What Galileo Wrought
a book review by John C. Snider
It has been nearly four centuries since Galileo Galilei lost his legendary showdown with the Catholic Church’s Court of the Inquisition. Threatened with imprisonment, torture and certain death, Galileo backed down — officially, at least — from his outrageous claim that the earth and the planets orbited the sun (a claim which he had the audacity to support with — gasp! — data, meticulously gathered and brilliantly analyzed).
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-06-20.html