As Mark Twain may or may not have said, history does not repeat itself but it often rhymes.
Scientists sometimes get in the way of religion and politics. In 1633, Galileo had gotten in the way of religion and faced the Inquisition for advocating that the sun was the center of the universe, not the stationary earth, which was the Church’s view. Neither, of course, was right, though Galileo was making progress toward the truth—the earth did after all move. Conviction for heresy at his trial could have resulted in torture or even worse, but, after forcing him to recant, the Inquisition gave him a break—life in prison, later commuted to lifetime house arrest. (Pope John Paul II acknowledged the Church’s error in 1992 though did not officially apologize.)
We now have our own Galileo Moment, this time in the realm of politics. Anthony Fauci was the victim of a show trial led by Republican Senator Rand Paul who seems to all but blame Dr. Fauci for the pandemic,* accusing him of lies that he says cost lives. The evidence is terribly thin, perhaps nonexistent. The show trial forced Fauci to plead the fifth amendment roughly one hundred times simply to prevent any possibility of making what could be construed as inconsistent statements under oath.
Scientists are certainly not always right—Galileo didn’t get it quite right either. Scientists hypothesize, weigh and if possible test the evidence, and draw conclusions often based on the “preponderance of the evidence” available at the time. This seems to be what Fauci did. What an ugly irony that Senators Paul, Josh Hawley, Bernie Moreno, and company—supposedly in the name of public health—subject Anthony Fauci to a modern Inquisition, when anti-masking, bleach-endorsing Donald Trump appointed non-physician, non-scientist, anti-vaccination Robert Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary. Perhaps they should come before Mr. Paul’s Inquisition.
Our Own Galileo Moment
August 2, 2026 at 4:51 pm (Political Commentary)
As Mark Twain may or may not have said, history does not repeat itself but it often rhymes.
Scientists sometimes get in the way of religion and politics. In 1633, Galileo had gotten in the way of religion and faced the Inquisition for advocating that the sun was the center of the universe, not the stationary earth, which was the Church’s view. Neither, of course, was right, though Galileo was making progress toward the truth—the earth did after all move. Conviction for heresy at his trial could have resulted in torture or even worse, but, after forcing him to recant, the Inquisition gave him a break—life in prison, later commuted to lifetime house arrest. (Pope John Paul II acknowledged the Church’s error in 1992 though did not officially apologize.)
We now have our own Galileo Moment, this time in the realm of politics. Anthony Fauci was the victim of a show trial led by Republican Senator Rand Paul who seems to all but blame Dr. Fauci for the pandemic,* accusing him of lies that he says cost lives. The evidence is terribly thin, perhaps nonexistent. The show trial forced Fauci to plead the fifth amendment roughly one hundred times simply to prevent any possibility of making what could be construed as inconsistent statements under oath.
Scientists are certainly not always right—Galileo didn’t get it quite right either. Scientists hypothesize, weigh and if possible test the evidence, and draw conclusions often based on the “preponderance of the evidence” available at the time. This seems to be what Fauci did. What an ugly irony that Senators Paul, Josh Hawley, Bernie Moreno, and company—supposedly in the name of public health—subject Anthony Fauci to a modern Inquisition, when anti-masking, bleach-endorsing Donald Trump appointed non-physician, non-scientist, anti-vaccination Robert Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary. Perhaps they should come before Mr. Paul’s Inquisition.
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