IMO I happen to be personally acquainted with an individual who was once known as Copernicus. Yes, that Copernicus. (He doesnt agree.)

IMO, about 500 years ago, I lived as a person known to history but with a name no one here would recognize; and, as it happens, edited Copernicus book, pre-publication.

In my life today, I remember studying Copernicus in third or fourth grade. He re-introduced the heliocentric theory of the universe. (That there was anything beyond the solar system, no one supposed until the mid-19th century. Maybe later.) And my goodness, didnt we 20th-century third graders just have it all over those stupidoes of Copernicus time!?

Before him, we were taught, the geocentric Ptolemaists had been at pains to get the planets to move in perfectly circular orbits around the earth. So they invented epicycles: little circles that, in effect, orbit the orbits. A planet doesnt sit and move on the principal orbit per se, but rather on one of these epicycles, which itself in turn rolls around along the principal orbit.

Problem: no one scheme of an epicycle solved the riddle as to any given planet. Solution: more epicycles. A planet doesnt sit and move on the principal epicycle per se, but rather on a smaller epicycle, which itself in turn rolls around along the principal epicycle, which in turn rolls around the principal orbit.

Problem: no one scheme of a combination of two such epicycles, solved the riddle as to any given planet. Solution: more epicycles. Problem: no one scheme of any number of epicycles, solved the riddle as to any given planet. All the greatest minds in Europe were energetically wrestling with this, we were taught, when Copernicus showed up.

Occams razor is a doctrine of philosophy and science that says, given two competing explanations of any given situation, the one thats simpler which typically depends also on fewer terms and fewer concepts and fewer complicated relationships among the terms and concepts is to be preferred.

Applied to the instant situation: here (we were taught) were jillions upon jillions of epicycles, and still no satisfactory equation. Along comes Copernicus and changes just one item: Look, yo. The planets dont orbit the earth at all. They orbit the sun. And bingo, no more need for epicycles. No need for even one. All gone. The explanation to be preferred. Occams razor.

The more bizarre notions that Ive expressed here came some years ago in reading a magazine article that, holy crap, seemed to describe, to a T, my current relationship with my own brother. That was one surprise. A second one, in the same article: we were taught WRONG. Copernicus didnt trash the concept of epicycles; instead, in fact, he invented it. (If they didnt exist before, maybe Europeans just hadnt had the mathematics to invent them. C. wrote his book principally as a mathematician, for mathematicians.) He invented them because he wanted to believe the principal planetary orbits are all perfect circles; which theyre not. Theyre ellipses, which fact would not become clear until discovered by the great astrologer (sic) Kepler.

NOW: bingo, no more need for epicycles. No need for even one. All gone. The explanation to be preferred. Occams razor.

We are destined on this thread to grapple with, as it were, lots of folks desire to believe in epicycles. I know a lot of the Christian-style mumbo jumbo folks come up with in order to try to make revealed God theology work: The personal authority of universally esteemed sages like Newt Gingrich. Human free will, Gods permissive will versus other kinds of will God supposedly may have; luck; missing a blessing; more than conquerors; purgatory; limbo; the great chain of being; messianic prophecies; selective readings of the Scriptures; on and on it goes.

What sorts of Jewish-style mumbo jumbo may come up, I can only guess at. Four different reasons why people suffer, eh? Three independent aspects of the soul. Testing. Learning. Cant appreciate the good except by contrast with the bad. Choices. Messianic prophecies; selective readings of the Scriptures; on and on it goes, no doubt.

Each item, each additional term, each new abstract convolution, BTW, taking us farther and farther away from the here and now, and from the concrete facts.

The simplest explanation is to be preferred. Occams razor.

P.

(BTW, us third-grade gaonim remained quite ignorant of anything that actually appears in the night sky that is, the observations that were the basis for all those guys conclusions. Anybody ever heard this term, ecliptic? Whatzit mean?)