Basil, Copernicus, and Galileo

[ellenkushner]

Oh, and speaking of THE FALL OF THE KINGS:

This week' New Yorker has a wonderful piece by the divine Adam Gopnik on Galileo, and if you were here I would read you all my favorite bits aloud, as I did to Delia - but here, read it for yourself, paying particular attention to:
Galileo says "Oy!"  Really, he did.
and
John Dee as string theorist (never once asking "Is any of this real or is it all just bullshit?")
and
"Too big for whom?"
not to mention
The ill-advisedness of putting the Pope's words in a puppet's mouth when the puppet is named Dumbso.

But what got me is how Delia & I stole the whole anti-Aristotelian Invention of Science thing and gave it to our radical historian, Basil St Cloud.  Really, we did.  And so I loved this quote, from "Thomas Salusbury's fine Jacobean translation, in words that remain the slogan of science":

"Therefore, Simplicius, come either with arguments and demonstration, and bring us no more Texts and authorities, for our disputes are about the Sensible World, and not one of Paper."

Kind of.  But you know what I mean.