Alea
There are truths and myths entangled in the Galileo affair. This entangled view is what you term the traditional view. As a respectable thinker you should make a slightly greater effort to seek out the truth.
Those who gave the matter any attention know that Galileo was unfairly treated, mistreated and this injustice is not justified by his suddenly wanting to be a theologian and impose a particular theological point of view by leveraging his popularity. No need to repeat that angle going forward.
Physical observations of the world we live in has a long long history. Due to the collaboration of Muslims, Jews and Catholics the remnants of that history was bought into Europe via the Catholic Church prior to the year 1000. Then there emerged, well before Galileo but centuries later, a rather impressive transformation. For the first time in history all of this "science" was given a rigorous system of analysis. For this transformation to take place many common concepts had to be extinguished - casting spells as an example as well as good luck charms. The Church in purifying the sciences also had to deal with the charlatans (bad priest) who would use this science to impress the less educated (just about everyone) and extract money or favors. If someone can predict what the heavenly bodies are doing then certainly they can predict what I should do to avoid issues or gain advantages - so the "logic" went. This transformation of disparate facts, having often mystical interpretations, for the first time in history, over a period of centuries, was organized because of the systematic approach of the theologians. Read a Quadrivium to get a sense of this struggle.
The above does not imply that science belongs in the Church but only someone who bought into the traditional view or a bigot would argue that the Church was opposed to science. Hospitals do not belong in the Church either but it is difficult to avoid recognizing that the Church as the prime organizer of medieval society founded hospitals, universities and other beneficial structures that are now common.
Professional historians know that one should never attribute to a belief system what can easily be attributable to human nature. Many people in all kinds of societies (secular, corporate, democratic, nazi etc) have been brutally abused via the legal system or judgement system. This abuse is more simply attributed to the nature of human beings. Less than two minutes of thinking would convince any reasonable person that no society, even scientific review boards, would be left standing if they had to have a history free of any abuse. Philosophers are also famous for saying that one should never judge a philosophy based on the behavior of its adherents. Judge it on its own merits.
What makes the Galileo affair really bizarre is that the separation of the physical sciences from the theological sciences was nearly complete well before this trial. So, it is not exactly a modern conclusion to say "my argument, of course, is that the church should have had no standing" in judging this affair. Plenty of academics at the time expressed wonderment about what the heck was Galileo trying to do in arguing with the pope about science when it was already recognized that the Church concerned itself with theology and religion as well as other social responsibilities. Over time it became clear that Galileo wanted to argue theology - not his specialty.
As a professional manager I often had to deal with technical people who use some superior knowledge to badger and intimidate others in the group. There was a well established scientific forum for Galileo to argue out his science. There were many academics who agreed with him and many who did not. BTW - there were catholics on both sides of the argument and you seem to only want to take to task those on the wrong side. Whereas I see in Galileo, the man, someone who took his recent observations and saw, so he thought, a wonderful opportunity to rush ahead and badger another group. He was recognized as a mean spirited person to the very end.
There is one glaring problem with your thesis - it all fits together too nicely. When dealing with reality, this nicety only happens when one chooses to bury contrary evidence.
To further avoid ambiguity one should not confuse human nature with culture with religion with theology with the Church even if they are all Catholic. These words are hardly related, although they do interface, and certainly not interchangeable. Even today the average Catholic churchgoer has no idea what theology is or does.
I think we exhausted the Galileo review. Your presumption, there is little evidence, that science had to fight it way out of the Church is not something I'm confused about.
I'm more interested in understanding what is a science and why doesn't theology count as a science. I'm still haven't gained clarity on the matter.
BTW - in modern science the norm is to never design an experiment to prove one's point of view. Instead, design experiments to get at the truth, let the data speak for itself. Otherwise, one blinds themselves to contrary evidence.
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