Galileo and the Stars essays

Galileo and the Stars essays I feel that the motivation of Galileos pursuits in Astronomy and stargazing was driven by his desire to be financially successful. Galileo was an extremely ambitious and clearly independent individual whose methods of generating scientific data epitomizes a survival of the fittest like struggle between all of the prominent scientists of his time. During Galileo's life there was no gray area of wealth like the middle class of today, and therefore you were either rich or poor. In Science and Patronage published by Westfall, the word friends connotation back then was not one of caring for another person and mutual support but rather defined in a financial type way of using ones connections to better ones self. There was patronage inside of patronage; therefore Galileo did not always see what he claimed to have seen, his associates might have though. Since patronage was the way of the world at this time as Galileo knew it made no sense for someone to swim against the current, for they would simply become tired and unsuccessful. Because of Galileo's position as a patron to the prince, many of his disciples were patrons to Galileo himself thus providing him data and insightful knowledge. Galileo in turn allowed the use of his name as a referral to help his disciples out. Surprisingly Galileo had only worked as a patron for those, which gave him enough money or got persuaded into his over exaggerated descriptions of what the moon really looked like. Galileo did not go into depth with many of the things he saw, instead he attempted to describe everything he saw vaguely in order to make sure he got credit for seeing it first. I feel that it is important to document your discoveries as Galileo had not only to get credit for seeing it first but to create a larger body of information that can be collaborated on amongst all of the people. It appears that as he wrote Sidereus Nuncius that he wasnt eve...