How do you know he would have been persecuted if he lived? Seems you are assuming what you need to prove. (The Church, ie Catholicism, seemed to think his ideas silly, not dangerous.)

I only point out that Copernicus wasn’t persecuted because he wasn’t available. Perhaps he would have agreed to keep silent as Galileo did at first, recanting heliocentrism to be possibility rather than fact. No way to know and no way to prove it. We only know other heretics were persecuted.

It’s reasonable to assume that championing a heliocentric truth that conflicted with Biblical truth would not have been tolerated, as the Church was not tolerant of unorthodoxy. Evidence: the Roman Inquisition to combat the Protestant heresy was established the year before Copernicus died.

Why do you think the Church found heresy silly rather than dangerous? If they thought heliocentrism absurd it’s because it contradicted God’s truth. If they thought it silly they would have ignored it. If they thought it dangerous they would have suppressed it, which is in fact what they did.

I don't think they had no problem with heresy. I think its very telling you focus so strongly on Galileo, who (1) was not in the Dark Ages by even most generous definition, (2) wasn't burned. Nothing to say re de Cusa, Grossetest, Bacon, importation of work of Greek & Arab writers?

Not at all true. I focused on Copernicus because that is the name you mentioned to contrast with Bruno. You will see this is true if you simply revisit my first post. You seem to be arguing with someone else?

I said, "Bacon or Copericus didn't." As in didn't get burned. You moved on quickly from Copericus to Galileo, who also didn't get burned and isn't from the Dark Ages by any definition. You completely ignored Bacon. You seem to be reading off a script and not arguing at all.

I moved from the dead Copernicus to fate of Galileo because you demanded “proof”. It was a way to demonstrate the reasonable assumption that Copernicus would have been treated the similarly had he lived. Neither was Dark Ages so I don’t know why you mention that.

Did you not read the post I replied to? You are ignoring context in which "burned" is important, and time period is important. My points re Galileo show it is NOT reasonable to think Copericus would have been treated the same since latter did not assert his views were fact or slag off the pope!

Your last point also screams cult member if retaliatory persecution is to be expected from insulting the cult leader. Christianity has been a cult for a long time but undeniably since the end of WW1. If you don’t know why that is, just ask.

Of course I read the thread from the beginning but I never posted an opinion on it. You made a wild assumption that I did. Even my explicitly pointing out your mistake didn’t break through. But not surprising from one foolish enough to drag Copernicus into a discussion of science in the Dark Ages.

Except the Church allowed speculation. You could theorise all you liked as long as you did not insist it was true. Galileo not only said he was correct (even in things that we don't think correct), he satirised the pope. And still didn't burn.

Heliocentrism was speculation in Copernicus’s writings, but Galileo had evidence in the form of a Jovian central system. He provided proof that was confirmed by Jesuit astronomers. And yet his speculations were suppressed.

Yes. Irrelevant however to the original claim that science didn't exist in the Dark Ages. If anything its counter evidence to that claim, since Galileo was drawing on the theories of others who actually were working in the (long) Dark Age.

I never claimed science didn’t exist in the Dark Ages, so your beef is with someone else.

Yes. The person I replied to.

The moons of Jupiter weren't evidence of heliocentrism in any way, since they were equally compatible to any other model of the time, and certainly to the Tychonic, the consensus model of the time. bsky.app/profile/mich...

I’m reluctant to disagree with a historian, but were not the discovery of bodies orbiting Jupiter a repudiation of the theory that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth, as the Church was insisting upon the Ptolemaic model during the 16th century?

Even in the Ptolemaic model, all the planets didn't *just* revolve around the Earth, they revolved on an epicycle on a deferent, or on a system of a few epicycles. As mentioned in the linked thread, some Astronomers saw Jupiter's moons as the first empirical evidence of epicycles. ...

Thanks for your detailed response. It’s hard to imagine why the Church took such a hard line against heliocentrism if it didn’t contradict their interpretation of the Bible. If they “had no dog in the hunt”, why convict Galileo of heresy and ban his book?Something is definitely wrong with all this

... The Church didn't insist on the Ptolemaic model, in fact they didn't proscribe any model at all. The only rule was to hold Heliocentrism as a hypothesis. There were a variety of Geocentric models in 1616, but the most popular was the Tychonic model, followed by the semi-Tychonic, IE one with a..

... spinning Earth, then the Capellan model, and only after this were there then the Keplerian elliptic model, the pure circular Copernican model (which Galileo defended), and the Ptolemaic model was frankly mostly abandoned. ....

Such as?

Are you seriously asking for documentation of persecution of heretics in the 16th Century? I hope you understand that persecution wasn’t limited to burning, right?

I do hope you understand the question is not persecution of heretics in 16th century, but the idea that science did not occur between the fall of Rome and the 16th century.