It is also worth noting that Galileo had a very big mouth and had many enemies. The publishing of this work was a perfect opportunity for them to pounce. It wasn't so much the church hating science as much people hating Galileo and using the church to an end.
In Sleepwalkers (great book), Arthur Koestler argues that many senior church figures were keen and supportive followers of Galileo's physical investigations, but repeatedly warned him not to cross the line between observing the universe, and questioning the role of God and Man. Galileo was too proud to keep to one side of that line, and Koestler laments that the current epistemological opposition of science and religion dates from that unnecessary conflict.
> Koestler laments that the current epistemological opposition of science and religion dates from that unnecessary conflict.
I don't think that's even remotely true; the current (well, in America particularly and to a lesser extent other predominantly Christian places) epistemological opposition of science and religion (which is really substantially more limited than that, but that's how its often portrayed) is of more recent origin, stemming from the conflict between the literalist inerrantist views of certain parts of the Protestant community and various scientific conclusions about the origin of species, the age of the earth, and cosmology.
Yes. IIRC, the pope allowed him to write a book on his views but to include both sides of the debate. Galileo did so, but put the traditional view into the mouth of a character named "Fool"...
