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bramflakes comments on Open thread, 25-31 August 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Here's a series of articles about the history and background of the Galileo controversy
http://tofspot.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
tl;dr Galileo went beyond the data he had to justify the Copernican model - his argument about tides was incorrect (he neglected the role of the moon) and his argument via the motion of sunspots was explicable within the Tychonic model.
Politically, he had just about the best hand dealt to him from the start and proceeded to play it stupidly. He had many close friends in the Church (including the Pope himself!) but his bullishness and lack of tact led him to alienate them one by one. By the standards of the time he got off with a slap on the wrist.
Of course, none of this is to say that his opponents didn't do and say similarly stupid things, but it wasn't a simple Brave Rational Iconoclast David vs Decrepit Reactionary Goliath Institution narrative.
Thanks for the summary. In itself that doesn't sound much like misconduct, as it's quite possible to go beyond the data and make incorrect/superfluous arguments without being negligent or deceptive.
(I could read the series you link, plus its references, to try to discern whether negligence or deception actually was involved, but after flicking through the first three parts — 14,000 words or so — and not spotting big smoking guns, I put the remaining posts on my mental when-I-get-round-to-it-on-a-rainy-day list.)