February 15, 1564

I happen to be reading Galileo's Daughter and learning the details of just how convoluted (not to say Byzantine - it was the Roman Church, after all...) were the political machinations that simultaneously compelled and delayed his writing and publishing Dialogue on the Two World Systems.

More here at The Galileo Project at Rice University.

The reason that Galileo's example is of prime importance remains, in spite of more than 450 years of intervening history (and regardless of the Roman Church's recent apology): the courage to comprehend the evidence; orthodoxy be damned.

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