the ancient Egyptians, who thought the sun goes round the earth, could also predict eclipses
That the sun goes round the earth is not more or less right than the converse. It’s a construction of the same system in different coordinates and quite valid.
However, the Oval Earth theory is wrong, and you can’t predict eclipses from it correctly.
More to the point, arguments like this against knowledge from authority rely on implicitly accepting most such knowledge, and only disputing a few choice examples. In Orwell’s story, how do you know about the ancient Egyptians, or what theories the Lord Astronomer espouses, if not from “newspapers and science booklets”? How do you know what astronomical knowledge exists regarding navigation or eclipses? How can you know when eclipses occurred before your birth (to work out cycles)?
If you don’t accept the commonly held theories (because you haven’t verified them yourself), why should you accept the commonly known facts (without having observed all of them yourself)?
I also don’t agree with Orwell that Round Earth theory is “exceptionally elementary information”. It really doesn’t directly influence the life of the average person in any way; we don’t normally make decisions predicated on the truth of that theory outside of a few professions. It’s just a very well-known piece of common knowledge, in part because some Flat Earthers still exist who deny it, and due to the related Flat Earth Myth about the Dark Ages.
Relying on expert knowledge is a good way to evaluate claims only the first few times we encounter them. If we act on a piece of knowledge repeatedly, this should allow us to directly confirm or disconfirm it. If this doesn’t happen, it’s probably a sign that the purported knowledge or theory is just a marker in a political/social/religious game. We know Oval Worlders are the enemy and so our authority figures always affirm the Round World theory, but this doesn’t have anything to do with the actual shape of the earth.
That the sun goes round the earth is not more or less right than the converse. It’s a construction of the same system in different coordinates and quite valid.
Not if you take “the sun goes round the earth” to be an explanation for the sun’s apparent movement in the sky.
It’s not as if the Earth goes around the sun. The earth is in an orbit around the center of the galaxy and the sun interferes with it making it do so in a curly manner. You sol-centric people are small minded!
The sun does go round the earth, and it’s a perfect explanation/prediction of its movement in our sky. If you plot the point on Earth’s surface above which the Sun is located, it goes round and round the planet (with seasonal perturbations).
The only problem with this theory (things go round the Earth) is that it doesn’t explain the movement of bodies other than Sun and Moon. Retrograde motion leads you to epicycles, which are hard—you never have quite enough of them. That’s why “things go round the Sun” is much better, at lest until you discover extrasolar objects aren’t immobile.
But as far as the Sun-Earth system is concerned, both theories are equally valid.
Er, actually, of course, “things go round the Sun” doesn’t correctly explain day and night. The correct theory is that the Earth turns on its axis, and goes round the sun but much more slowly. That’s why the unified theory of “sun going round the earth” is much simpler and more elegant to start with.
That the sun goes round the earth is not more or less right than the converse. It’s a construction of the same system in different coordinates and quite valid.
However, the Oval Earth theory is wrong, and you can’t predict eclipses from it correctly.
More to the point, arguments like this against knowledge from authority rely on implicitly accepting most such knowledge, and only disputing a few choice examples. In Orwell’s story, how do you know about the ancient Egyptians, or what theories the Lord Astronomer espouses, if not from “newspapers and science booklets”? How do you know what astronomical knowledge exists regarding navigation or eclipses? How can you know when eclipses occurred before your birth (to work out cycles)?
If you don’t accept the commonly held theories (because you haven’t verified them yourself), why should you accept the commonly known facts (without having observed all of them yourself)?
I also don’t agree with Orwell that Round Earth theory is “exceptionally elementary information”. It really doesn’t directly influence the life of the average person in any way; we don’t normally make decisions predicated on the truth of that theory outside of a few professions. It’s just a very well-known piece of common knowledge, in part because some Flat Earthers still exist who deny it, and due to the related Flat Earth Myth about the Dark Ages.
Relying on expert knowledge is a good way to evaluate claims only the first few times we encounter them. If we act on a piece of knowledge repeatedly, this should allow us to directly confirm or disconfirm it. If this doesn’t happen, it’s probably a sign that the purported knowledge or theory is just a marker in a political/social/religious game. We know Oval Worlders are the enemy and so our authority figures always affirm the Round World theory, but this doesn’t have anything to do with the actual shape of the earth.
Not if you take “the sun goes round the earth” to be an explanation for the sun’s apparent movement in the sky.
It’s not as if the Earth goes around the sun. The earth is in an orbit around the center of the galaxy and the sun interferes with it making it do so in a curly manner. You sol-centric people are small minded!
The sun does go round the earth, and it’s a perfect explanation/prediction of its movement in our sky. If you plot the point on Earth’s surface above which the Sun is located, it goes round and round the planet (with seasonal perturbations).
The only problem with this theory (things go round the Earth) is that it doesn’t explain the movement of bodies other than Sun and Moon. Retrograde motion leads you to epicycles, which are hard—you never have quite enough of them. That’s why “things go round the Sun” is much better, at lest until you discover extrasolar objects aren’t immobile.
But as far as the Sun-Earth system is concerned, both theories are equally valid.
Er, actually, of course, “things go round the Sun” doesn’t correctly explain day and night. The correct theory is that the Earth turns on its axis, and goes round the sun but much more slowly. That’s why the unified theory of “sun going round the earth” is much simpler and more elegant to start with.