"For centuries, the trial of Galileo has received far more attention than any other aspect of his life. The conflict between religion and science still rumbles on in the debates over Darwinism and intelligent design."

To me, it's worse than Dawinism vs intelligent design. Religion is often used to squash inconvenient facts in order to gain/keep control. I never would have thought that in my life time, we'd see this become a major issue instead of just in the smaller niche groups.

From what I've read, the Vatican observatory bought one of Galileo's scopes, it didn't work very well, they bought an improved one, and confirmed his observations. They also recommended a compromise that had been suggested by Tycho Brahe, where the sun goes around the earth, and the planets go around the sun.

If you want more (much more) of the author's thoughts on this and related issues, see his book "The Invention of Science" (2016). Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Science-History-Scientific-...

This claim from the article is too extreme: "It is safe to say that prior to 1610 not a single significant scientific argument had turned on a question of fact."

Just in astronomy alone, in the previous century Tycho Brahe was debating against the Copernican models, with his own hybrid model where most of the planets orbit the sun, but the sun orbits the earth. Facts about which model predicted the location of what planets were really important.

The book "The Copernican Revolution" by Kuhn is really interesting for anyone curious to know more about this period.