Heliocentrism - was Galileo wrong?

Does the Sun revolve around the Earth, or does the Earth revolve around the Sun?

For centuries, we have accepted a heliocentric model, not realising that we also retain the former (Earth-centred) belief, or that it is true! It (literally) depends on your point of view.

If you stand on the Earth's surface, and confine your thoughts and your visual field to that which is nearby, you will see the Sun go around the Earth, and use its position to map your progress through the day. This is not an illusion, it's real and true. If your thoughts drift farther afield, and you start looking at the motion of the planets, a heliocentric view is much more helpful. It's not illusory either. Both perspectives are real and true, and there is no absolute reason to adopt one or the other. We switch between them for our own convenience.

You can work out Jupiter's 'orbit' around the Earth, but it is wildly eccentric, and the calculation is much more difficult than the heliocentric version. Mathematically, it's just a matter of adjusting the origin of the co-ordinate system in use from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the Sun. And if your attention drifts to the relative motion of galaxies, you'll find yet another origin more convenient.

So the title of this blurb, and the question with which it begins are misleading. The title starts with the assumption that an Earth-centred view is true, and wonders if Galileo's heliocentric view was therefore wrong. The question is mis-stated too, as it implies that only one of the options can be true. The fact of the matter is that both are true, and we use whichever one is most convenient for our purposes.

So the next time a debater quotes heliocentrism as an example of intellectual progress, don't forgot to put them straight. Because heliocentrism is true and useful, it doesn't follow that Earth-centrism is untrue and useless. They are not opposites, they're alternatives.

Think about inclusive-OR instead of exclusive-OR. Consider truth in the context it most often occurs, with TRUE and FALSE as the fence-posts, and an infinity of values (the fence) in between.

NOT-TRUE is not the same as FALSE

except in boolean logic, which is only rarely applicable to the real world.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"