Religious persecution of scientists?

William Harvey

This summer, Jesús Lizcano published an article in El Imparcial entitled. A memory for the scientists persecuted in history (my translation). He classifies the persecuted scientists into three groups: a) persecuted for political reasons; b) persecuted for religious reasons; and c) persecuted for reasons of sexual orientation. Here I am going to refer to those in the second group, which I find debatable.

Of course, among the eleven scientists persecuted for religious reasons, according to Lizcano, Hypatia and Galileo could not be missing. They are mentioned once and again, often with obvious exaggerations, as shown by the fact that many people believe that Galileo was burned alive by the Inquisition, when in fact he was sentenced to house arrest, softened over time. But here I am going to talk about the other nine mentioned in the article.

Giordano Bruno, martyr of science?

Giordano Bruno’s original name was Filippo Bruno. He was born in Nola, in 1548, and died in Rome, in 1600. He was an Italian philosopher and writer, but not a scientist, for he never practiced any science. So why is he often named (incorrectly) as a martyr of science, who for his scientific ideas was condemned and executed by the Inquisition of the Catholic Church?

What follows is based on a summary of his life taken from my dictionary titled 1000 Great Scientists, published in Spanish in 1996. To disprove this mistaken idea, I decided to include him in the list of scientists.

At age 15 he entered the Dominican order and later was a professor in Naples, but in 1576 he had to flee, accused of heterodoxy. He traveled through Italy, Switzerland, France, and England, achieving considerable success with his philosophy lessons in Paris and Oxford.