Leadership and Discovery

Abstract

When Galileo found the moons of Jupiter back around A.D. 1610, it was stunning proof that an object other than the earth was a center of attraction for those objects. This discovery directly invalidated the Church’s teachings about the earth as the center of the universe, but the high priests refused to believe what Galileo claimed. They were so certain that their teachings were correct that they even refused to look through the telescope to see for themselves. This anecdote illustrates two sides of our theme. The high priests of dogma asserted their leadership by refusing to confirm Galileo’s discovery for themselves while Galileo himself was propelled into a leadership role because he had made a discovery that revolutionized astronomy and our subsequent worldview.