For many people, the persecution of Galileo at the hands of the Catholic church for proving that the earth orbits the sun serves as the go-to evidence that Christianity is anti-science. But the trouble is: that’s not what actually happened.

00:00 Today we’re looking at four myths that revolve around Galileo and the idea that the earth orbits around the sun:
00:24 The myth that Galileo had demonstrated heliocentrism was a proven fact.
04:09 The myth that being at the center of creation was a good thing (like being the center of attention) and that people at the time were offended at the suggestion that earth wasn’t at the center.
06:27 The myth that church was threatened by Galileo and Copernicus.
9:38 The myth that Galileo was tortured and imprisoned by the Inquisition
12:59 Final Thoughts

Many of these myths originated with Protestants during the Reformation and were spread as anti-catholic propaganda, then were later picked up during the Enlightenment, and finally became ubiquitous during the 1800s with the writings of John Draper’s “History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science” and Andrew Dickson White’s “Warfare between Science and Theology”. Today these myths are commonly believed by most non-experts, but have been thoroughly discredited by historians of science.

References for this episode:
The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History by Maurice A Finocchiaro
For the Glory of God by Rodney Stark
Dominion by Tom Holland
Of Popes and Unicorns by David Hutchings and James Ungureanu
Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius by Mariano Artigas and William R Shea
Behind the Scenes at Galileo’s Trial by Richard Blackwell

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