At the Debates: Rick Perry and Galileo

At the Republican presidential debate on September 7, Texas Governor Rick Perry surprised many listeners by responding to a question about the scientific evidence for global climate change by referring to the seventeenth-century century Italian mathematician and astronomer Galileo Galilei. After claiming that the science is - is not settled on climate change, Perry went to say that The idea that we would put Americans' economy at - at - at jeopardy based on scientific theory thats not settled yet, to me, is just - is nonsense. I mean, it - I mean - and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell