"The Catholic Church did not persecute scientists for teaching that the earth orbited the sun"
I guess my public school physics' class could be wrong about that. I highly doubt it was mistaken, though.
I don't know what your class tought, but if it taught that the Cathoic Church (whose colleges were teaching Copernican theory as one of several possible alternatives for explaining stellar motion for several decades before Galileo)persected scientists than, yeah, it was mistaken.
Don't feel to bad though...I can't tell you how many times I read in some text book that most people thought that the world was flat before Columbus's voyage. And I clearly remember my high school AP Biology text book indicating that human embryos have, at some early stage of development, gill slits, which is nonsense, of course.
I guess my public school physics' class could be wrong about that. I highly doubt it was mistaken, though.
You are right on this one.