Quoting from Hendrik Hertzburg, writing in the December 25,2000 issue of "The New Yorker".. Another favorite of mine BTW..
"That was a tough concession speech Al Gore had to give the other night, but people have had to give tougher ones over the years. In 1633, a prominent well-connected member of the high-tech community of Florence found himself on the wrong end of a decision by the then equivalent of the Supreme Court. Put on trial by the Inquisition, he was found guilty of advocating a doctrine described in the Holy Office's indictment as "absurb and false philosophically, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture"
This was a characterization with which the defendant was known to privately disagree. But he was anxious to avoid being cast as a troublemaker and eager for the healing to begin, so he said the words the occasion required.
"I ,Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years," he recited, "abjure,curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies and I swear that I will never again say or assert that the Sun is the center of the universe and immovable and that the Earth is not the center and moves."
Before Galileo was led away to spend the rest of his life under comfortable house arrest, however, he kicked the ground, according to legend, muttered,"Eppur si muove"- "But still it moves." |
