[Poe White Trash]

>>> When religious authority thinks they can control what a scientist can and cannot publish they have stepped out of their domain and into the realm of tyranny of the worst sort. <<<

I think that part of the Catholic beef here has to do with the excessive attention given to the case of Galileo when state and secular academic authorities have much more recently harrassed scientists: e.g., the persecution of Louis Pasteur, the Lysenko Affair, global warming, etc.

To be fair, it does seem like special pleading when present-day reporters strain at the gnat of a censorious religious authority long dead in the West and yet overlook the 500 pound Nation-state gorillas that have much more recently pounded many a scientist into oblivion.

[allmendream]

As a scientist I am equally against the encroachment of EITHER the state of the church into the realm of scientific discovery.

As a believer in the natural rights of man and freedom of conscience I consider it tyranny of the worst sort for EITHER the church or the state to be deciding what scientists need to be imprisoned for promoting a scientific idea.