The fallacy refers to Galileo Galilei's famous persecution at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church for his defence of heliocentrism in the face of the orthodox Biblical literalism of the day (though some alternative medicine proponents use Ignaz Semmelweis instead of Galileo). People use this argument repeatedly in response to serious criticisms that more often than not they just don't understand. What proponents of this fallacy fail to consider is that not all people who challenge the mainstream scientific consensus are martyrs or revolutionaries; in most cases, they are just simply morons.

Indeed, the link is so established that conspiracist language is one of the best diagnostic tools you can use to spot pseudoscience and science denial. The Galileo gambit Father Michael Dominic, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome, is entrusted with the mission of transporting the original 17th-century trial documents of Galileo to Loyola Law School in Chicago. The stage is set for a modern historical moot courtroom trial of Galileo’s original heresy charges, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the legendary event.In a nutshell, Galileo was right because he was right – not because he was ridiculed. Examples of Galileo Gambit

Amsden, Brian. "Recognizing Microstructural Fallacies" (PDF). p.22. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 July 2019 . Retrieved 24 March 2014. And it's weird to talk about science being wrong when it's clearly a *marketing* failure. Of course there was no need for a computer in the home in 1977, there was no *application* for the computer in the home then. The best was Nieman Marcus' kitchen computer (for keeping recipes and the household budget) that required a week's training and a huge sum of money. No one with that kind of money did their own cooking then, so why bother? (I was once gifted with a Nieman Marcus kitchen computer for keeping my recipes. It was just as useless now as then and I returned it.)Since being elected, Roberts has again aired his claim that there is “no empirical evidence” for climate change. It is also common for proponents of scientific racism to play the victim card and claim they are being censored by a massive "politically correct" conspiracy when, in reality, their ideas are just simply pseudoscientific bullshit.

The Galileo Gambit is often invoked in contexts where unconventional or controversial theories face criticism or rejection by the mainstream scientific community. Here are a few examples where proponents have sometimes used the Galileo Gambit to defend their views: They laughed at Copernicus. They laughed at the Wright brothers. Yes, well, they also laughed at the Marx Brothers. Being laughed at does not mean you are right. Space travel is bunk. -Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of Britain, 1957, two weeks before the launch of SputnikThere is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will. — Albert Einstein, 1932

Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.– Thomas Edison, 1889It essentially conflates the way one is treated with the reason one is treated that way. An extreme example of this might be the treatment of criminals under totalitarianism; while many genuine political dissidents were imprisoned in Siberia under Soviet rule, so were many thieves, murderers and rapists. It does not follow that because the first group were persecuted for political reasons that the criminals were in the right. Likewise, a major manufacturer may take steps against someone who is about to expose their appalling pollution or human rights records, but they will also pursue someone who is making libellous and false statements about them. If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.– Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M “Post-It” Notepads. Q. How does a parent protect their child from atypical immunity and allergy-induced regressive autism. There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States. -T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961 There is now ample research showing the link between science denial and conspiracism. This link is supported by independent studies from around the world.