I am suggesting that Galileo was far from disinterested - he was as much as philosopher as he was a scientist, and he was, with this book, very much picking a fight. He may have been justified in doing so, but what I was taught - that he was just a scientist reporting the facts as he saw them and the clergy disagreed with the facts so they persecuted him to suppress the facts - is completely false.

The book is a dialog between three characters. The character that represents the clergy's point of view is named "Simplicio" (Simpleton). Galileo was not acting the part of a disinterested scientist when he wrote that.

Jesus called the religious leaders of his day vipers and whitewashed tombs. He too was far from disinterested.

I am not weighing in on either side of the actual argument between Galileo and the clergy here.