David Lindberg, Hillsdale professor emeritus of the history of science, University of Wisconsin, will speak on 鈥淭he Florentine Heretic? Galileo, the Church and the Cosmos鈥� 3:30 p.m. March 4 in Porter Theatre, 蜜桃传媒. The event, sponsored by the Pascal Society, is free and open to the public.
According to Lindberg, the story of Galileo鈥檚 campaign on behalf of the heliocentric model of the universe is one of the most dramatic events in the history of relations between Christianity and science. Lindberg offers a different perspective on the traditional portrayal as a battle in the perennial warfare between science and religion.
鈥淭his traditional story is filled with factual errors,鈥� says Lindberg. 鈥淏ut a fault at least as serious is its treatment of the Galileo affair as an exclusively ideological conflict (theological dogmatism snuffing out scientific freedom), neglecting the overwhelming importance of human interests and local circumstances. And when human fears, rivalries, greed, revenge, ambition, animosity, personality and the like are taken into account, the story takes on an altogether different cast.鈥� In Lindberg鈥檚 retelling, the ideological side of the story will be balanced with its richness as a human event.
Lindberg is an eminent scholar who has received numerous grants and awards from various prestigious organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the History of Science Society, the Medieval Academy of America and the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of more than 65 books and articles on topics ranging from Roger Bacon to the relationship between science and Christianity to the history of optics.
Lindberg is a graduate of Wheaton College who received a master鈥檚 degree in physics at Northwestern University and a doctorate in history and philosophy of science at Indiana University. He is currently co-editing the forthcoming eight-volume 鈥淐ambridge History of Science.鈥�
Lindberg has been a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Bellagio Study Center of the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as a Guggenheim Fellow. He was president of the History of Science Society and received the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society in 1999 for lifetime scholarly achievement. His book, 鈥淭he Beginnings of Western Science,鈥� won the 1994 Watson Davis Prize of the History of Science Society and the 1995 John Templeton Foundation Prize for Outstanding Books in theology and natural science. Now retired from teaching, Lindberg continues his scholarly work and, in his spare time, builds fine furniture.
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