On Feb. 8, 2024 — a day that will live in infamy — journalist Mark Steyn was fined $1 million for daring to question the Climate Science™ of the Western elite. On June 22, 1633— a day that has lived in infamy — journalist Galileo Galilei was condemned for heresy and sentenced to permanent house arrest for daring to question the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe.
You’ve noticed I’ve called Galileo, the greatest astronomer of all time, a “journalist.” And so he was, qua writer of the book that got him condemned. He was an astronomer and mathematician, not a philosopher or theologian, the only scholars who had the credentials in the 1630’s to pass judgment on the location of the Earth.
Science cannot advance if outsiders are not allowed to challenge the credentialed. In 1905, a lowly Swiss patent clerk, Albert Einstein by name, challenged established physicists with his formula E = mc2. Einstein was correct, and we now have nuclear power, the only known major source of carbon-free energy.
John Donne, the famous poet — that’s “ask not for whom the bell tolls,” and “no man is an island” John Donne — who was also a credentialed theologian, explained in his 1611 book “Ignatius His Conclave” just why the Copernican Theory had to be suppressed. Hell was believed to be in the center of the Earth. If the Earth was believed to be in the Heavens, illiterate peasants would cease to believe in either Hell or God, and theologians would be out of work.
Donne was correct. The Western elite no longer believes in either Hell or God.
In Mark Steyn’s trial, the lawyer representing the Establishment demanded that he be bankrupted “to prevent others from acting … in the same way. These attacks on climate scientists have to stop.”
Galileo’s conviction ended science in Renaissance Italy. Steyn’s bankruptcy would end science in the West.
Frank J. Tipler is professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University. He is the author of two heretical books, The Physics of Immortality and The Physics of Christianity, both by Doubleday.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.