The tricky case of Giordano Bruno
One of the goals of "Cosmos" is to introduce the world to "heroes of science." This would be the premiere episode's one and only massive failure. That's because someone at "Cosmos" decided to trot out the case of a 16th-century Italian philosopher named Giordano Bruno as its first hero.
Unfortunately for "Cosmos," Bruno wasn't terribly heroic. And he wasn't a scientist at all.
A religious philosopher living in the tense years following the schism between Catholicism and the new faith of Protestantism, Bruno managed to irritate and complicate the beliefs of just about everyone by preaching a cosmology of an infinite universe in which the Sun is just a star, around which the Earth moves.
Here's the thing: Even "Cosmos" points out that Bruno had no scientific basis for his theories. "His vision of the cosmos was a lucky guess," says Tyson. So why is the long-dead philosopher important enough to rate hero status? That would be because "Cosmos" takes his case as one of "martyrdom."
What "Cosmos" does notpoint outto its audiences that the Catholic Church didn't really care about Bruno's views on the Earth moving around the Sun. His crimes -- the ones for which he was executed -- were theological. Several actual scientists in this period happily investigated the ideas of Copernicus' theories without running into trouble. Even Galileo only got in trouble when he published books that directly mocked the Church's adherence to the Earth being at the center.
Why does this matter?
So what if Giordano Bruno wasn't a scientist and wasn't executed for science? There are three big reasons why this does, in fact, matter and why it hurts "Cosmos" to get it wrong.
1. To borrow one of Tyson's famous quotes, the good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. The same goes for history. Getting the history of science wrong hurts science itself. Why believe the science if other parts of the show are inaccurate?
2. Making Bruno into a martyr for science basically makes 100 years of historical research useless. The idea of Giordano Bruno as a scientific hero only originated in the 19th century, when he was championed by several historians. Since then, most have classified him as a philosopher sharing dangerous ideas in a dangerous time.
3. It's an unstated goal of "Cosmos" to champion science and scientific reasoning over superstition and religious dogmatism. But you're not going to win over anyone by vilifying religion in the face of science. Add in Bruno flying into space in an overtly crucifixion stance almost seems like giving religion the finger. You don't win arguments that way, "Cosmos."
 But let's move on
blog.zap2it.com |
