Dr. Jeremy Wasser

a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?
Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me
(Galileo) Galileo, (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro, magnifico
But I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
He's just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen, 1975

The Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) got into monstrous trouble with the Holy Inquisition thanks to his affirmation that the Copernican concept of the solar system was correct. This heliocentric model held that the sun was at the center of the solar system and the earth (and other planets) orbited around it. Heliocentrism was in direct conflict with the then widely accepted ancient belief in a geocentric cosmology with the unmoving earth at the center of creation. This idea was most famously expressed by the Alexandrian astronomer and astrologer, Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100-c. 165 CE).
The trials of Galileo for the heresy of Copernican heliocentrism marked the apotheosis of a perceived centuries-long pattern of opposition by the Church to a scientific explanation for the observable world. This conflict extended beyond cosmology to essentially all scientific disciplines including medicine. A well-known medieval aphorism speaks to this conflict, ubi tres medici, duo athei, in other words, when you have three physicians (or scientists) two of them will be godless atheists!
Join physiologist and medical historian, Dr. Jeremy Wasser, as we explore the relationship of the Church and science at the dawn of the modern scientific revolution through the lens (pun intended) of Galileo‘s two trials for heresy. Was there nothing but enmity between science and the sacred and was the Church and the papacy always in opposition to the ideas of men of science such as Galileo? Or is the truth more nuanced and more complex? Buckle up for a ride through the intertwined history of the Church and science with Thunderbolts and Lightning: The Pope, Galileo, the Church and Science.