Arachnophilia responds to me:
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just for argument's sake, the reason the ptolemiac solar system model wasn't changed for about 2000 years was because it reasonably accurately predicted the orbits of the planets.
Well, no, it didn't. Only if one's opinion about "accurate" lasted a brief amount of time. The introduction of epicycles upon epicycles (up to 28 for some planets) was hardly convincing. It was "good enough" in the sense that nobody else had anything.
Even when Copernicus revived Aristarchus' heliocentric system, he used circular orbits which required epicycles (even more than Ptolemy).
It literally took until Kepler to understand the elliptical nature of planetary motion to develop an ephemeris that is even close to being "reasonably accurate" for significant lengths of time.
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i could probablem even put a man on the surface of mars using it.
Most likely, you couldn't. Ptolemaic astromony is a linear system and going to Mars requires some understanding of relativistic physics because you are going fast enough to have it show some effects. We've already seen a probe bounce off the atmosphere because of errors in approach.
And that doesn't begin to deal with the circular nature of the orbits that the Ptolemaic system posits. The Ptolemaic system might be able to tell you where in the visual field Mars is with respect to Earth, but that's a lousy indicator of where Mars physically is with respect to the Sun.
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There's a flood going on right now in Florida.
i'm in florida. i don't see a flood anywhere.
You prove my point.
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We have the remains of Noah's Ark in Dogaboyazit Turkeys.
No, you don't.
well that was a real elegant rebuttal.
I thought so. It was on the same level of evidence-presentation as the original claim. If his degree of rigor was acceptable to make a claim, then it should be sufficient to counter it.
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what the heck is that thing anyways?
Most think it's a rock outcropping.
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
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