Although Copernicus did not live to see how his theory was developed by Galileo in the seventeenth century, he must have been well aware of its dangerously controversial nature. He might be seen as the first scientist to open the Pandora’s box of science, with its dual potential of advancing human knowledge and yet of posing uncomfortable dilemmas which would test man’s moral integrity.
The theory well deserved the term by which it came to be known: the “Copernican Revolution”. Since, according to Copernicus, the earth was no longer at the centre of the universe, man was not at the centre of creation. Man, therefore, could no longer be said to have a special relationship with the Creator. This fundamental change in perspective was to liberate man from the oppressive medieval obsession with the divine image, enabling him to expand his intellectual capabilities and value his own physical attributes – and it was one of the powerful influences behind the philosophy of the European Renaissance, when architects built palaces rather than cathedrals, and artists and sculptors replaced the religious image with the human form, depicted for its own sake, for its beauty and strength.
In scientific terms, the Copernican theory paved the way for the discoveries of Newton in seventeenth-century England, where a positive aftereffect of an otherwise fanatical Puritanism had been the release of rational thought from the grip of religious superstition. Within Catholicism, however, the Copernican theory was to produce an ugly, anti-scientific reaction, the repercussions of which are still felt throughout society.
— Travelling to Infinity (Jane Hawking), Loc. 2476–87