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.
After Kepler's work the idiocy of epicycles within epicycles was washed away by the clear principle that all observations were much more consistent with the Earth circling the Sun.
Galileo's direct observation of the moons of Jupiter clearly circling Jupiter and not the Earth showed that the notion that all celestial bodies orbit the Earth was incorrect.
The definitive data was already in when the Church took its immoral stand on the wrong side of reality.
You’re viewing the controversy with the advantage of 400 years of hindsight. Imagine going 400 years into the future. What do you think humans in that day (if there are any) would think of our physicist’s interest in string theory? Either the pros or cons would likely be denounced as blind fools.
As modern men, we are repelled by religious authorities meddling in science. By removing science from the oversight of religion, we have been treated to modern marvels like nuclear and biological weapons, cloning, and eugenics.
>>> 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.
You fool. Galileo did not have the advantage of 21st century science when he argued that “the earth circles the sun.” But you do, and you remain an ignoramus. Go back to planetary physics 101. The earth does NOT circle around the sun. Fool.