From the very birth of modern science in the seventeenth century there has been tension between science and religion. This tension is symbolized by the trial of one of the founding fathers of modern science, Galileo Galilei. His defense of Copernicus's heliocentric system was condemned by the Catholic Church as heresy. He was forced to withdraw his assertions that the sun is the center of the universe and does not move, and that the earth is not the center of the universe and moves.