in spite of opposition from conservative groups wanting to maintain the status quo for fear of the uncertainty of what changes they might have to a accept and deal with, freethinkers move ahead and benifit all mankind. Galileo, studied the stars & planets, and their movements in the heavens; thereby producing evidence that what Capernicus had said, was in fact, true. As a result of this he was forced (under threats of torture and/or execution), to publically confess and rescind the Copernican theory that the sun, and not the earth, was the center of the solar system. he spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest because of what his peers thought people might think of his findings.
Louis Pasteur discoveres a process for purifying milk Jonas E. Salk, developes the first safe and effective polio treatment. In 1846 Thomas Morton, the man who conquered pain, demonstrated the use of ether anesthesia during an operation at Massachusetts General
Hospital. Philipp Semmelweis, 1818–65, Hungarian physician, while on the staff of the general hospital in Vienna, recognized the infectious nature of puerperal fever and insisted that attendants in obstetrical cases thoroughly cleanse their hands; he thus greatly reduced the mortality rate from infection in childbirth. Ridicule of his belief ultimately drove him to insanity and suicide. The value of his work was fully recognized until 1890. 2001, stemcell research, fought by religious groups and various right to life groups, heavely in favor of the barbaric death penalty, once again, tried to prevent the advancement of science.
