Resisted Science

Key Lessons from Old Controversies

All too often in the history of science, theories that enjoyed overwhelming scholarly consensus have turned out to be false, while those who challenged these theories were scorned. The case of the Copernican Revolution is well known. Copernicus himself delayed the publication of his defense of heliocentrism until just prior to his death for fear of ridicule. Enduring persecution in defending the theory was mainly left to Galileo, who, with the emergence of better telescopes, was able to make many astronomical discoveries that refuted the reigning Aristotelian cosmology.

This rankled his scientific contemporaries and Catholic Church authorities, who were thoroughly invested in Aristotelian geocentrism. When challenged by the...