[hervature]

It should come as no surprise that if you develop a new theory and then proceed to burn it and all evidence of its existence that no one is going to hear of said theory. If you care about your theory prevailing, you need to go out and make an effort to communicate it. Science is meritocratic in the sense that even the small guy has a chance of fighting the machine as eventually things need to be defended on their technical merits. After all, Galileo was able to defeat the Church which was the largest country in Europe at the time. I think its dangerous to conflate meritocracy with not being required to communicate.

[revelio]

> Galileo was able to defeat the Church which was the largest country in Europe

The Church is not a country and never was? And Galileo was forced to recant then spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The Church defeated him.

> Science is meritocratic in the sense that even the small guy has a chance of fighting the machine as eventually things need to be defended on their technical merits

Nobody who has followed the shenanigans of scientific institutions in the last decade believes this anymore, sorry. Modern science consists of credentialed charlatans plying entirely fraudulent claims and those being accepted, over and over, with no end in sight, and everyone who tries to point out the problems in The Science end up being cancelled or burning out because the employers of said charlatans are the modern Church. They simply do not care if their people tell the truth or not.

[theurerjohn3]

Just addressing the Galileo part, but as was recently linked in hackernews [1][2], Galileo was wrong (in the sense that he was arguing for an already discredited theory, and that the theory he was arguing against was also already discredited).

Using Galileo as the standard of the suppression of free thought is sorta painting the Church as overzealously standing up for good science, not highlighting the Church as an enemy of truth.

1. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/9-great-ptolemaic-smackd... 2. https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/galileo%E2%80%99s-gr...

[revelio]

Interesting, thanks!

[lou1306]

> The Church is not a country and never was?

The Papal states were literally a country, although surely not the largest in Europe. Galileo did not live there but rather in the Duchy of Florence (later Grand Duchy of Tuscany); however, as a Catholic he could still be tried by the Inquisition, which was essentially the Interpol of heresy.