>> the Catholic Church put Galileo on trial in 1633 and forced him under threat of torture to recant his belief, presented unapologetically in the Dialogue Concerning the ..a tale of science squelched by organized religion.
Bunch of Rubbish. Galileo was in trouble because he taught his THEORY as if it were established fact. He had many supporting Bishops and Cardinals, but he ran into trouble because he refused to stop teaching it as if were indisputable fact.
This is why he got into trouble, not because Rome felt it his theory has heretical.
Remember, Rome was BIG in science during that time, and many came to Rome to present their theories, as did Galileo. The Church was never opposed, it just wanted people to stop running around like the evolutionists do today proclaiming evolution as absolute fact.
Had Galileo simply treated his theory as that, there would have been no problem and he would have eventually been proven right.
Correct. The difference between Galileo and evolutionary biology, however, is that the latter have an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting evolution, whereas in Galileo's time the evidence for heliocentrism was still inconclusive. That, of course, has changed.
Furthermore, Galileo got into trouble not so much for his theories as he did for writing a book that made the sitting pope look stupid.
If that was true, why didn't the Church admit its mistake when the evidence was clear? How long did it take for the Church to admit it was wrong about him, again?
Answer: it wasn't about any lack of evidence. It was about contradicting Church dogma. Fortunately, the men currently at the head of the Church aren't so anti-science as their forerunners.
The _Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems_ has a preface in which Galileo carefully observes the formality of deferring to the Church's judgement:
"I hope from these considerations the world will come to know that if other nations have navigated more, we have not theorized less. It is not from failing to take count of what others have thought that we have yielded to asserting that the earth is motionless, and holding the contrary to be a mere mathematical caprice, but ( if for nothing else ) for those reasons that are supplied by piety, religion, the knowledge of Divine Omnipotence, and a consciousness of the limitations of the human mind."
But among the "textual points offensive to the church was, "That the preface was printed in different type and thus vitiated, ..."
This would be not to mention the screaming insincerity of it. Note his appeal to national pride - a virtual, "Aw, c'mon! We don't want to look like rubes do we?"
Galileo was convinced that he was on the inside, having counted the Pope himself as personal friend, and that he was allowed free rein, short of open defiance. As it turned out, of course, he was mistaken.