Who Wants to See Galileos Boney Fingers?

[muman613]

I have no desire to see the dead fingers of Gallileo. I don't know what the fascination with such artifacts would be. Of course a Jewish Priest, a Kohain, would not be allowed to be in the same building because he would be Tamei Meis {ritually impure from contact with the dead}.

I hope that the fingers will join Galilleo some day. A body should be buried complete, if possible. Unfortunately there are times when the body becomes fragmented, as when it is blown up...

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/06/08/galileos-fingers-florence-science-museum/?test=latestnews


FLORENCE, Italy — Two of Galileo's fingers, removed from his corpse by admirers in the 18th century, have gone on display in a Florence museum now named after the astronomer.

The Museum of the History of Science had shut down for two years for renovations. It reopened Tuesday, calling itself The Galileo Museum.

Last year, the museum director announced that the thumb and middle finger from Galileo's right hand had turned up at an auction and were recognized as being the fingers of the scientist who died in 1642. The digits are now displayed in slender, glass cases.

Also on display is his tooth. A third finger was already in the museum.

In 1737, admirers of Galileo Galilei removed the three fingers, plus the tooth and a vertebra, from his body as it was being moved from a storage place to a monumental tomb — opposite that of Michelangelo, in Santa Croce Basilica in Florence.

The vertebra is kept at the University of Padua, where Galileo taught for many years.

The tooth and the thumb and middle finger were held in a container that was passed from generation to generation in the same family, but in the early 20th century all traces of the relics disappeared. The container turned up at auction late last year, and detailed historical documents and the family's own records helped experts to identify them as the scientist's, according to museum officials.

Topping the container that the relics had long been kept in was a wooden bust of Galileo.

Visitors can also view what the museum says are the only surviving instruments designed and built by Galileo, including the lens of the telescope he used to discover Jupiter's moons and two telescopes.

The Vatican condemned Galileo for contradicting church teaching, which held at the time that the Earth, not the Sun, was the center of the universe. Two decades ago, Pope John Paul II rehabilitated the astronomer, saying the church had erred.

[Rubystars]

Galileo was a very important scientist. I might like to see the bones just for the curiousity aspect of it, but I think Lucy's skeleton was probably much more interesting and I was priveleged to see that in person.

[muman613]

Galileo was a very important scientist. I might like to see the bones just for the curiousity aspect of it, but I think Lucy's skeleton was probably much more interesting and I was priveleged to see that in person.

Interesting...

I wonder what the thrill of seeing his fingers is... We know he existed because he left writings and inventions... What is the thrill of seeing the finger? I can sort of understand seeing the Dinosaur bones because we don't have any real record of their existence other than fossils.

Did you see the recent news that some ancient bones which some scientists believed to be a human ancestor {called 'Ardi'} turned out, according to many other scientists, not to actually be related to humans?

I just found a link to the story:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/06/is_ardi_all_washed_up035261.html

In some ways, the career of a missing link mirrors the career of the celebutante. They break onto the scene with much fanfare and hype. Everyone is wowed—or at least, everyone pretends to be wowed so nobody can be accused of ruining the party. Besides, she’s useful for advancing lots of agendas. After a little while, people realize that the star doesn’t have all the talent everyone hoped for. Nobody wants to feign excitement anymore. Eventually, people are sickened of the original hype and become eager to see the celebutante fall. And then it’s the fallen celebutante that starts making headlines. Substitute the word “missing link” for “celebutante” and this is something like what we’re now seeing with “Ardi,” the once-purported “oldest human ancestor.”

Last fall “Ardi” came onto the missing link scene with a bang. The journal Science called her the “breakthrough of the year.” So did Time Magazine. We covered a few lone dissenters to the Ardi hype here on ENV.

But now Time Magazine is starting to go over apex of the hype curve. In an article titled, “ Ardi: The Human Ancestor Who Wasn't?,” Time notes, “Two new articles being published by Science question some of the major conclusions of Ardi's researchers, including whether this small, strange-looking creature is even a human ancestor at all.” Likewise, Nature reports, “Ardi may be more ape than human.” According to the Time article:

    In the first article, titled "Comment on the Paleobiology and Classification of Ardipithecus ramidus," Esteban Sarmiento, a primatologist at the Human Evolution Foundation, argues that many of the "characters" — the scientific term for physical traits — used by White to place Ardi on the human lineage are also shared by other primates. He argues that the evidence suggests Ardi belongs to a species that evolved before the moment when humans, apes and chimps diverged along different evolutionary paths. That is significant because one of the things that made Ardi interesting scientifically was that she had been identified by White as the earliest known descendant of the last common ancestor of humans and African apes — thus her physiology could offer clues to what makes humans different from their nearest relatives.

    "{White} showed no evidence that Ardi is on the human lineage," Sarmiento says. "Those characters that he posited as relating exclusively to humans also exist in apes and ape fossils that we consider not to be in the human lineage."

    The biggest mistake White made, according to the paper, was to use outdated characters and concepts to classify Ardi and to fail to identify anatomical clues that would rule her out as a human ancestor. As an example, Sarmiento says that on the base of Ardi's skull, the inside of the jaw joint surface is open as it is in orangutans and gibbons, and not fused to the rest of the skull as it is in humans and African apes — suggesting that Ardi diverged before this character developed in the common ancestor of humans and apes.

Another paper in Science challenges the claim that Ardi lived in a wooded environment.

While these are relatively muted attacks on Ardi, they nonetheless show that the hype is wearing off. As Time notes, “Sarmiento regards the hype around Ardi to have been overblown.”

Given that these fossils come from the realm of science and not the world of celebrity gossip, why is the hype necessary in the first place? Discover Magazine is now saying "The bones of our ancestors do not speak across time with ultimate clarity." That's an understatement--but given how everyone previously fawned over Ardi's "missing link" status, could it be that there is more than mere science driving the promotion of these missing links?

[Ari Ben-Canaan]

I hope I get to keep all my fingers when I am buried.  Poor Galileo.

[Rubystars]

According to evolution Ardipithecus is related to humans, as is every other living thing on earth, including trees, if you go back far enough. All that article seems to be saying is that "Ardi" is not a direct ancestor, but a side branch off the tree, more a cousin than a grandparent to humans. I don't like to get into this topic too much on here because many people don't accept evolution and find it very uncomfortable and even offensive.

I just thought of Lucy's skeleton because I had gotten to see it. It was very interesting, you could see the wear marks on her teeth, how parts of her skeleton were so different and yet so similar to human skeletons, etc. It was fascinating, especially considering the great age of the skeleton. She walked upright and her kind left the Laetoli prints long before there were any recognizable humans around. It was just such an awesome and interesting experience to get to see her.

I think Galileo's bones would be interesting because we can't really get to meet Galileo, at least not until we're dead and gone ourselves. It would be interesting to get as close to being in his presence as humanly possible. Not to be morbid of course, but to remember his achievements and honor his memory in an age that appreciates him far more than his own time did.