Giordano Bruno should also be remembered as a hero of science. He was <i>burnt at the stake</i> by the Inquisition in Rome because he upheld the heliocentric model and cosmic pluralism, a mere 13 years before Galileo wrote this re-discovered letter.<p><i></i><i>[added in response to multiple skeptic comments about Bruno's heroic role for science]</i><i></i><p>The Inquisition jailed and tried him for 7 years before burning him; of course they had time to question him about religious, doctrinal issues so they could damn him without referring to any of the philosophical and scientific principles he held. Promoting the Inquisition's recorded accusations against him, and pretending that he was no friend of science, is not very... inspiring (to be polite). And if you are going to denounce him because of his interests in the magical, what is your opinion of Isaac Newton and his lasting interest in alchemy? scientific genius and admirable hero, or somehow a buffoon not worth a footnote in the epochal battle between science and religion?<p>Bruno was a proud defender of free-thought, freedom of inquiry, and freedom of expression -- all central keys to the development of modern science. He wrote scientific works arguing for the Copernican model, published in 1584, years before Tycho Brahe for instance. He anticipated some of the arguments of Galilei on the relativity principle, as well as using the example now known as Galileo's ship. He was the first person to grasp that stars are other suns with their own planets.
Galileo didn't really have to "fool" the Inquisition.<p>By producing a softer version of the letter and claiming it was the original, Galileo was bowing to the authority of the Church. He knew it, they knew it, and everyone important watching knew it. That was the important thing for the Church, and by accepting the softer version as the original, whether or not they believed it, the Church sent the message to everyone watching in return: don't challenge our authority, and we'll leave you alone.
Seems to me that Galileo had a problem of proving 'stellar parallax' to his peers and that our convenient history stories overlook this little detail.<p>Darwin was also deferential to the church. It does not pay off long term.
You see this all the time. People will write stuff like "Crispr/cas9 is really, really awesome so dont think we're saying its not but we found out its toxic in this new way"<p>Or "Global warming is a huge problem and we need to do something about it for sure but..."
I am very sorry, but not mention or discussion of Galileo on this site is complete without a mention of the great ptolemaic smackdown [1]. If you have about 4 hours worth of your time (even in installments) it is deeply recommended.<p>1: <a href="http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html" rel="nofollow">http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac...</a>
People make a great deal about these "science martyrs". But, from a more disinterested perspective, one cannot entirely blame the Catholic Church's approach.<p>None of the martyrs had clear evidence they were correct, and were often pursuing a larger agenda of undermining the Church's authority and the general spiritual worldview.<p>Was the Church right to imprison and kill these people? Probably not. But, was the Church wrong in its concerns? Considering the untold millions of killings of the past couple centuries that resulted from scientism and naturalism, the Church's concerns about the so called heretical scientists may not have been entirely unfounded.
Reading about these people who were persecuted and <i>murdered</i> for advancing human knowledge, and seeing the current state of the world where even our leaders still rail against vaccination, climate change, human rights, the moon landing and other facts, is anyone else bemused by what a <i>self-defeating</i> species we are?<p>If you placed humanity next to other hypothetical species and looked at us from a detached point of view, what would be our defining characteristic?