Thursday, September 26, 2013

Law v. Science

I love this quote about the difference between law and the natural sciences. 

"If what we are discussing were a point of law or of the humanities, in which neither true nor false exists, one might trust in subtlety of mind and readiness of tongue and in the greater experience of the writers, and expect him who excelled in those things to make his reasoning most plausible, and one might judge it to be the best. But in the natural sciences, whose conclusions are true and necessary and have nothing to do with human will, one must take care not to place oneself in the defense of error; for here a thousand Demostheneses and a thousand Aristotles would be left in the lurch by every mediocre wit who happened to hit upon the truth for himself."

The quote is from Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei, which was banned by the Catholic Church when it was written because of Galileo's expressed view that the sun is the center of the universe. 

Read more about Banned Books Week here

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