Galileo, the Church and the Cosmos

David Lindberg, Hillsdale professor emeritus of the history of science, University of Wisconsin, will speak on “The Florentine Heretic? Galileo, the Church and the Cosmos” 3:30 p.m. March 4 in Porter Theatre, Westmont. The event, sponsored by the Pascal Society, is free and open to the public.

According to Lindberg, the story of Galileo’s campaign on behalf of the heliocentric model of the universe is one of the most dramatic events in the history of relations between Christianity and science. Lindberg offers a different perspective on the traditional portrayal as a battle in the perennial warfare between science and religion.

“This traditional story is filled with factual errors,” says Lindberg.  “But a fault at least as serious is its treatment of the Galileo affair as an exclusively ideological conflict (theological dogmatism snuffing out scientific freedom), neglecting the overwhelming importance of human interests and local circumstances.  And when human fears, rivalries, greed, revenge, ambition, animosity, personality and the like are taken into account, the story takes on an altogether different cast.” In Lindberg’s retelling, the ideological side of the story will be balanced with its richness as a human event.

Lindberg is an eminent scholar who has received numerous grants and awards from various prestigious organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the History of Science Society, the Medieval Academy of America and the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of more than 65 books and articles on topics ranging from Roger Bacon to the relationship between science and Christianity to the history of optics.

Lindberg is a graduate of Wheaton College who received a master’s degree in physics at Northwestern University and a doctorate in history and philosophy of science at Indiana University. He is currently co-editing the forthcoming eight-volume “Cambridge History of Science.”

Lindberg has been a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Bellagio Study Center of the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as a Guggenheim Fellow. He was president of the History of Science Society and received the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society in 1999 for lifetime scholarly achievement. His book, “The Beginnings of Western Science,” won the 1994 Watson Davis Prize of the History of Science Society and the 1995 John Templeton Foundation Prize for Outstanding Books in theology and natural science. Now retired from teaching, Lindberg continues his scholarly work and, in his spare time, builds fine furniture.

For more information, contact the public affairs office at (805) 565-7057 or e-mail pubaffairs@westmont.edu. For directions to campus, visit the college Web site at www.westmont.edu."