Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy) gave a colloquium talk at the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society in February. It was titled "The Galileo Affair and the Berkeley Para-clericals." In 1633, Galileo was tried and condemned by the Inquisition for defending Copernicus' hypothesis of the earth's motion and denying the scientific authority of Scripture. This generated a controversy continuing to our own day, about whether the condemnation was right and whether it proves the incompatibility between science and religion. Recently, this controversy has been studied by several Berkeley-associated scholars, labeled "Berkeley para-clericals" by Finocchiaro. He believes their approach is distinctive and valuable: It is a secular-minded approach to the study of controversial topics involving the relationship between science and religion, conducted in the belief that such topics are too important to leave to religious believers. This approach is followed by philosopher Paul Feyerabend and historians John Heilbron and Ron Numbers. Finocchiaro follows such an approach, partly because he learned it directly from some of these practitioners. However, he also models himself on Galileo -- as he understands him -- as he believes Galileo may have been the first to follow such an approach.
