WHAT LESSON FROM HISTORY?
So there we have it: superstitious old Religion taught that the Earth was the centre of the Universe with the Sun and the planets revolved around the Earth. Then along came Science, in the form of Galileo, which proved that the Earth went round the Sun. Victory for rational Science; defeat for superstitious Religion?
Really? I suspect that when most people think about a map of the world, they think of the North Pole being at the top of the map and the South Pole being at the bottom. Is this a provable scientific fact? How come that some Australians have maps with the South Pole at the top? Are such Australians wrong and going in the face of Science? The site http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/maps-
There is nothing inevitable or intrinsically correct — not in geographic, cartographic or even philosophical terms — about the north being represented as up, because up on a map is a human construction, not a natural one. Some of the very earliest Egyptian maps show the south as up, presumably equating the Nile’s northward flow with the force of gravity. And there was a long stretch in the medieval era when most European maps were drawn with the east on the top. If there was any doubt about this move’s religious significance, they illuminated it with their maps’ pious illustrations, whether of Adam and Eve or Christ enthroned. In the same period, Arab map makers often drew maps with the south facing up, possibly because this was how the Chinese did it.
Or another example: when I look for the weather forecast on the Met Office website, I notice that it also gives times for sunrise and sunset. Yet the Met Office is a scientifically based organization that knows as well as we do that it is the turning of the earth in relation to the Sun that gives us the sequence of day and night. Is the Met Office wrong or going in the face of Science when it refers to the sun 'rising' moving through the sky and 'setting'? Shouldn't the Met Office be talking about 'Selected Earth-
The answer to all questions like these is simple: the Universe is a dynamic system in which all it's components are moving and turning in relation to each other. There is no way of proving that any one body is stationary or the 'centre' of the universe; any more that an Australian can prove to a European that the South Pole ought to be at the top of a map. It is a question of which model works best in relation to our needs.
So, for those of us living on the surface of the Earth, it is usually convenient to think of ourselves as fixed and the Sun rising, moving through the sky and setting. For those exploring the Solar System with space vehicles, it is useful to use Galileo's model of a fixed Sun with planets going around it. But when we study our Galaxy, it is its centre that we take as fixed and the Sun, with all the other stars, moving around it.
Whilst there is no way of proving that any of these models is wrong compared with any of the others; it is possible to prove, however, whether they are right or wrong in their own terms. For example, if I may find it convenient to use a heliocentric model with a rotating and tilting Earth to explain night, day and the seasons; but if my version of this model assumes that a year lasts 1000 days, then there's something wrong with my observations and data. So the model would be OK; but the data wouldn't.
All of these arguments show the importance of one underlying point: many so-
