See http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno. His cosmology may hot have
been what proved fatal. He managed to get kicked out of more than one group.
Not that this should be fatal, but I can see how he probably lacked the
skills to talk his way out of a bad situation. As heretics go, not a few
have proven quite a bit more agreeable with those who called them heretics.

> >>> 1600
> >>> Dominican monk and philosopher Giordano Bruno is executed by the
> >>> inquisition for failing to recant his belief in a Copernican
> >>> heliocentric Solar system
<snip>
>
> >> Bruno was a Copernican, though there is no evidence that his support
> >>for  this featured in the trial at all. In fact, he managed to get
> >>Copernicanism tarred with the same brush as his heresies, and
> >>scientific  progress in Italy might have proceeded more smoothly, for
> >>Galileo and  others, if it had not been for this.
>
> >You're probably right. Nevertheless, does either explanation support
> >burning at the stake for possessing a belief which was different than
> >the persecutors'? It shouldn't even be a felony.

But it was at that time. Try exercising your right to free speech in an
airport. You will probably miss your flight. We are still trying to figure
out how do justice to both the guilty and the innocent.

> Of course, the other thing about your timeline is its very selective
> start and end. Gribbin's History only starts in 1543, barely fifty years
> before the events you cite.
And "science" is a rather modern notion, as well as a terribly fluid one.
Scientific verity seems to have a rather short life span.

Greg Stigers
this space for rent

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *