Galileo gambit

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The Galileo gambit, or Galileo fallacy, is the idea that if you are widely vilified for your ideas, you must therefore be right. It refers to Galileo Galilei's famous persecution at the hands of the Catholic church for his defence of heliocentrism in the face of the orthodox Biblical literalism of the day that insisted otherwise. Users will bring it up repeatedly in response to serious criticisms that - more often than not - they just don't understand.

This specific fallacy takes the form:

“ They made fun of Galileo, and he was right.
They make fun of me, therefore I am right. 		”

Contents

[edit] The fallacious fallacy

In "reality", in order to wear the mantle of Galileo, not only must one be scorned by the establishment, but one must be correct[1]. There is no real correlation between being perceived as wrong and actually being correct; usually if people perceive you to be wrong, you are wrong. However, the selective reporting of cases where people who were persecuted or ostracized for beliefs and ideas that later turned out to be valid has instilled a confidence in woo promoters and pseudoscientists that is difficult to shake. They really do forget the part where they have to prove themselves right in order to declare themselves to be like Galileo.

The gambit often uses multiple techniques but primarily someone using it to promote their ideas will concentrate on and highlight their perceived persecution. Often this is blown out of realistic proportion until and observer almost has no choice but to accept their ideas practically as a sympathy vote. Such tactics could be seen in the "documentary" Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which focused on several academics who supposedly lost jobs because they promoted intelligent design as a valid hypothesis. Thus the film decided that this was a violation of academic freedom, and played the excessive persecution complex almost to death.

[edit] Quotes

As Carl Sagan put it;

“ But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. ”

Another formal quote, apparently attributed to Robert L. Park states;

“ It is not enough to wear the mantle of Galileo: that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right. ”

A corollary of the Galileo Gambit;

“ Just because you're misunderstood does not make you an artist. ”

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ One might argue that, since Nicolaus Copernicus did not get prosecuted for the pretty much the same idea, it's just Galileo. The difference here is Copernicus did not actively spread the idea, Galileo did.
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