But this distinction is not essential to the argument…It surely is harder to predict something over a long period of time, than over a short period. If someone cannot reliably predict something over a short period, do you think he is more able to do it over a long period? Surely not!
Yes it is. Again, it may be counterintuitive but it is far easier to predict long term averages over time than to predict transitory states at a particular place at a particular moment. The example of the drop of water in the Gulf Stream is illustrative of this.Jeb: “Depends on your definition of many I guess.”
In any case more than 50%.Far less than half and the major thesis was correct as the judge in the case noted.
Its not about persecution. Its about opinion and truth. Most people of his time, and many learned men among them, considered him wrong.
Where Galileo was correct the other prominent physicists of his day among them Kepler, de Soto, and Descartes agreed. It was the Church that disputed and suppressed the science and it was the Church that prevented widespread support. The scientists who studied the phenomena were far closer to the truth than was the general populace under the sway of the Church.
That humanity is able to severely harm itself is against the most basic laws of living nature: The Law of Self Preservation, and the Law of Preservation of the Species.
What people do or do not do to preserve themselves greatly depends upon the quality of information they possess. History is littered with examples of people and other organisms (many no longer with us) with poor information acting a way that ensured their destruction. To assume that we will inherently act in a way that will best preserve us is religious thinking.
