And if not, is there any means by which to refute his claim?
Video of his comments here: https://youtu.be/OHHnvPWLgi8
I know the claim sounds ridiculous and a clear projection of the well-known church-sanctioned burnings, but I also recognize that recorded history is more vast than my knowledge or google searches. Since neither politifact nor snopes have not deemed this claim worthy of investigation (which seems telling enough), I turn to you, fellow historians.
I listened to it. Senator Guillory is entirely wrong in two ways. First, he is mistaking 'scientist' for 'ecclesiastic' in trying to repeat the old religion versus science thesis at the root of so much post-Renaissance bad history (the Conflict Thesis): the Church defending heliocentricity, flat earth, and a host of other claims, 'against' science).
I'm thinking Guillory had a brain fart or has only half-paid attention to media about this subject.
But not only is Guillory screwing up the religion versus science thesis, the thesis he is trying to rely on is bad history as well. Unfortunately, the religion versus science thesis, chiefly an inheritance of 19th century historiography, is supported and waved about even by great people who should know better like Neil Degrasse Tyson in his series Cosmos.
For the record, no heretic was ever burned for scientific discovery by either scientists or the Roman Church.
Are we including Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union as "then-accepted science"?