Lake Mungo: Evidence of an early practice of religion and a problem for evolutionary biology(?)

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

The Barbarian said:
Astronomers don't care if you understand it or not.

Is that why Galileo was placed under house arrest?

Because astronomer/priests didn't care if he understood it or not?

Is that why one astronomer here won't even talk to me anymore and refers to me as ... well ... confused?

If you think astronomers don't care, then you may call me "Genghis Khan."

The Barbarian said:
No one loses any sleep over stuff like that. They make jokes about it.

Like this?

From the introduction:

This talk is part of a series of talks called Why do people believe weird things?, recorded in the spring of 2022, organized by Nina Poth, Krzysztof Dolega and Tobias Schlicht (Institut für Philosophie II, Ruhr-Universität Bochum) in connection with a research project generously funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

trophy33 · Jun 19, 2025

AV1611VET said:
a) Like they do, teaching the states and their state capitols? (we have dozens of states, you know)

I think it goes to hundreds or even thousands of objects similar to Pluto, now. Continuous discoveries of new and new ones would be really hard to teach.

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

BCP1928 said:
So what?

Um ... it could make a difference between a passing grade and a failing grade.

That's "so what."

:doh:

BCP1928 said:
What you are pitching here begins to look like Platonism, a blasphemous pagan philosophy inimical to Christianity

BCP1928 said:
So what?

So it's the difference between living and dying -- that's what?

Wow!

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

trophy33 said:
I think it goes to hundreds or even thousands of objects similar to Pluto, now. Continuous discoveries of new and new ones would be really hard to teach.

Right.

And Clyde Tombaugh looked right past all those thousands and saw Pluto?

:doh:

BCP1928 · Jun 19, 2025

AV1611VET said:
Um ... it could make a difference between a passing grade and a failing grade.

That's "so what."

So it's the difference between living and dying -- that's what?

Wow!

You really have gone off the rails. So if the pregnant woman referes to her "child in the womb" it will live and if she refers to her "fetus" it will die?

BCP1928 · Jun 19, 2025

AV1611VET said:
Right.

And Clyde Tombaugh look right past all those thousands and saw Pluto?

He couldn't see them with the primitive instruments then available. Most of them are beyond Pluto anyway.

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

BCP1928 said:
You really have gone off the rails. So if the pregnant woman referes to her "child in the womb" it will live and if she refers to her "fetus" it will die?

Cute.

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

BCP1928 said:
He couldn't see them with the primitive instruments then available. Most of them are beyond Pluto anyway.

That's my point.

How'd he see Pluto without seeing those "hundreds or even thousands of similar items" as well?

The Barbarian · Jun 19, 2025

AV1611VET said:
Is that why Galileo was placed under house arrest?

People almost always get that wrong. The Pope, for example, supported Galileo's investigations until he arrogantly insulted the Pope, his protector. Even then, the Pope declined to make geocentrism a matter of Christian doctrine. For reasons Catholics understand.

The reality is that the weight of the scientific evidence was simply not firmly on the side of heliocentrism when the Church issued its 1616 ruling. At that time, and contrary to Galileo, most natural philosophers regarded Copernicus’ heliocentric model only as a useful calculating device, not an accurate picture of the physical universe. The distinguished historian of science and religion, Peter Harrison, notes that the Church was essentially endorsing the scientific consensus of the time. But why were most of Galileo’s colleagues opposed to heliocentrism?
For one thing, heliocentrism was incompatible with the only comprehensive physics of the day — Aristotle’s. For another, astronomers were aware that there had been no observation of stellar parallax, which, given the state of knowledge of the time, was a powerful argument against heliocentrism. Not even Tycho Brahe, the greatest observational astronomer of the sixteenth century, could find it; partly for that reason, he rejected the Earth’s motion. As historian David Lindberg puts it, “Those astronomers and natural philosophers who rejected heliocentrism did so not because of blind conservatism or religious intolerance, but because of their commitment to widely held scientific principles and theories.” In short, many rational, fully informed people perceived Galileo to be on a fool’s errand; the Church seems to have agreed.
...
Unfortunately, when Galileo published his Dialogue, he argued adamantly for the physical truth of heliocentrism, “clearly, though not explicitly” (in the words of Peter Machamer and David Marshall Miller), while sometimes making his opponents seem like idiots. To make matters worse, Galileo foolishly put the pope’s argument about the difficulty of ascertaining final scientific truth into the mouth of a character called Simplicio, which many have taken to be an insult to the pope. The pope was enraged by Galileo’s apparent deceit in defending the physical truth of heliocentrism as an established matter of fact, and Galileo was summoned to Rome to stand trial.

Misleading Narratives: The Galileo Affair's Lessons

Are science and religion locked in a zero-sum struggle—or have oversimplifications of a complex history crafted this false impression?

heterodoxacademy.org

AV1611VET said:
Is that why one astronomer here won't even talk to me anymore and refers to me as ... well ... confused?

For example, asking why scientists could see Pluto and not other dwarf planets (which were much farther out and effectively invisible to astronomers at the time). Kind of a tip-off.

AV1611VET said:
How'd he see Pluto without seeing those "hundreds or even thousands of similar items" as well?

How can you read a license plate in a car 10 feet from you, but not the plates of cars on the other end of the lot? This is how we know that you're confused.

The Barbarian · Jun 19, 2025

AV1611VET said:
Is that why Galileo was placed under house arrest?

Insulting the Pope when living in the Pope's principality was probably a mistake.

Ophiolite · Jun 19, 2025

My apologies to @sjastro for my role in derailing this potentially interesting thread on Australian, and by extension, global anthropology by reacting to AV's cookie cutter word salad. I should know better. I do know better. And I promise to try better in future.

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

The Barbarian said:
People almost always get that wrong.

The Barbarian said:
Insulting the Pope when living in the Pope's principality was probably a mistake.

From AI Overview:

Galileo was arrested and put on trial by the Catholic Church for his support of the heliocentric model of the solar system, which contradicted the church's geocentric view and literal interpretation of scripture. He was found guilty of heresy and forced to recant his beliefs, facing house arrest for the remainder of his life.

The Barbarian · Jun 19, 2025

AV1611VET said:
From AI Overview:

And here's another demonstration that it's risky to depend on an AI summary of what people say.

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

The Barbarian said:
And here's another demonstration that it's risky to depend on an AI summary of what people say.

AI says one thing, your site says another.

Take your pick.

And I'll take mine.

The Barbarian · Jun 19, 2025

AV1611VET said:
AI says one thing, your site says another.

Comes down to evidence. You lose.

AV1611VET said:
Take your pick.

And I'll take mine.

That's the funny thing about reality; it doesn't care what we think.

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

The Barbarian said:
Comes down to evidence.

Let's see it then.

The Barbarian said:
You lose.

I could almost say Galileo did.

But, just like Joseph in Egypt, God had other plans.

From AI Overview:

Galileo Galilei was under house arrest for the last nine years of his life, from 1633 until his death in 1642. This followed his trial before the Roman Inquisition, where he was found guilty of heresy for his support of heliocentrism. Initially sentenced to imprisonment, the sentence was immediately commuted to house arrest. He spent this time at his villa near Florence, where he continued his scientific work.

In those nine years of confinement -- without outside hinderances -- he was able to finish his scientific work.

From AI Overview:

Galileo Galilei's most comprehensive work on the laws of motion, Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (also known as Two New Sciences), was written during his period of house arrest, which began in 1633.

sjastro · Jun 19, 2025

Ophiolite said:
My apologies to @sjastro for my role in derailing this potentially interesting thread on Australian, and by extension, global anthropology by reacting to AV's cookie cutter word salad. I should know better. I do know better. And I promise to try better in future.

No problems, I frequently go off topic in my own posting history.
AV is on my ignore list, being publicly called out for being a fraud (I assume it was an attack on me in my role as a scientist) for supporting Pluto's demotion is one thing but then suggesting my sister will burn in hell for being an atheist was the last straw.

The Barbarian · Jun 19, 2025

Comes down to evidence.

AV1611VET said:
Let's see it then.

People almost always get that wrong. The Pope, for example, supported Galileo's investigations until he arrogantly insulted the Pope, his protector. Even then, the Pope declined to make geocentrism a matter of Christian doctrine. For reasons Catholics understand.

The reality is that the weight of the scientific evidence was simply not firmly on the side of heliocentrism when the Church issued its 1616 ruling. At that time, and contrary to Galileo, most natural philosophers regarded Copernicus’ heliocentric model only as a useful calculating device, not an accurate picture of the physical universe. The distinguished historian of science and religion, Peter Harrison, notes that the Church was essentially endorsing the scientific consensus of the time. But why were most of Galileo’s colleagues opposed to heliocentrism?
For one thing, heliocentrism was incompatible with the only comprehensive physics of the day — Aristotle’s. For another, astronomers were aware that there had been no observation of stellar parallax, which, given the state of knowledge of the time, was a powerful argument against heliocentrism. Not even Tycho Brahe, the greatest observational astronomer of the sixteenth century, could find it; partly for that reason, he rejected the Earth’s motion. As historian David Lindberg puts it, “Those astronomers and natural philosophers who rejected heliocentrism did so not because of blind conservatism or religious intolerance, but because of their commitment to widely held scientific principles and theories.” In short, many rational, fully informed people perceived Galileo to be on a fool’s errand; the Church seems to have agreed.
...
Unfortunately, when Galileo published his Dialogue, he argued adamantly for the physical truth of heliocentrism, “clearly, though not explicitly” (in the words of Peter Machamer and David Marshall Miller), while sometimes making his opponents seem like idiots. To make matters worse, Galileo foolishly put the pope’s argument about the difficulty of ascertaining final scientific truth into the mouth of a character called Simplicio, which many have taken to be an insult to the pope. The pope was enraged by Galileo’s apparent deceit in defending the physical truth of heliocentrism as an established matter of fact, and Galileo was summoned to Rome to stand trial.

Misleading Narratives: The Galileo Affair's Lessons

Are science and religion locked in a zero-sum struggle—or have oversimplifications of a complex history crafted this false impression?

heterodoxacademy.org

You lose.

AV1611VET said:
I could almost say Galileo did.

That would depend on whether we accept the geocentric or heliocentric model. Reality, again.

Truth, is the Ptolemaic system (geocentrism) worked, although it was messy. The Copernican system was cleaner and easier to use, but there were problems. Lack of parallax with stars, for example (they had no idea that almost all of them were so far away that parallax was not detectable). Until there was evidence not available to the people of that time, it was no sure thing that Galileo was right.

And now you know the rest of the story.

The Barbarian · Jun 19, 2025

sjastro said:
No problems, I frequently go off topic in my own posting history.
AV is on my ignore list, being publicly called out for being a fraud (I assume it was an attack on me in my role as a scientist) for supporting Pluto's demotion is one thing but then suggesting my sister will burn in hell for being an atheist was the last straw.

Christians do not assume that atheists will automatically go to hell.

AV1611VET · Jun 19, 2025

The Barbarian said:
And now you know the rest of the story.

Not quite.

From AI Overview:

Heterodox Academy's accuracy is debated. Some sources criticize it for potentially misrepresenting the extent of viewpoint diversity issues on college campuses. Others acknowledge its efforts to promote open inquiry, but also point out perceived limitations and potential for bias. Heterodox Academy describes itself as non-partisan and dedicated to fostering open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.

Lake Mungo: Evidence of an early practice of religion and a problem for evolutionary biology(?)

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