re: #149 iceweasel

Sorry, was a bit sloppy there: the Copernican theory DID make for a much tidier, more compact explanation of the phenomena of retrograde motion than did the Ptolemaic theory — but it didn’t add predictive power; in fact it lost predictive power. It wasn’t until Kepler and the discovery that the planets’ orbits were elliptical that the Copernican theory gained that predictive power— but it was already preferred over the Ptolemaic because of its explanatory compactness and comparative simplicity. Hence why it’s of interest regarding the structure of scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts.

Talking science at 5am…Bad girl
*wink*