ant wrote:
Okay, well, he had nearly zero evidence to produce to an institution that asked him for some. And because he didn't, said institution asked him to consider signifying the heliocentric model as a working hypothesis in his publication.
Galileo's evidence was not "nearly zero" for those who chose to look at it with any care. Jupiter's moons were clearly moons, and followed orbits which, like those of the planets, were slower when further away. The phases of Venus and Mercury showed them to be circling the sun, and had a shape which, like the shadow of the earth in an eclipse, which suggested the round earth to the Ancients, also showed them to be spherical bodies. The appearance of Saturn's rings, like Jupiter's moons, showed these planets to be immensely distant, which also gave some idea of the relative size of the sun and the earth.
ant wrote:Instead, he chose to be a smart ass about it and rambled on about people being fools for doubting a model that lacked evidence.
I think that is a fair characterization. The contest between Galileo and the church has often been characterized as one of "revealed religious truth" versus "evidenced facts". In fact there was a larger contest which was at once more mundane and, viewed socially, more significant.
The contest was in the mind of the Pope, who had been a patron of Galileo's scientific enterprise and joined with others in (pseudonymously) publishing the surprising results of them. When the case came for judgement in Rome, the main opponent of Galileo was a monastic order, with one monk in particular having opposed Galileo and been ridiculed for it.
As a nobleman and relatively high-ranking churchman, the pope had been able to indulge his taste for "cutting edge" thought and art. But as Pope the pressures on him, in the middle of the Reformation when the momentous issue of might vs. right was in the balance, led him to choose the politically expedient path of avoiding offense to a monastic order, a major power that he could not afford to make an enemy of. Galileo had counted on his former patron's continued willingness to daringly side with science, but neglected to look at the world from his patron's changed point of view.
Scientists are still sometimes in the position of muttering "Nevertheless the facts are on my side" as they are driven from the room by people more concerned with the pressures of everyday life and power politics.
ant wrote:
3) If Galileo wasn't able to empirically confirm his hypothesis as fact by the scientific method, neither would you have been able too
I think the Pope was pretty clear that the evidence was on Galileo's side. But one can always wait and see if further evidence arrives.
Or can one?