Well, there's The Vatican Observatory founded in 1891 (at Castle Gandolfo for LoTR fans) And astronomy goes back further, Gregorian calendar 1582. And way back to the dark ages. Who do you think preserved scientific literary works in that time period? Monks going mad copying books all day, every day. And that was only what I've picked up in passing.

BTW what really pissed the pope off wasn't what Galileo wrote but he published before the pope was ready to grant his approval. Something not done in those days.


The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh

Which explains a lot.