Seventeenthcentury scholars Galileo Galilei and Rene Descartes faced serious challenges to their scientific theories because their ideas?

Galileo and Descartes both explored scientific theories that challenged long accepted notions. There new ideas were perceived as a threat or heretical because they disagreed with strongly held religious beliefs. They both published their ideas at a time when the Church was an extremely powerful entity and important in many peoples' lives, so the Church's objection to their teachings had serious consequences.