Interbane wrote: the 'logical' conclusion is that COSMOS included the Bruno episode as an attack on the Church.
Could it be the first time the idea of a limitless cosmos was proposed? Isn't that Bruno's contribution, above and beyond his peers in that time?
Attacking the church is simply a bonus!
Actually there were other men at the time who held beliefs different than the orthodoxy at the time:
Copernicus, Kepler, Stigliola, Digges, Maestlin, Rothmann, and Brahe.
Cosmos and NDT start the Bruno tale with a complete falsehood:
“1599 everyone knew the sun, planets and stars were just lights in sky revolving around the earth.” It was “a universe made for us.” And “there was only one man who envisioned an infinitely grand cosmos.”
The above is simply false.
All the men I've listed above were alive while Bruno was busy making enemies and burning bridges. There wasn't just ONE man who envisioned a grand cosmos.
NONE of the aforementioned men were pursued by the Inquisition for holding views contrary to the most common held at the time.
NDT goes on to say:
“How was [Bruno] spending New Year’s Eve [in 1599]? In prison, of course.”
Yes - for reasons different from what Cosmos claims.
The depiction of an innocent looking Bruno confronted by the fire-eyed villains of the Church propaganda:
"The church hates smart people"
"The church arrested a peaceful man who dared read material the Church considered evil!
Bruno was at odds with most everyone that came into his circle. There's reasonable speculation that learned men who knew of him remained distant because of his black-belt in making enemies.
Bruno was a well-known heretic.
Cosmos AND NDT could have easily googled Bruno's history.
Rather than select other men more worthy of the same recognition that were REAL SCIENTISTS at the time,, they chose Bruno.
It's not hard to understand why.
As to a thought police discouraging freedom of thought?
Well, tell that to the prestigious universities at the time and their intellectual students.
It would be interesting bringing them all back from the dead to ask them -
"Did anyone keep you from thinking freely while you were at university?"
I think I'll write Cosmos to tell them about a grand new invention -
Google.
A "science" show getting it this wrong AND cartooning Bruno into a peaceful looking guy as much as it did is inexcusable.
The science part of the show was great though.