FROM ‘COSMOS - History of humanity's perception of the universe’
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. 2003
“The apex in the description of planetary motions during classical antiquity was reached with the Greeks, who were of course superb geometers. Like their predecessors, Greek astronomers adopted the natural picture, from the point of view of an observer on Earth, that the Earth lay motionless at the centre of a rigidly rotating celestial sphere (to which the stars were “fixed”
, and that the complex to-and-fro wanderings of the planets in the zodiac were to be described against this unchanging backdrop. They developed an epicyclic model that would reproduce the observed planetary motions with quite astonishing accuracy.
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This model was convincing because the evidence was right in front of everybodys eyes. It could be clearly seen working on a daily basis. The evidence was so clear cut that accurate astronomical predictions could be made from the data collected. You’d have to be a fool to deny it!
Like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west; it was obviously true.
It only had one drawback. It was wrong!
Conservatives make the same error. They adhere to traditional views about politics, society etc. The evidence is right in front of everyones eyes.
Again, there is only one drawback. Its wrong!
To adhere to traditional conservative and social points of view you have to ignore most of the progress made in psychology, sociology, economics and politics over the last century.
Even science is often under attack from religious conservatives, and industrial conservatives, who seek to deny truth in favour of myth.
