was of the view that religion and science must remain segregated because of the inherent fact that where religion’s main purpose is to inculcate moral and spiritual values in the people through religious scriptures and sermons, science has the basic responsibility of unravelling the mysteries of the nature for the socio-economic betterment of human being. Science cannot be explained through Biblical passages and as such its description of nature should not be taken literally. Galileo firmly believed that natural events and phenomena are proof of God’s way of showing the truth.’ For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Natures actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible’(letter). Galileo was quite successful in his attempt to justify that science and religion are compatible only when one has the right perspective of looking at the creations of God. He was a scientist who has contributed vastly towards scientific knowledge and has helped unravel the many mysteries of the nature. His support for Copernican theory was one of the landmark hypotheses, which was backed by hard evidence. Though, Galileo’s vociferous support for Copernicus theory that Sun is stationary and Earth moves around it became shrouded in much publicised controversy with the Church, he was able to back his statements with proven scientific facts. Galileo’s letter to the Grand Duchess has rightly become an important document in the annals of the history. It has established the fact that scientific knowledge is an integral part of evolution and misinterpretation of the religious scriptures by some vested interests, can only hold true temporarily. Kuhn, on the other hand, was one of the more contemporary scientist cum philosopher who believed that the world created by God has existed through time immemorial and the scientists do not discover or rather invent anything new but their investigative knowledge is able to unearth new knowledge of the world. In his book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolution’ his theory of incommensurability has become highly controversial because in a way, it totally refutes the concept of scientific development as a reality and declares all such ‘progress’ as mere shift in paradigm regarding various scientific based knowledge about the world. "... the reception of a new paradigm often necessitates a redefinition of the corresponding science. Some old problems may be relegated to another science or declared entirely "unscientific." [e.g. alchemy] Others that were previously non-existent or trivial may, with a new paradigm, become the very archetypes of significant scientific achievement. [e.g., tidology, the study of the tides] The normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before." (p.103). Kuhn asserts that every scientific paradigm works within its own set of parameters and rules and naturally falls short of others that may have been created by others and since any two paradigms are not same, it can be presumed that one will have to replace the other and then if that also fails to satisfy the scientific community, yet another would come up!. Hence the shift in paradigm is an ongoing process and can be redefined as their inability to share the universal knowledge with the same measure or commensurability. In the cases of scientific revolutions, Kuhn has supported his theory of commensurability by arguing that scientific revolutions happen because of some anomaly creating new paradigms. “Paradigm changes can result from discovery brought about by encounters with anomaly”.(internet) Hence revolution is addition in the existing knowledge which is based on paradigms. Anomalies facilitate re interpretation of the observations which are being looked from different perspectives by different people at different places. Scientific revolutions therefore, replace or rather displace the existing paradigm with a new one. The scientific progress is nothing but the result of a creative work due working on a set of paradigm and solving the problem that was created as a result of looking at it from the different perspective. Kuhn explanations of justifying his arguments of incommensurability are self contrary. ".. What occurs during a scientific revolution is not fully reducible to a reinterpretation of individual and stable data. In the first place, the data are not unequivocally stable. A pendulum is not a falling stone, nor is oxygen dephlogisticated air. Consequently, the data that scientists collect from these diverse objects are, as we shall shortly see, themselves different. More important, the process by which either the individual or the community makes the transition from constrained fall to the pendulum or from dephlogisticated air to oxygen is not one that resembles interpretation. How could it do so in the absence of fixed data for the scientist to interpret? Rather than being an interpreter, the scientist who embraces a new paradigm is like the man wearing inverting lenses." (pp.121-22). Clearly, if the data are not unequivocally stable it means that they are commensurable and hence the predictions of two paradigms are similar, which contradicts Kuhn’s notion of incommensurability! Kuhn has attributed his theory of incommensurability to communication breakdown with successive scientific community, either totally or partially. “In the first place, the proponents of competing paradigms will often disagree about the list of problems that any candidate for paradigm must resolve. ... Lavoisier’s chemical theory inhibited chemists from asking why the metals were so much alike, a question that phlogistic chemistry had both asked and answered. The transition to Lavoisier’s paradigm had, like the transition to Newton’s meant a loss not only of a permissible question but of an achieved solution.” (p.148) and “Communication across the revolutionary divide is inevitably partial”. (p. 149) In both the instances, Kuhn has argued that people have failed to acknowledge the work of others and have deliberately tried to look at anomalies, in the name of scientific research or work. It can therefore be concluded that Galileo’s approach towards science and scientific research has been explicit, acknowledging it as a separate entity that tries to demystify the nature created by God. But in doing so, he has never denied the supremacy of God or tried, in any way to usurp the status of God in the life of human being. While he was totally rational and believed in the scientific evidences, he was quite convinced that Bible alone cannot explain the science and its wonders. Kuhn, on the other hand, just tried to justify his notion of incommensurability to the pre-existence of the world through the ages. He argued that science can only discover what has already been in existences and that is the reason that new theories come up replacing the old once. Hence scientific revolution happens when different paradigms are created as a result of anomalies displacing the previous paradigm with new one. Reference Galilei, Galileo. Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. Available from: .[Accessed 19 January, 2008]. Pajares, Frank. Synopsis. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Available from: [Accessed 19 January, 2008]. Kuhn, Thomas, S. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. 3rd ed. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. . Read More