This claim from the article is too extreme: "It is safe to say that prior to 1610 not a single significant scientific argument had turned on a question of fact.

This claim from the article is too extreme: "It is safe to say that prior to 1610 not a single significant scientific argument had turned on a question of fact." Just in astronomy alone, in the previous century Tycho Brahe was debating against the Copernican models, with his own hybrid model where most of the planets orbit the sun, but the sun orbits the earth. Facts about which model predicted the location of what planets were really important. The book "The Copernican Revolution" by Kuhn is really interesting for anyone curious to know more about this period.