THOUGHT PROVOCING QUOTE By Stillman Drake 1965 [Stillman Drake (1910-1993) was the author, translator or editor of 31 books about Galileo] I do know that there is an inherent conflict between established authority and independent thought. The independent thinker is always condemned, one way or another, by established authority, which usually asserts that it does this not only for the sake of the truth and the good of society, but also for his own good. The social patterns of the time may determine whether this benefit is conferred on its recipient by execution, imprisonment or merely social disapproval, but the fact of antagonism does not change. Now before the birth of modern science, there was no objective way to tell whether a particular independent thinker was a genius or a crank, and the safest course for established authority was to suppress him on general principles, leaving it to posterity to determine whether he had been a prophet or a madman. The procedure is not unknown today in the absence of objective criteria; that is, outside the truly scientific fields. That is why I think that if Galileos condemnation symbolizes anything, it symbolizes the inherent conflict between authority and freedom rather than any ineradicable hostility of religion toward science. It was an accident of Galileos time that authority happened to be vested in a particular religious institution and that the field of his independent thought happened to be the creation of modern science. Of course, it has always been irksome to independent thinkers, whether geniuses or cranks, to have limits placed by established authority on their activities. Whether on the whole the imposition of such limits has been good for truth and for society is another question. Probably a mans opinion on that question is directly proportional to his ability as an independent thinker, or at any rate to his own estimate of those abilities. What is too often overlooked is that most men are not independent thinkers, and would prefer not to be bothered by them. It is probably this that accounts for the fact that Galileo still has plenty of enemies today, a fact which used to puzzle me but for which I am very grateful, as otherwise I should have nothing to write about. Closely related to this is a point of great interest; namely, the cogency of proof that should be possessed by an independent thinker before he ought to urge his views against established tradition. Father Langford [author of a book on Galileo] himself believes that it was not only imprudent but illogical of Galileo to come forward without demonstrative proofs proofs which, he points out, had to wait more than a century. But if a mans proofs must be so overwhelming that others will speedily accept them against established authority, then few independent ideas will ever be brought forth.
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