Ted Cruz is certainly not a modern-day Galileo

Ted Cruz, the Canadian-born junior United States Senator for Texas, seems intent on debunking global warming – a phenomenon that the majority of scientists globally believe is happening  – describing it as left-wing scaremongering based on bad science and intimidation.

In March, he compared himself to Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), the Italian physicist, mathematician, engineer, astronomer, and philosopher – one of the major players in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance.

Galileo’s championing of heliocentrism – that the Earth and other planets in our solar system orbit the Sun – got him into trouble with the Roman Inquisition (the Church) in 1615. The Church concluded that heliocentrism was false and contrary to scripture.

Looking at their backgrounds, there is very little these two men have in common.

According to scripture, the Earth is at the orbital center of all celestial bodies, i.e. everything out there, planets, the Sun and stars, revolve around (orbit) the Earth.

Mr. Cruz is not a scientist

For Mr. Cruz to consider himself a modern-day Galileo is at best wishfully naïve, and at worse just absolute rubbish. For a start, Galileo was a scientist, the Church represented the scriptures. Mr. Cruz is not a scientists, and he is disagreeing with scientists.

 

If one just considers those two factors – scientist (Galileo) vs. Church, and a non-scientist (Cruz) vs. scientists – Mr. Cruz is more like a modern day antithesis of Galileo. In fact, some might even argue that he has more in common with the Roman Inquisition.

Global warming is not a theme that has been around for centuries – it is a new phenomenon based on science. Just like Galileo’s argument that planets orbit the Sun. If Mr. Cruz resists the scientific argument, how on Earth could he be a modern-day Galileo? It just makes absolutely no sense.

Everybody knew the Earth was flat

To add insult to history, Mr. Cruz compared the “global warming alarmists” to the “Flat-Earthers” who opposed Galileo.

As mentioned above, the controversy those many hundreds of years ago was not whether the Earth was flat, everybody knew it was round when Galileo was alive.

During the early Christian Church, more than 1,000 years before Galileo’s time, the vast majority – including Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine – knew that the Earth was a sphere.

‘Flat Earth’ versus ‘Round Earth’ was not the argument of the day. The dispute was whether the Earth orbited the Sun or vice-versa.

Mr. Cruz announced on March 23, 2015, that he would run for the Republican Party nomination in the US Presidential election.

If he wants to be taken seriously as a contender, perhaps he should consider researching his arguments that little bit more carefully before attempting to liken himself to brave scientists.