The “Renaissance Mathematicus” is a unique blog, well-regarded by many historians of astronomy. Its author is Thony Christie, an incredibly well-read, uniquely educated (to say the least) native of Britain who is a long-time resident of Germany. Recently, he forcefully attacked a piece by William J. Broad in the New York Times. The piece was about autocrats and science.
Broad starts his lengthy piece by discussing — you guessed it — The Roman Catholic Church. He begins with the following:
The war on science began four centuries ago when the Roman Catholic Church outlawed books that reimagined the heavens. Subsequent regimes shot or jailed thousands of scientists. Today, in such places as China and Hungary, a less fearsome type of strong-man relies on budget cuts, intimidation and high-tech surveillance to cow scientists into submission.
As you can see, the Church is not Broad’s only interest. The Renaissance Mathematicus discusses all of the article and its many history of science errors. I am going to focus only on the section of the article titled “The Church”, which reads and is illustrated as follows:
The Church
From the start, modern science faced repression. The backdrop was doctrine: The Roman Catholic Church long held that humans sat at the center of the universe as the stars, planets and sun moved overhead in never-ending tributes.
Not so, argued Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer. In 1543, he laid out evidence showing that the Earth and planets revolve around the sun.
News of his book, 400 pages long and rich in diagrams, moved slowly across Europe. The church in time decided to show its displeasure. In 1600, it had Giordano Bruno, an advocate of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, burned at the stake.
To fight the heresy, the church in 1616 put the Copernican tract on its list of prohibited books. Undeterred, Galileo, an Italian astronomer, in 1632 published his great work, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.” It backed Copernicus.
Galileo’s trial by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 was a turning point in Western history. The spectacle of the elderly thinker being forced, under threat of torture, to recant came to symbolize the church’s hostility to open inquiry.
Even so, Rome proceeded to adapt churches and cathedrals to serve as solar observatories, which let the church improve the calendar and better fix the date of Easter. The research also gave credence to the Copernican view. Nonetheless, Rome kept its heliocentric ban in place for centuries.
The Catholic Church’s double standard — crushing blue-sky science while enjoying the practical benefits — became a favorite tactic of monarchs, despots and modern autocrats. Today the two categories of exploratory work are known as basic and applied science. The latter can include development, engineering and technology. By nature, basic studies, though risky, tend to yield the most important discoveries.
There is so much that is bogus here. Let us look at a few of Broad’s assertions:
- The Roman Catholic Church long held that humans sat at the center of the universe…
Of course. Everyone held that, across cultures, across millennia. That is what things look like if you go out and look up at the sky. However, I have read a lot of stuff from people in the time of Galileo, and I have not encountered people saying that celestial bodies were there to pay tribute to humans. - [Copernicus] laid out evidence showing that the Earth and planets revolve around the sun…
No, he laid out the idea that the Earth and planets revolve around the sun. Evidence for that idea would be more than a century in coming. - [The Church] had Giordano Bruno, an advocate of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, burned at the stake.
Bruno was burned, but not for his advocacy of heliocentrism. Some historians argue that he was burned at least in part for his advocacy of an infinite universe of suns orbited by other earths. He also advocated for a bunch of other things that everyone in his time found heretical and deeply offensive, such as denying the divinity of Christ. But even if the infinite universe was the primary reason for Bruno’s execution, he was not burned for heliocentrism. Copernicus’s heliocentric theory did not include an infinite universe. No historians believe that Bruno was executed over displeasure about his advocacy of the ideas of Copernicus. - [C]athedrals … as solar observatories …. also gave credence to the Copernican view.
No, those solar observatories consisted of a hole high in the wall of the cathedral, with a meridian line in the cathedral floor — a sort of high-precision sundial. Such a tool cannot tell you whether the Earth orbits the sun or the sun orbits the Earth.
There is nothing esoteric about what I’m saying here. No historians of science today support the sort of stock, Hollywood history of science that Broad is providing. Broad’s version of history (his bio with the article says he has a graduate degree in the history of science) is just a rehash of stuff from the late 19th century — or, from the “Cosmos” TV show (either the Sagan or Tyson version). Even Wikipedia articles on “Copernicus” and “Galileo” and “The Galileo Affair” say what I’m saying here.
But perhaps the most remarkable part of Broad’s piece is the comment about the Catholic Church “crushing blue-sky science”. On what basis does he extrapolate from the case of Earth’s motion to “blue-sky science” (the risky, basic science) in general? Broad overlooks the years-long study of the sun conducted by Fr. Christoph Scheiner, S.J. and some Jesuit associates, and his massive publication of his results, Rosa Ursina, or The Sun. Broad overlooks Fr. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, S.J. and all his research, and his publication New Almagest. These are two of the more important astronomical works of the seventeenth century. What is more “blue-sky science” than Scheiner recording sunspots in high detail for year upon year (below, right), and developing new instruments and new technologies (below, left) to enhance those observations?
The Times has no excuse here. A while back some of its own readers browbeat them into retracting a sentence that promoted the same old 19th-century story.
I wrote a post about that. Click here for it.
And a bit before that I had written to a Times author who had included the old story in one of his articles. We had a polite exchange, but it was unproductive. He was not interested in what a historian who specializes in the subject (me) had to say.
I wrote a post about that article, too. Click here for it.
And of course, if anyone at the Times was really interested in good history, someone would have checked Wikipedia before running Broad’s stuff this time, and The Renaissance Mathematicus would not be talking about it.
I think there are serious questions here, almost down into the matter of whether scholarly historical research and historical facts can ever make a difference in the perceptions of even an educated audience (in this case, the staff of the Times). The Times writes as though research and progress in the field of the history of science simply does not exist, or even cannot happen. Since it cannot happen, why would anyone be bothered to, say, check Wikipedia?
Broad’s article was not buried in the “C” section of the Times. It was on the front page of the September 2, 2025 issue — top line, in fact. The other two articles that I mentioned above were likewise on the front page (August of 2022 and March of 2023). So, three times in the past few years the Times has had, or tried to have, bogus Catholic-Church-and-astronomy-history information on its front page. All three times are essentially instances of repeating the same old story.
And thus the very forceful attack of the Renaissance Mathematicus. The RM is more than willing to be absolutely blunt in his criticism. Moreover, he has an alter ego that he occasionally uses — the “History of Science Hulk!” The HS Hulk emerges when the RM has been enraged by egregiously bad history of science.
GARRR!!! HULK SMASH!
The HS Hulk contributed to the RM’s article about Broad’s piece. Hulky uses a lot of offensive language! And points out a lot more errors. So Sacred Space Astronomy readers, having been duly warned, you can click here for the RM’s post.
It would be great if the might of The HS Hulk can get the New York Times to stop putting, or wanting to put, history of astronomy misinformation on its front page. Hulk should hardly have to exert his pinky. It is not as though there is anything particularly radical these days about the idea of a stock historical narrative being bogus. Indeed, it has become commonplace to point out the bogus nature of many stock historical narratives. Think of the “Lost Cause” narrative regarding the American Civil War, for example.
However, I am not holding my breath. I doubt that even Hulk’s mightiest SMASH can do the job. After all, I e-mailed Broad. I pointed out the RM’s post (with link). I noted that his was the third front page Times story in three years to publish erroneous history of astronomy information. I told him I was working on this post you are reading now, with a focus the “crushing blue-sky science” statement. He e-mailed me back. He thanked me for writing. He said he loved history. It was a dozen words. It was not reason to think we won’t see more history of astronomy misinformation on the front page of the New York Times.
