“Galileo: A Life”, by James Reston

288 pages, HarperCollins, ISBN-13: 978-0060163785

Galileo: A Life by James Reston is an excellent biography of Western science’s premier protagonists; Reston, utilizing a mere 288 pages, discusses many complicated aspects of science and religion, and yet he never gets bogged down in any monotonous detail. Much of the relevance of Galileo’s life comes from our now being in the grip of political correctness, much of it (let’s be honest) revolving around sex, which we are now told is simply a matter of choice. It is rather reminiscent of the Catholic Church who charged that the spots on the sun and the satellites around Jupiter, as discovered by Galileo and personally shown to them through his telescope, were “illusory” or “conjurors tricks”. But at least the Church had a reason for their blinkeredness, its religious doctrines having predated these scientific discoveries; today’s church of political correctness has no such excuse. On the brighter side, today only careers and reputations are burnt at the stake, not people…yet.

Who knew how fascinating Galileo was? I read the book and found him to be incredibly arrogant and at times rather petty (well, why not? He was Galileo, after all), but Reston really brings the whole person alive, the good and the bad. It’s a fascinating read, as besides the life of this scientific giant, you learn quite a bit about the historical period in which he flourished and suffered under. Renaissance Italy was antithetical to our world: music was a branch of mathematics; physicians used astrology to diagnose illnesses; ten-pound stones fell ten times as fast as one-pound stones; the sun obediently circled the Earth; and the Vatican, reeling from the Reformation, fiercely wielded its will from the center of that world. In this world, Galileo’s life and work came to embody the conflict between science and religion that echoes even today. You learn, in short, not just Galileo the scientist, but about Galileo the man, whom Einstein called “the father of modern physics”.

A major storyline throughout the book was Galileo’s many health struggles; mostly by reading between the lines, it seems that much of the trouble was due to hypochondria…or was it? The book screams out for a chapter devoted to spelling out exactly what these health problems were, and that such a chapter was not included is doubly strange since Reston is so clearly analytical in other mysterious and complex areas, and also because you would think that this would be one subject that would be very amenable to informed historical speculation, looking at his symptoms in light of today’s medicine, and so forth. In summary, despite this one very significant flaw of failing to come to terms directly with Galileo’s ill health, this is a fine book that is very relevant even four centuries later, particularly in light of today’s enemies of the scientific method and the free discussion of its results.