> the tendency to stay within existing paradigms even at the cost of rejecting data points not consistent therewith is pretty well still alive and popular.

True, but real data can't be ignored forever. And there are so many more scientists working today with so much more and better equipment (and so eager for Nobel Prize) that paradigm-shifting information is less likely than ever to be shelved for decades or centuries.

Also, whatever short-sightedness and conservatism exists in scientific circles today is hardly equivalent to the treatment given Bruno, Galileo, and others - mainly by people who had no scientific training and who were 100% committed to an unshakable dogma.

They were afraid that if the earth were not the center of motion and of the universe, all religious belief would be undermined, because humans would no longer seem to be the focus of the Scheme of Things.

They were right about that much. Ironic, isn't it?