To the editor:

The article (4/26/02) on Dava Sobel’s lecture at KU contains this statement: “But despite (Galileo’s) best efforts at explaining his position and providing evidence to back it up, the church refused to acknowledge Galileo’s work.” This statement is misleading. According to Jerome Langford (“Galileo, Science, and the Church”), Galileo did not provide conclusive proof for his claim that the Earth revolves around the sun. The conclusive proof is stellar parallax, and the technology of Galileo’s time precluded observing it. Second, Langford says, Galileo damaged his own cause by publishing works that needlessly offended church leaders who sympathized with him, including Pope Urban VIII. If Langford is correct, then Galileo neither made the best efforts nor provided complete evidence.

George Wiley,

Baldwin