The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe

by Arthur Koestler

The burden of proof has been shifted. The crucial words are those in (my) italics. It is no longer Galileo’s task to prove the Copernican system, but the theologians’ task to disprove it. If they don’t, their case will go by default, and Scripture must be reinterpreted. In fact, however, there had never been any question of condemning the Copernican system as a working hypothesis. The biblical objections were only raised against the claim that it was more than a hypothesis, that it was rigorously proven, that it was in fact equivalent to gospel truth. The subtlety in Galileo’s manoeuvre is that he does not explicitly raise the claim. He cannot do so, for he had not produced a single argument in support of it.