Except the thing is, Galileo's model was not supported by science. They had neither a proper theoretical model for deriving it (Newton's and Kepler's work on gravity and celestial movement, which came after Galileo), nor did the Galileo's model agree with available observational data. From the point of view of scientists of that age, his model was more like a crackpot theory. Which turned out ok, but only much later.
So if anything, Galileo's story is about the Church being on the side of science, not against it.
The inquisition wasn't a scientific test. Galileo was convicted of countering scripture. The level of error in his theory is besides the point and a good example of the kind of nitpicking to change narratives I discussed above.
I think the idea that if his heliocentric model was more accurate it would have meant the Church instantly accepting him is extremely faulty. He was convicted of going against geocentrism in the bible, not being a bad scientist. The idea that the Catholic system was a strict meritocracy open to change is ridiculous. It defended its status quo and its scripture unfairly using absurdly powerful institutions like the Inquisition, in which it is more or less impossible to get a 'fair' trial, even by the low standards of theocratic justice.
The point is, he wasn't convicted for his theory at all - he was convicted for being an asshole to the pope, and the talk about going against the scripture was just an excuse to make the sentence look more legitimate.
Being an asshole to a very powerful politician (especially one that knows you personally) generally gets you into trouble, no matter the day and age.
Perhaps you might be interested what Ernest R. Hull, author of Galileo and his condemnation [1] had to say about that?
> Thirdly, to Catholic Apologists :
> (1) Avoid the mistake of minimizing the official action of the Church authorities, or of understating the ground of their condemnation. The official documents plainly embody the view that the Copernican theory was not only "false" but also "heretical" because "altogether contrary to Scripture"; and Galileo was condemned as "grievously suspected of heresy," which heresy is defined as holding that the earth moved and the sun stood still." It is precisely in this dogmatical pronounce ment on the heretical character of the new astronomy that their blunder consisted.
> (2) Do not try to cloak this blunder by arguing that Galileo brought all the trouble on himself by meddling in theology, or by his aggressiveness of manner. The clash with theology was inevitable, and must be forced upon him ; and his defence on this point was entirely sound and unexceptionable. His aggressiveness explains the amount of human passion which was aroused against him, but does not extenuate the act of condemning officially as heresy a doctrine which we all now know to be totally free from heresy. That Galileo was imprudent in forcing an official pronouncement does not diminish the error which the official pronouncement contains.
> (3) Avoid also laving too much stress on the fact that Galileo was contumacious to Church authority. His contumacy might justify a disciplinary punish ment ; but once more, it does not cloak the blunder of charging his doctrines with heresy.
> (4) There is no reason for trying to exonerate the Popes from all share in the action of the Congrega tions. Although their names do not appear in any official capacity, there is no doubt that they were fully conversant with what was being done ; that they partly directed the proceedings ; that they approved and sanctioned the decrees issued and the sentences pronounced. Our defence on this point lies simply in the fact that the Pope's approval of the acts of a Congregation does not raise them to ex cathedra definitions.
I came to post this. There is another important detail: Galileo did not contradict scripture (religion), rather he contradicted Aristotle (science). The Catholic church was actually rather interested in science at the time, and were far from the anti-intellectuals that the common narrative makes them seem.
Aristotle is not just "science" - it's long been at the center of Christian theology, carrying the main argument that could reconcile Christian faith with the empirical world. Until very recently (and certainly by Galileo's times), contradicting Aristotle meant doing away with the entire building of Christian theology.
Well, in Western Christianity the thought of Aristotle has been important since about A.D. 1,100. Not so much in Eastern Christianity, which has favored the thought of Plato for nearly 2,000 years.
Galileo's push for heliocentrism were in direct opposition to doctrine (Ptolemaic/geocentrism) and most interpretations of scripture.
If the Catholic Church didn't take that as a threat to their legitimacy I'd be surprised.
Similar shit happens today where people who question the efficacy of e.g. capitalism are effectively silenced (media control and subtlety allows voices to be silenced without imprisoning or killing people these days)
Stellar parallax was the key to it; Brahe, in particular, insisted that if there was no stellar parallax, there was no reason to prefer Galileo's system over his. If memory serves, stellar parallax was only demonstrated in the 1800s -- whereupon the Church issued a statement that Galileo's model was right after all.
This is true. The interesting thing about the epicylical theories (there was more than one possible set), is that they passed the usual scientific tests - were based on observations, could be used for prediction in particular. They just happened to be completely incorrect. Galileo's contribution was building one of the first telescopes and using it to identify moons circling around Jupiter.
His was the find the exception that contradicts the rule kind of science/theorem proving.
> epicylical theories (...) happened to be completely incorrect.
They weren't completely incorrect. There are two aspects you want to look at when evaluating those models. The first is their predictive power, which was the best for the times, and better than the stuff Galileo proposed[0]. Which made Galileo's model incorrect in this regard. The second aspect is explaining the model in terms of more basic laws - this they did not do at all, and nor did Galileo's model. The required theories that allowed to derive heliocentric model from first(er) principles were only formulated later by Newton, which only then invalidated the geocentric models.
--
[0] - from mathematical point of view, all models that give the same results are equally correct; the only thing one cares about is which one is simpler / more useful for you.
Had 16th century Astronomers had the power to re-arrange the orbits of the planets according to their theories, the results would certainly not have been the same, so even from that particularly mathematical point of view, they were still incorrect.
This isn't mere pedantry, a good example of epicylic type theories being used to modify the system under study, can be found today in modern economics.
Tycho Brahe suggested a geocentric system which explained phases of Venus before they were even discovered.
AFAIK the first serious "proof" (as far as we can talk about proving that the Sun is the center of everything) was the observation of stellar parallax some century later. In Galileo's time parallax was too small to detect and it was an open question whether stars are too far to observe it (postulated by Copernicus) or Earth is actually immobile (postulated by Tycho Brahe et al).
So if anything, Galileo's story is about the Church being on the side of science, not against it.