Ok I know the Darwin stuff, but the Galileo stuff goes against the traditional story by quite a bit - given that going through google to find the truth nowadays is a chore, do you have some authoritative links?
I can't find the original articles I got this from, but googling a bit got me this very easy to read summary of events[0], albeit in very popular and informal language. But it corresponds with what I read elsewhere, and even goes into a bit more detail in a few places.
(Potential downside of this article in the eyes of some is that it was written by a Christian, who could be believed to have an agenda to defend the church. The previous articles I read were written by an atheist. I'll see if I can find them.)
(edit:) The author of the original articles has a pretty thorough and well-sourced answer on Quora[1].
I did find another good write-up[2].
[0] https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/09/the-...
[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-misunderstood-histori...
[2] http://www.shawndove.com/history-science-and-religion-galile...
https://web.archive.org/web/20070930013053/http://astro.wcup...
The records are here. As far as I can see the only attack against the idea in the record is that it contradicts the Bible.
Although one could expect trouble when that patron was basically the most powerful person at that time.
DNA structure is not a very good analogue because here we already had the X-ray image, and the question was to find a molecular structure that matched the data.
Heliocentrism made sense on some level, but not on another, and it didn't fit the observations of the time. Only when Kepler made a model that fit observations, and Newton's theory of gravity explained why it had to be that way, did heliocentrism made scientific sense and was geocentrism obviously wrong.
> He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Ecclesiastes 1:5 (NIV):
> The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
A literal interpretation of the bible has the earth standing still while the sun moves. Of course you can interpret any text any way you like, and if somebody wants to make a contrived argument that Moby Dick was really about a shark rather than a whale then there's nothing I can do to convince them otherwise, but the text seems quite clear.
> if somebody wants to make a contrived argument that Moby Dick was really about a shark rather than a whale then there's nothing I can do to convince them otherwise, but the text seems quite clear.
Some have even gone so far as to claim that the stuff in the book didn't actually happen but the book can be read as an allegory of something or other!
As the people you are arguing against are 16th century clergy, you can't really convince them of anything - they are long dead. The best one can do is try to understand how they were thinking.
Can't remember the source, but the Vatican basically told Galileo that they were pretty convinced of heliocentrism, but if he could please stop shooting his mouth off until they got a transition plan in place, that'd be great.
He didn't, so they put him on lifetime house arrest to try to mitigate the damage he could do.
So he didn't get heresy'd for opposing the Church's position, but for undermining it's ability to assert influence and control.
The Church has always been a community of individuals who publicly confess the same beliefs, while privately holding on to their own motivations.
Now, replace "the church" with any centralized apparatus of power and you've described government.
The cool Pope we have now is rolling back tons of rules because it's necessary for the survival of the institution, not because he necessarily thinks they're just. His opinion doesn't matter, only God's.
High switching costs that Galileo couldn't fathom. A stereotypical head in the clouds scientist.
History is often much more complicated than suits us.
Another link: http://origins.osu.edu/milestones/february-2016-400-years-ag...