Old books and a famous astronomer

Today was a bit of an unusual school day.

For the second half of 18th century class, we all trooped down to the Billy Graham Center to Wheaton's Archives Special Collections where there are lots of beautiful old, rare books which we have studied, including Addison and Steele's The Spectator, Swift's Gullivers Travels, and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. These were all set out on the table for us to pick up and page through, not stuck behind glass as they might be anywhere else. Coolest of all (and also most valuable), was a first edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary published in the mid 18th century. I looked up my name - "a song of joy and exultation."

One of my classmates noticed that the cover of one of the books was wearing thin in one spot, revealing a bit of text. The archivist said that printers took all sorts of scrap papers to make the covers and bindings of books. Occasionally, since the covers have worn thin, people have discovered old texts that they had record of but thought had been lost completely. By tracing down other books printed by the same person, they've been able to piece together some old books.

On to the next unusual bit. . .

Several weeks ago my old roommate Donna Grace told me that Dr. Owen Jay Gingerich, the most well-known living American astronomer was speaking at Wheaton College, and that I absolutely had to go. So I did.

The title of his lecture was Truth in Science: Proof, Persuasion, and the Galileo Affair. Some of it went past me, but it was interesting. It's not entirely cohesive in my memory, so bullet points will probably work best. . . .

• I didn't know it, but Tycho Brahe developed a model in which the earth was fixed in place, the luminaries revolved around it, and the planets (except for earth) revolved around the sun. He kept the church happier this way, but it wasn't very persuasive.
• Kepler and Galileo were both supporters of the Copernican model. Kepler was willing to accept the model in part because he saw trinitarian theology in it. He said the sun is like the Father; the outer room of stars, the Son; and the space in the middle, the Holy Spirit. This is pretty bizarre to me. Galileo was a timid supporter of the Copernican model until one January. . .
• When he saw three, then four stars around Jupiter. And then as a few nights passed, and he continued watching them, he realized that they were moons rotating around Jupiter - a mini-model of the Copernicus' theory. He had been taking notes in Italian, and when he realizes this his notes turn to Latin because Latin was the international language, and he wanted to share his findings with everyone.
• Galileo helped change science because he argued for having a coherent point of view (even though they couldn't provide proof yet without Newtonian physics, I think). Dr. Gingerich says we come to fundamental understanding by persuasion rather than proofs, and this is an example of this. And I think he said accepting macro-evolution should be another example of this.

I didn't stay for the Q&A, but walked briskly down to the BGC, thinking I could slip invisibly into class and sit in on the last hour and a half of the New Testament Theology class that I'm auditing. I felt pretty silly when Dr. Perrin said, "Hey Carol. We're finishing in twenty minutes; it's a long story. But glad you joined us." But I did get to hear about how Galatians 2:14 and James 2:24 are not contradictory. And now Dr. Perrin is on a two-hour long radio talk show, that he was just invited to today to talk about a book he hasn't read. I'm glad all I have to do tonight is go to bed.