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The Rice Thresher
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by Mark Berenson Thresher staff Author Dava Sobel kicked off the President's Lecture Series Monday with a discussion of her new book, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love. Sobel spoke of letters written by Galileo's daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, Galileo's work as a whole and her own research and writing process. Sobel is best known for her 1995 work, Longitude, which tells the story of clockmaker John Harrison who solved the great 18th-century scientific problem of how to determine longitude. It became an international best-seller and won several awards, including an award from the Academy of Arts and Sciences and Book of the Year in England. Sobel began her lecture with an explanation of how she stumbled upon a collection of letters that Celeste, a nun in the Poor Clare order, had written to her father. "These were the best things I had ever heard, and I decided if there was anything to this, I must write about it," Sobel said. During her talk, Sobel read three of the letters to the audience. "She could really write - that was one of the first things that pulled me to her," Sobel said, after reading a letter. "They were beautiful and extraordinary." Sobel commented on the irony of Galileo's daughter being a nun given Galileo's conflicts with the Catholic church. "One doesn't think of him as having children," she said. "One being a nun is very surprising, as he was the great enemy of the church." Sobel explained that although the modern view of Galileo puts him at the focal point in the division of religion and science, he actually did not completely reject religion. Sobel said Galileo did not consider the world to be godless, but his view of God was different than the church's. "He had not put [religion] behind him," she said. "Galileo felt that astronomy comes from the book of nature. He thought God gave us hands so that we could figure things out." Sobel said she wondered while doing research whether Galileo's daughters, who were both nuns, had trouble accepting their father's work. Sobel said she believes they did not, but instead understood the importance of his work. Sobel concluded the historical part of her lecture with a discussion of Galileo's trial and the end of his life. Sobel said that Galileo's book The Dialogue, which led to his trial, was not written for an intellectual audience but for the common people of his time. "It was beautifully written," Sobel said. "He was the Carl Sagan of the day. He felt non-college-educated people could be curious about things like these." Sobel said even after Galileo's book was banned and he was no longer allowed to publish, he wrote a book about the scientific method. "He had a sense that everything was still to be discovered, and minds more penetrable than his would discover them," she said. Sobel said Galileo's trial still haunts the church, which has never released its holdings from the trial. During the question-and-answer period, Sobel was asked to compare the Catholic church's reactions to Galileo with creationists' attitudes toward evolutionists. Sobel said that she felt such a comparison could not be made. "It wasn't the church, it was the feeling of certain members of the church," Sobel said. "Galileo had lots of supporters. The attitude of creationists to evolutionists is less enlightened." History Professor Albert Van Helden, who introduced Sobel, said he was impressed by the lecture. "She is an expert on that aspect of Galileo, she is a wonderful speaker and she has a wonderful way of putting words together," Van Helden said. Jones College freshman John Hanley also said the lecture was excellent. "She was a very entertaining and enjoyable speaker," Hanley said. "I'd really like to read her book." The next President's Lecture Series event will be Nov. 13. Alma Guillermoprieto, a writer who specializes in Latin American issues for The New Yorker, will speak.
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