Galileo's telescope showed these people a supernova. Moons around jupiter. Sunspots. Galileo proved that the heavens were changing, which did a lot to upset this worldview, and paved the way for people like Newton to do work independent of the Aristotelian world-view, and assert that the same laws that govern us on Earth also govern the heavens. (Let's also not forget that he correctly disagreed with Aristotle on the behavior of objects under the influence of gravity.)
Kepler deserves equal recognition, and he probably gets it. But really, they're both dead, so the important thing is for us to recognize what works and what doesn't. Not who found out what works.
Evidently not; there isn't an article arguing he is the best scientist ever.
* Aristotle
* Archimedes
* Kepler
* Galileo
* Newton
* Faraday
* Gauss
* Maxwell
* Einstein
500 years is a long time to wait before publishing a hit-piece like this. That "astronomy would have proceeded fine without Galileo" doesn't matter. With two (Newton, Einstein), possibly four (Lavoisier, Maxwell) exceptions, that could be said of any scientific discovery. What's next - will you degrade Niels Bohr for his childish characterization of the atom? Was Milliken's or Rutherford's work obvious to their contemporaries and so obviated their work?
Please, allow me to quote from another group of obvious, undeserving creative people, those who work at Pixar:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
Yours Truly, Josh