Well, actually it wasn't Galileo vs the Inquisition; that's a
   popular myth. Alfred North Whitehead:* "the worst that happened
   to the men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable
   detention and a mild reproof." Sometimes the Spanish
   Inquisition, the Protestant Witch Trials in New England and
   Galileo's incident get mixed up.* They were quite different. The
   Evolution vs Creationist; I'm actually surprised it's still
   going on in some Christian circles.* Mainstream Christian
   churches don't have a problem with Evolution at all... but some
   strange Christian groups (the Christian equivillants of "junk
   science") have weird ideas. I don't see a fundamental problem
   between religions and sciences;some people make a big deal of
   it, but the whole argument seems very 19th century - the
   Conflict Thesis has been disregarded by Historians for a long
   time now, the monkey trial in the 20s was a bit of American
   silliness anyway. I believe the sciences hold our best hope for
   progress as a species, as long as there are checks and balances
   in place to keep excessive political / financial influence from
   skewing subjects of hypothesis and such.* Plus I believe
   education in skepticism is beneficial; I'm a fan of skepticism,
   even towards itself, because any ideology that becomes too
   powerful can end up going too far.* We haven't had a Country
   that has a Scientific founding just yet; but should that day
   come when a scientific ideology rules a kingdom somewhere, and
   another kingdom rises that also has a scientific ideology...
   then you'll start to see wars over differing sciences. In other
   words, I hope Science doesn't delve too far into politics or the
   military or it could become just like any other political or
   military organization... pacificism within Science is very
   important - keeping it as acadmic as possible to keep its hands
   as clean as possible from changes affecting society.* Whisper in
   the ear of the politicians and in the courtrooms and in the
   war-rooms but not take over.