Galileo’s persecution … round two early in the 21st century

Our human values have changed much less than historians expected over time. Certainly the times have changed, but we humans still are stuck in persecuting today's people like Galileo, who lived hundreds of years ago. How we persecute has changed but we still persecute. Burning at the stake has been dropped, thank goodness.

Galileo is often referred to as the "father of modern astronomy," as the "father of modern physics", and as the "father of science". Yet in 1633, he was convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church, and ordered imprisoned, later commuted to house arrest. His “crime” was suggesting the earth rotates around the sun, which was expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures at the time.

Fast forward to today’s times. President Eisenhower is famous for many things, one of which is his military industrial complex letter to the nation written just days before he left the Presidency in 1961. The letter also warned of a second concern of his, becoming the captive of a scientific technological elite coming from the concentration of federal funds in research. Here is the part of his letter on this subject:
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
· and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

We seem to be persecuting today’s Galileo’s for global warming discussions. And now, more than ever, Eisenhower’s warnings seem most appropriate. And his letter was not about global warming, it was about the power of federal funding becoming a substitute for intellectual curiosity and the rise of a scientific technological elite.

To Galileo in the 17th century it was about whether or not the earth rotated around the sun. To today’s Galileo’s in the 21st century, it is about global warming. Who knows what it may be in the 25th century? Maybe human values will have evolved by then, but then maybe not.

Eisenhower’s entire letter is a quick read, and inspirational. Here is one link to it from Michigan State University:
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html