What I was immediately thinking when I mentioned 'drill' was your sentence .
If it is put across along the lines of 'people used to think the earth was flat and that god made it. But now there is scientific evidence to the contrary' I am sure there would be no issue.

Still having a bit of trouble with the italics, Dave, I see. Putting in quotes you want to disagree with without using italics or quotation marks gets a bit confusing...