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When the subject of science came up during last night's Republican debate, all eyes drifted to Rick Perry. "Just recently in New Hampshire you recently said that weekly or even daily scientists are coming forward to question that human activity is behind climate change," John Harris from Politico asked the governor of Texas. "Which scientists have you found most credible on this subject?" Perry only named only one scientist: Galileo.

It was a metaphor to be sure, one meant to illuminate the idea that it took a while for science to agree that the Earth spins around the sun, instead of the other way around. "Galileo got outvoted for a spell," said Perry, in attempting to argue that the issue of climate change remains "unsettled." But what Perry fails to realize is the fact that the scientific community actually agreed with Galileo. It was the clergy who outvoted him, accusing him of being a heretic. "By the time Galileo was publishing on heliocentrism, the idea was already circulating and widely accepted in scientific circles, including Jesuits," explains Joshua Rosneau from the National Center for Science Education. "He wasn't outvoted by scientists, he was outvoted by the political and religious leadership of his country."