Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Interesting Factoid - Galileo

When Galileo proposed that the Earth went round the Sun, instead of vice-versa, the actual data more closely matched the competing (Ptolemaic) hypothesis that the Sun went around the Earth.

This was probably due to the traditionalists' use of epicycles (to specifically address anomalies) as well as the fact that Galileo was still assuming circular motion instead of elliptic.

I read this recently in Boorstin's "The Discoverers." I had read this previously elsewhere, but I don't recall where. (It's possible that these are not independent claims.)

I recall reading in one of his biographies that Einstein declared he would believe SR even if the data disagreed with him, because SR just had to be right. (Don't have a reference handy.)

In general I don't have a problem with dissenters - even those who seem to go against the current data. But there's a difference between guys like Galileo, Harvey, Wegner, Darwin, and Einstein - they actually had a thorough and commanding understanding of the competing hypotheses AND they conveyed this understanding in their public communications.

I recall reading (I think it was in Heisenberg's autobiographical "Uncertainty and Beyond") a passage where he relates part of a conversation he heard between Schroedinger (a mystic) and Dirac (an atheist). Dirac was already annoyed that Einstein kept talking about god, particularly as the only refutation against the emerging science of QM. This was highly ironic b/c Einstein's own paper on the photoelectic effect helped usher in acceptance of QM. Anyway, Dirac asks Schoedinger, "Is it possible Herr Einstein does not understand quantum mechanics."

I don't recall the exact response, but it was something like this: "I don't think there are more than half a dozen people in the world who understand my theories. I'm quite sure that Herr Einstein is among them."

It is invariable that scientists are going to disagree, sometimes even vitriolically. But I think the utter lack of respect that scientists have for say, creationists, isn't because creationists disagree, but because their every correspondence indicates they don"t understand the basic subject at hand

Falliable: You are again.

Your statement "the actual data more closely matched the competing (Ptolemaic) hypothesis that the Sun went around the Earth." has no basis in fact.

The data has ALWAYS most closely matched reality. You are confusing data with interpretation of data.

No. I don't think so. You are confusing data with fact or truth. The data, that is the measurements collected, did not support Galileo so well as they supported the ptolemaic system.

Also, Galileo's notion was not "reality." He imagined orbits as circles.

Circles? Not bad considering what he had to work with.

How many high school graduates today could duplicate what he did after graduation? How many with college degrees other than, perhaps, those with degrees in physics? Zero?

I was not denigrating Galileo. He was brilliant. I was making an observation which in no way diminishes his accomplishments.

OTOH, Galileo's accomplishments in no way diminish the accomplishments of his predecessor, Ptolemy. Ptolemy was a brilliant man, a polymath, who, if he did not invent the concept of latitude and longitude, at least was the primary promulgator of the geographic coordinate system.

And Ptolemy had a lot less to work with than Galileo. It wasn't his fault that the church - centuries after his death - promulgated his theories at knife-point, so to speak.

I'm only making an observation. I want to understand how things work - not just how they are supposed to work according to the briefing charts - but how they actually work.

TFF:
The basics of the issue may be in the difficulty introduced by the apparent reversal of some orbits due to Earths viewing position. Both of those guys were very clever.
jw

There's nothing wrong with "being wrong." This is the lot of the scientist. By this I mean, that 'being wrong' does not equate to "being evil" or "being stupid."

OTOH, many stupid people ARE wrong and many evil people ARE wrong.