The Revd David Munchin (letters, 21 January) really cannot be allowed to get away with re-writing the history of the dispute between Galileo and the Church.

First, consider the significance of the telescopic discoveries made by Galileo in 1609 and 1610. He found that, just like the Moon, Venus has phases. This would not be possible if Venus orbited the Earth, but would be a natural consequence of orbiting the Sun. (And if Venus did so, perhaps the other planets did as well?) He also discovered the four large moons of Jupiter, the first discovery of bodies that demonstrably did not orbit the Earth. (And if they didn't, perhaps other bodies didn't?)

Moreover, since the time of Copernicus, who died in 1543, it had been realised that the strange retrograde ("loop the loop") motion of planets as they travelled against the background of stars could be naturally explained as a consequence of the Earth's motion. In an Earth-centred universe, any explanation of this (such as that based on epicycles) was highly contrived. And there were a number of other aspects of a Sun centred system that provided a better explanation of the observations.

It is true that no stellar parallaxes (the ultimate proof of the Earth's motion) had been discovered, but the fact is that scientists accepted the Earth's motion round the Sun for nearly 200 years before tiny stellar parallaxes were finally found in the 19th century. Before this, the absence of stellar parallax was easily explained by assuming (correctly) that the stars were at huge distances from the Earth.

So the Church did not ban the view that the Earth moves round the Sun for scientific reasons – the very idea is absurd. After Galileo's telescopic discoveries, the science was moving very much in the direction of a Sun centred universe. The Church banned this view because it was contrary to the teachings of Holy Scripture.

Galileo was a forceful man, who did not suffer fools gladly, who made enemies, and who made mistakes (on his theory of tides, for example). But the bottom line is that in 1633 the Church threatened the father of modern science with torture, forced him to recant his views publicly, banned his book, and kept him under house arrest for the remaining eight years of his life.

Instead of trying to rewrite history, the Revd David Munchin should be hanging his head in shame.

David Love
Torquay, Devon