Scientists want DNA tests on Galileo for "eye test"

Scientists want DNA tests on Galileo for "eye test"

news.yahoo.com

ROME (Reuters) – Italian and British scientists want to exhume the body of 16th century astronomer Galileo for DNA tests to determine if his severe vision problems may have affected some of his findings.

The scientists told Reuters on Thursday that DNA tests would help answer some unresolved questions about the health of the man known as the father of astronomy, whom the Vatican condemned for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun.

"If we knew exactly what was wrong with his eyes we could use computer models to recreate what he saw in his telescope," said Paolo Galluzzi, director of the Museum of History and Science in Florence, the city where Galileo is buried.

Galileo, who lived from 1564 to 1642, is known to have had intermittent eye problems for the second half of his life and was totally blind for his last two years.

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This is bit extreme, these people want to exhume his body to accuire DNA hoping to use the results to dispute claims in some of his findings. Just the moral implications alone are astounding I mean just let the man rest in peace if there's any findings that he made that were the cause of error due to his "blindness' then so be just correct the information and move on! you don't dig him up and start taking "samples" come on now!

ERROR OF A GENIUS?
One of the "errors" that Galileo made, which Galluzzi suspects may have been attributed to his bad eyesight, is that he believed Saturn was not perfectly round but may have had an irregular, inflated side.

With his 20-power telescope and with his eyes in bad shape he might have mistaken Saturn's gaseous ring to surmise that it was formed of one planet with two moons as satellites.

"This was probably a combination of errors. He probably expected to find satellites and his eyesight may have contributed to some confusion," said Galluzzi.

"A DNA test will allow us to determine to what measure the pathology of the eye may have 'tricked' him," he said.

"If we discover the pathology he suffered, we can formulate a mathematical model that simulates the effects it would have had on what he saw and using the same type of telescope he used we can get closer to what he actually saw," Galluzzi said.

"We only have sketches of what he saw. If we were able to see what he saw that would be extraordinary," he added.

Galileo was buried in Florence's Santa Croce Basilica about 100 years after his death. Before, his remains were hidden in a bell tower room because the Church opposed a proper burial.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 23-1-2009 by alyosha1981]

reply to post by alyosha1981


This sounds so bizarre it's like that scene in the movie wild wild west were they are able to view the last moments of what the dead guy saw.
This is wrong on so many levels.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by alyosha1981

 

This sounds so bizarre it's like that scene in the movie wild wild west were they are able to view the last moments of what the dead guy saw.
This is wrong on so many levels.

I completly agree, they want to disprove some of his findings ok, but why not just use modern equiptment and survey the objects in question? OH no lets go dig him up and take DNA samples! unbelievable

Scientifically this is a pretty dumb idea, because they will never know for sure what he saw exactly, and it will prove nothing. So they will base their conclusions on false information. Sounds like a waste of time.


Sounds to me, someone wants to make a clone.

[edit on 23-1-2009 by ALLis0NE]

Yeah, as an Atheist, I don't believe in a soul, nor anything else that might get annoyed with being dug back up...

However, it's a matter of respect, not religion.

Show some respect to the man, leave his body where it is.

Originally posted by ALLis0NE
Scientifically this is a pretty dumb idea, because they will never know for sure what he saw exactly, and it will prove nothing. So they will base their conclusions on false information. Sounds like a waste of time.


Sounds to me, someone wants to make a clone.

[edit on 23-1-2009 by ALLis0NE]

Well put to me this doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and like you said they will never know for sure what he saw so there's nothing the test could prove, and so what if he he had vision problems he still fathered astronomy as far as I'm concerned.The link below is a timeline of Galileo's life for those interested
www.pbs.org...

posted by johnsky
Yeah, as an Atheist, I don't believe in a soul, nor anything else that might get annoyed with being dug back up...

Even aside from a "soul" your right on the respect part this man made serious contributions to astronomy it's not like he's just some shmo that just happened to see something in the sky, now they want DNA? didn't he give us enough?
[edit on 23-1-2009 by alyosha1981]

[edit on 23-1-2009 by alyosha1981]

Originally posted by ALLis0NE
Scientifically this is a pretty dumb idea, because they will never know for sure what he saw exactly, and it will prove nothing. So they will base their conclusions on false information. Sounds like a waste of time.


Sounds to me, someone wants to make a clone.

[edit on 23-1-2009 by ALLis0NE]

That was the first thing that crossed my mind when I read this post.

Intermetin eye problems? I highly dount a computer model can simulate real life experinces... intermetan, i belive means form time to time...we will never know when galileo was looking at saturn, if his intermetin eye problem started or not,a nd how a computer is goin to 100% account accuratly for htis, is impossible... this is a dumb idea... plus, if he had intermetan eye problems, how would it be possible, for his to draw those sketches of saturn then? dosnt make sense or add up too me. no way a computer is going to simulate this 100% 99.9999% is still not close enough.. MY understanding is, back then, telescopes werent that good anyway..they had many focal and bi focal disadvantages..is the computer model going to account for that too>?

I now can't get pass the thought of them possibly wanting to make a Galileo clone, but why would they want to do that? and what other clone could they be concocting? the imagination is going to run with this one

I thought you might be interested to know that some of Galileo's body parts (that have been missing since 1905) have turned up:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

An art collector has found a tooth, thumb and finger of the famous renaissance astronomer Galileo that had been missing for more than a century.

The body parts, cut from his corpse when the Vatican finally allowed the controversial Italian scientist a church burial 95 years after his death in 1642, vanished in 1905.

But they appeared at a recent auction as unidentified artefacts contained in a 17th century wooden case. The unnamed collector who bought the relics suspected they might belong to Galileo.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cad0314f0cf3.jpg[/atsimg]

Experts at Florence’s History of Science museum compared them with another finger and vertebrae also cut from the scientist and confirmed they were indeed Galileo's.

‘All the organic material extracted from the corpse has therefore now been identified and is conserved in responsible hands,’ a spokesman for the museum said.

‘On the basis of considerable historical documentation, there are no doubts about the authenticity of the items.’

[edit on 21-11-2009 by berenike]

Why don't they let the man rest in peace, and just accept/respect the contributions that he made to science. We know his mistakes, we can see clearly, and our equipment is so much better.

[edit on 21-11-2009 by tamusan]

Originally posted by ALLis0NE
Scientifically this is a pretty dumb idea, because they will never know for sure what he saw exactly, and it will prove nothing. So they will base their conclusions on false information. Sounds like a waste of time.


Sounds to me, someone wants to make a clone.

[edit on 23-1-2009 by ALLis0NE]

Not only that, if they were to try and clone him.. I'm sure they'd lock the clone away under "house arrest" just like they did back in the day

Seems more likely they would want to clone him in the future when cloning technology is made public.

He had a brilliant mind.

Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy,"[6] the "father of modern physics,"[7] the "father of science,"[7] and "the Father of Modern Science."[8] Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."[9]

Source: Wikipedia



[edit on 21-11-2009 by Copernicus]

Science a while back changed from seeking facts and truth through observation and experimentation to making up 'facts and truths' and proving them through opinion and celebrity. Just take a look at Gore and 'manmade global climate change' as a prime example. These 'scientists' have already made their findings, and only need the celebrity and opinion by desecrating the grave of Galileo to 'prove' them.