In 1950, Alan Turing proposed his iconic imitation game, calling it a ‘test’, an ‘experiment’, and the ‘the only really satisfactory support’ for his view that machines can think. Following Turing’s rhetoric, the ‘Turing test’ has been widely received as a kind of crucial experiment to determine machine intelligence. In later sources, however, Turing showed a milder attitude towards what he called his ‘imitation tests’. In 1948, Turing referred to the persuasive power of ‘the actual production of machines’ rather than (...) that of a controlled experiment. Observing this, I propose to distinguish the logical structure from the rhetoric of Turing’s argument. I argue that Turing’s proposal of a crucial experiment may have been a concession to meet the standards of his interlocutors more than his own, while his construction of machine intelligence rather reveals a method of successive idealizations and exploratory experiments. I will draw a parallel with Galileo’s construction of idealized fall in a void and the historiographical controversies over the role of experiment in Galilean science. I suggest that Turing, like Galileo, relied on certain kinds of experiment, but also on rhetoric and propaganda to inspire further research that could lead to convincing scientific and technological progress. (shrink)

For 150 years after Galileo’s condemnation in 1633, there were many references to the trial, but no sustained, heated or polarized discussions. Then came the thesis that Galileo was condemned not for being a good astronomer but for being a bad theologian ; it began in 1784–1785 with an apology of the Inquisition by Mallet du Pan in the Mercure de France and the printing in Tiraboschi’s Storia della letteratura italiana of an apocryphal letter attributed to Galileo but forged by (...) Onorato Gaetani. This thesis is not only untenable and false but inverts and subverts the truth; it proved to be long-lasting and widely accepted; so it may be labeled a myth. It was held by such writers as Bergier; Bergier; B; Feller; Cooper; Purcell; Marini; Reumont; Madden and Duhem. Afterwards, it was generally abandoned, its death knell being pope John Paul II’s speeches in 1979–1992. The myth seems to have acted as a catalyst insofar as its creation encouraged the proliferation of pro-clerical accounts and the articulation of pro-Galilean ones, thus making the discussion of Galileo’s trial the cause célèbre it is today.Author Keywords: Galileo; Galileo affair; Science versus religion; Theology; Biblical exegesis; Myth. (shrink)

: Although Galileo's struggle to mathematize the study of nature is well known and oft discussed, less discussed is the form this struggle takes in relation to Galileo's first new science, the science of the second day of the Discorsi. This essay argues that Galileo's first science ought to be understood as the science of matter—not, as it is usually understood, the science of the strength of materials. This understanding sheds light on the convoluted structure of the Discorsi's first day. (...) It suggests that the day's meandering discussions of the continuum, infinity, the vacuum, and condensation and rarefaction establish that a formal treatment of the "eternal and necessary" properties of matter is possible; i.e., that matter as such can be considered mathematically. This would have been a necessary, and indeed revolutionary, preliminary to the mathematical science of the second day because matter itself was thought in the Aristotelian tradition to be responsible for the departure of natural bodies from the unchanging and thus mathematizable character of abstract objects. In addition, the first day establishes that when considered physically, these properties account for matter's force of cohesion and resistance to fracture. This essay closes by showing that this dual style of reasoning accords with the conceptual structure of mixed mathematics. (shrink)

Having been found ‘vehemently suspected of heresy’ by the Holy Office in 1633, at the time of his death Galileo's remains were laid to rest in the tiny vestry of a lateral chapel of the Santa Croce Basilica, Florence. Throughout his life, Vincenzo Viviani, Galileo's last disciple, struggled to have his master's name rehabilitated and his banned works reprinted, as well as a proper funeral monument erected. He did not live to see all this come true, but his efforts triggered (...) a mechanism that eventually led to the fulfilment of his wishes. A key element of his project was the transformation of the facade of his palace into a private tribute to Galileo, with two long inscriptions celebrating Galileo's achievements and calling Florence's attention to the need to pay a proper tribute to him. Shortly afterwards, he revised the text and circulated it in print. This article presents the first critical edition and annotated translation of Viviani's original manuscript, long thought to be lost, and describes its role in Viviani's lifelong struggle for Galileo's intellectual legacy, as well as its impact on future historiography. (shrink)

Agassi has undertaken the challenge of performing a microanalysis of the works of several scientists, pointing out areas of complexity, raising questions, and criticizing current histories of science. Among the topics he has tackled are Bacon’s philosophy of science, Boyle’s ideology, the rationale of Galileo’s work, Newton’s declared methodology—influential, but misleading—, Faraday’s emancipatory enterprise; and the roots of the quantum revolution. He attempts to reconstruct what scientists did in the immediate context, rather than what they said they did, and highlights (...) difficulties and points of scepticism. Agassi considers many neglected factors that influenced science, taking in the metaphysical, social, anthropological, and even psychological spheres. (shrink)

At the beginning of the eighties of the last century, the issue of “patronage” began to arouse scholarly interest and gained importance. Galileo became a test case: his importance, and the importance of patronage – and that of the Medici in particular – go beyond the historical junction of the scientific revolution and have corollaries in the more general attitude to science and knowledge. This case furnished a new line of research for the historical sociology of science. As far as (...) Galileo is concerned, my claim is that the new trend belongs to post-modern historiography, rather than to post-Renaissance Medici patronage. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe article deals with the interrelation between Galileo and the visual arts. It presents a couple of drawings from the hand of Galileo and confronts them with Viviani's report that Galileo had not only wanted to become an artist in his youth but stayed close to the field of visual arts throughout his lifetime. In the ambiance of these drawings the famous moon watercolors are not in the dark. They represent a very acute and reasonable tool to convince the (...) people who trusted images more than words. The article ends with Panofsky's argument that it was Galileo's anti-Mannerist notion of art that evoked a repulsion of Kepler's ellipses. It tries to show that it was again an aesthetical prejudice that hindered Einstein from accepting Panofsky's theory. (shrink)