On Wednesday’s Becker-Rose Café, Professor Gregory Sloan of Cornell’s Department of Astronomy came to give an interesting talk about science versus religion. His example was none other than Galileo with his famous model of the solar system. Before Galileo, people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and stars and extraneous planets orbited around the planet. However, there was a phenomenon, in where Venus would move forward and back in the sky, which could not be explained by the existing geocentric model of the solar system.

And Galileo sought to understand this phenomenon in detail, which later led to proposal of the heliocentric model. But unfortunately, the heliocentric model was not well accepted since it was seen as a direct attack on religious beliefs. The bible and other religious literature emphasized the Earth as the center of all creation, and the Church thought it to be risky to have scientific evidence ruin this claim. But as stubborn as he was, Galileo refused to refute his studies and continued to publish and work for science. He was ultimately put on trial for his work.

I think it’s interesting to see how the debate between science and religion has developed over time. Back in Galileo’s time, the Church was responsible for funding most of the education and I can clearly see why the Church would be worried to fund studies that went against their beliefs. That being said, I tend to put my trust in scientific evidence because it shows that there has been research and documents trends that have been observed over time. Though I do not doubt religious beliefs, I personally, tend to prefer solid date and Professor Sloan’s talk definitely recapped and reinforced some of these ideas.