“Galileo’s reputation is more hyperbole than truth”

Now here’s a strikingly revisionist article.

https://aeon.co/opinions/galileo-s-reputation-is-more-hyperbole-than-truth

According to this historian of science, Galileo was a very good scientist, but scarcely the world-transforming titan that he’s been made out to be.  (If he had to choose somebody for that role during the same era, it would be the German astronomer and mathematician Kepler, rather than the Italian Galileo.)

Galileo, the author suggests, may have been elevated to his current status because he was a useful weapon in the hands of certain historians — two in particular — with which they sought to attack religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular.