Scientific Method Critical Thinking Objective Truth

A Brief History of the Philosophical Basis for Scientific Method-Critical Thinking-A Road to Objective Truth

By Ted Nissen M.A. M.T.

Ted Nissen M.A. M.T.-holds a master’s degree in education/counseling and has had a successful medical (clinical/orthopedic) massage practice for over 20 years in Long Beach California and can be reached at

apcares4u@gmail.com

Summary=1038

This piece examines faith and reason as they intertwine in the individual philosophers who pioneered Western Rationalism at the root of the scientific method. More specifically this piece examines how each of these great thinkers viewed the solar system as a reflection of the culture by which they were influenced. It is settled scientific fact that our solar system consists of eight planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos) Pluto is considered a Dwarf Planet as of 8/24/06 as announced by the International Astronomical Union (IAA) along with other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs), Ceres and 2003UB313 (Xena). Even well established scientific facts can change with new understanding and observation. Many other smaller bodies have also been found orbiting the sun (Comets, Asteroids, Meteors, 951 Gaspra ect).). All of the planets, at least, revolve around a central sun in oddly shaped but generally elliptical orbits in the relatively narrow slice of sky known as the zodiac. This was far from clear over 2000 years ago when 5 planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn=these could be seen with naked eye), the sun and the moon were thought to revolve around the earth. Knowing the outcome of the debate helps us better understand the at times fierce and deadly battle between central instincts of faith and reason in our collective human character. It also helps us understand how science could never have progressed to its present level of clarity and sophistication without labored birth of the scientific method. Since this is a story about a sometimes-fitful journey (of the one step forward two steps back variety) this essay also examines the elements of the scientific method thru the eyes of the pioneers who conceived them. This is about all of the lessons learned that would have to be relearned as laypersons (general public) are exposed to the conclusions of science and technology that science invents. We live in a culture that reveres scientific inquiry and achievement yet most of the population does not understand the language and methods of scientific insight. For example we are quick to quote this or that scientific study that proves our point without knowing the mathematics (Statistics) or even whether the research Design and Methodology warrant our polemic. Advertisers are quick to exploit our scientific reverence and relative ignorance by dishing up a soup of research studies that prove their products superiority. This piece is less about models of the solar system and more about how very smart people can let their fears and fixed ideas convince them of untruths. We forget that the earth’s position in the solar system was an emotional debate. This article is relevant to contemporary emotional debates that elicit strong opinions on both sides of the issue and can sometimes interfere with scientific progress and education (stem cell research, intelligent design debate). This article is also relevant to any profession, which may rely on the scientific method to make new discoveries and to discard old methods that don’t work.

Fact is we live in a big scary world now and throughout our history. Faith in something stronger & bigger that protects us and some promise of immortality is a good antidote to the doom and gloomies. This tendency to need some hope for protection and or immortality requires faith because there is just no way to prove the existence of a higher power or existence after death. We are all an admixture of faith in something, (yes even you atheists have faith the sun will rise tomorrow-you know you do) and reason which relies more on what can be observed and follows the rules of logic. Sometimes faith can get is to believe some pretty screwy things which we later find out were not true. Pythagoras thought that one way to by pass this problem was the use of mathematics and geometry, which were immune to cultural bias, prejudice & fear. The goal here was to discover an objective truth that did not change over time and with the culture like religion. It turns out this was the winning strategy because one of the students (Aristarchus of Samos) of Pythagorean astronomy got it right 1700 years before Copernicus (he theorized a sun centered solar system).

Socrates believed that clearing your mind of all knowledge was the first step. The less you think you know the better. He believed that faith in the Gods should be limited. Socrates insisted that we can’t assume the gods control everything, like weather, just because it makes us feel safe. It’s important to examine the world at large and the world of ideas (including ethics and morals) with an unprejudiced mind. Socrates believed that we should all start from an admission of ignorance. The first step is to carefully observe with an open mind (leave your opinions at the door), listen to what others have said, analyze incongruities and don’t be afraid to question authority. Opps, that last one got Socrates killed. Socrates student, Plato, rejected all of this non-sense insisting that we needed our gods to guide us down the moral path and besides observing the world was just a big waste of time. After all, a more perfect world existed in other realms with the gods and the world of perfect forms that they the gods had created. The world we live in after all a bad copy of that one (world of perfect forms) so why bother even looking closely at this one. Although Plato didn’t much like or have much knowledge about astronomy he influenced its young development perhaps more than any one person. His dictum that the planets must revolve in their geocentric orbits in perfect circles at constant speed was accepted by even the brightest young minds that followed him. This blind acceptance was not just in the conceptual abstract but required a denial of what any night sky viewer could see with their naked eye. If Plato were right the planets should never stop or reverse their progress across the sky; the planets (means wanderer in Greek=someone without a fixed course) course was irregular sometimes progressing steadily across the sky, sometimes stopping in its tracks, sometimes going backwards. Since Plato also insisted that the planets be an equal distance from the earth the planets should never vary their size or brightness; the planets both varied their size and brightness. How could such very smart people deny their own eyes and accept such an obvious untruth. That’s what this story is about; read on.

Article

“Our minds are like drunken monkeys stung by wasps” Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama) (563-483 BCE)[1]

Buddha believed we couldn’t know the world as it really is. Our passions, desires, and suffering blind us to objective truth. No use asking about reincarnation or about Gods because our distorted vision makes our minds dumb to any true insight. Enlightenment gives us clear vision but may take many years of dedicated practice. Western thinkers outlined in this discussion did believe they could know objective truth and were in a greater hurry than our friend Siddhartha Gautama. This is their short story. This discussion begins with a consideration of faiths underpinning western rational thinking.

Surely we can know some things by Faith alone. What follows is merely a theory, which might explain why faith in religion and myth has such a lasting and powerful appeal. Faith in religion and or mythology can certainly provide us with the answers our heart must know that our minds may never know. We are after all vulnerable creatures with the self-consciousness our increased brainpower brings. Yet housed underneath this mushroom higher brain (Cerebral Cortex) is that smaller yet ancient animal brain (Limbic System) that seeks only to feed, procreate, and protect. We are acutely if not always consciously aware of our vulnerability in these thin skins. We fight aging, and disease with the entire technological prowess our higher brain can mobilize (Plastic Surgery-Medicine-Pharmacology) yet we age a little with every passing year. A thousand insults plague our inner hope for eternal corporal life in this world and it is no wonder we seek a spiritual life that will comfort and protect. We hope for continuance when we die and faith in a higher moral order to protect us from the many indignities that nature issues. Faith in continued existence after death allows the animal within us a small comfort that self-awareness needs. With our hearts we can certainly have faith in a spiritual heritage but what can we really know with our minds. Faith and reason (Logos and Mythos=Greek) have and will always blend in varying proportions in all of us because what we cannot know with our minds we can certainly hope for with our hearts. The product of faith (belief in something that cannot be proven with the naked eye) is changeable from culture to culture. We cannot discount intuitive intelligence that seems to know things beyond the rational reasoned argument that turn out to have objective truth beyond personal faith or belief. But these intuitive insights are relatively rare and cannot be relied upon. Can we know that anything is real and true beyond subjective personal opinion, faith in religion, myth, and or intuition? Can we know an objective truth, which transcends culture and thus remains the same with the passage of time? This begins a brief history of how we can know objective reasoned truth. This is a journey of the examination of the universe but more specifically the solar system which we now know is composed of several planets including our own which revolve in elliptical orbits around the sun. The truth of our solar system is an objective truth, which transcends culture tradition and was arrived at painful over nearly 2000 years. The topic is not as important as how great thinkers/Spiritual leaders reflect their culture through their thinking. It is also an examination of how faith and reason intermingle in their evolution. The struggle between faith and reason is always within each philosopher/scientist and must have been a very personal and emotional struggle for some. Many would pay with their lives because their beliefs challenged myth and tradition. From this conflict came a way of looking at nature. The scientific method was a way to find objective truth that transcended cultural biases. A later article will discuss the scientific method in more detail.

Pythagoras of Samos (569-475 BCE) (Early geometry) was sure that the qualities in the world could be understood mathematically. The Pythagorean discovery that the pitch of a note depends on the length of the string which produces it, and that concordant intervals in the scale are produced by simple numerical ratios (2 : 1 octave, 3 : 2 fifth, 4 : 3 fourth, etc.), was epoch-making: it was the first successful reduction of quality to quantity, the first step towards the mathematization of human experience – and therefore the beginning of Science. Pythagorean theorem showed us how mathematics can reveal relationships in shapes that confound our eyes. There is no obvious relationship between the lengths of the sides of a right-angled triangle; when we build a square over each side, the areas of the two smaller squares will exactly equal the area of the larger. In such wonderfully ordered laws, hitherto hidden from the human eye, could be discovered by the contemplation of number shapes, was it not legitimate to hope that soon all secrets of the universe would be revealed through them?

Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.) [2] believed wisdom lay in knowing that you don’t know and can never know the world as it is. Observing things around you, says Socrates, is a good start because it raises questions about the world whose answers compel insight into the nature of things. For example he questioned the existence of the gods observing that every city had their own gods and they were all different. How could this be if they existed outside of our world, independent of our individual wishes and collective imagination? Shouldn’t the Gods be the same? As legend has it an old farmer who was a neighbor of Socrates asked him (Socrates) “if there is no Zeus who makes it rain”. Socrates answers “If it were Zeus, he could drizzle in an empty sky, while the clouds were on vacation, but that never happens” Socrates had observed that clouds had water filled droplets. Socrates also noticed that when full the clouds “rumbled like an over-full belly” which burst forth their watery contents, which rained down earthbound. He further hypothesized that clouds moved not because Zeus moved them but because of rising hot air which he labeled the convection principle. The Socratic method of questioning everything is still used in many law schools and is the basis for much of scientific inquiry today. It relies on carefully observing the world, questioning inconsistency and authority combined with logical analysis. Socrates used to say he was the wisest man alive because he didn’t know anything. In the end Socrates inspired Greek youth to question the mores and teaching of their parents and society in general which got him arrested and tried for atheism; In his sentence, he was asked to recant his teaching but since he wouldn’t he might very well have been the first man put to death for preaching nothing. Certainly he defined a standard for all subsequent Western Philosophy and Scientific inquiry as well. Socrates for his part denied his crime stating that he did believe in divinity but was unwilling to neither sacrifice reason to faith nor stop questioning absurd notions about how the gods influenced natural phenomena. Socrates was a regular participant in rituals and ceremonies. Even his accusers acknowledged his piety emphasizing the disruptive and antitraditionalsist aspect of Socrates provocative speech.

Socrates death was ordered by a democratic state within a culture that favored tradition, ritual, and faith. Faith is not a passive partner to reason acquiescing to even reasons reasonable demands. Since as aforementioned faith represents a peoples collective hope for some protection in this life/afterlife from the unpredictable and sometimes deadly natural events and circumstance, when tradition is questioned it is ably and forcefully defended. Defended I surmise by that ever watchful protector wired for viscous attack against all predators including reason. This more primitive brain in all of us collectively yearns for tradition and the comfort of the familiar spiritual assurances. If Socrates could questions the power of Zeus who was the pantheon ruler of all of the Athenian Gods then this caused the faithful to question all of the Gods. When reason is allowed to roam freely in the Sacred Halls too many questions can upset the public peace. The Greek philosophers, who follow, were careful to observe the invisible but formidable walls between faith and reason, perhaps Socrates trial and sentence did not go unnoticed.

Plato (427-347 BCE) [3] according to legend wept upon his teacher’s death. Perhaps he decided not to make the same mistake. Plato who was as, aforementioned, Socrates student and also a student of the Pythagoreans was sure that the real world outside must conform to certain mathematical rules and in this ideal realm the planets and gods resided among perfect spheres where Geometrical symmetry ruled. In Plato’s Republic he capsulized his attitude towards astronomy. “The stars,” he explains, “however beautiful, are merely part of the visible world which is but a dim and distorted shadow or copy of the real world of ideas; the endeavor to determine exactly the motions of these imperfect bodies is therefore absurd.” Plato effectively and resolutely shut the door on reasoned observation. He also rejected the Pythagorean notion of the mathematization of human experience and the study of harmonies as a “vain” pursuit. The allegory of the cave [4] best describes this shadow world deep in the earth bowels. The (human race) lives in this hovel chained to the dirt floor. A large fire illuminates the walls with our shadows, which is our only vision of the world and ourselves. This cave world is not the real world because that exists on the ground surface but requires the aide of the wizened among us (philosophers) to lead us out. Once on the surface the bright light of the sun blinds us until our eyes adjust. The journey is, of course, a symbolic one but one that demonstrates Plato’s notion of a devolved world and the developmental journey of the philosopher in seeking truth. Plato’s allegorical language was taken literally by the Neoplatonic School. The extremist school of Neoplatonism did dominate Western philosophy for several centuries and stifled all progress in science. Plato for his part did agree that we could not know this real/ideal world and concluded that our minds were to clouded to even observe, question, or logically analyze. We could not know the perfection that the gods had created in this ideal world but through geometry the motion of the planets and sun as they revolved around the earth could be plotted and predicted. Plato’s dictum that the shape of the world must be in a perfect sphere, and that all motion must be in perfect circles at uniform speed ruled for nearly 2000 years, of course, with the help of the Neoplatonic School and paradoxically Aristotle. More on that later but for now it is true that Plato understood little of astronomy, and was evidently bored by it. The few passages where he feels moved to broach the subject are so muddled, ambiguous or self-contradictory, that all scholarly efforts have failed to explain their meaning. God in Plato’s world is “pure self-contained goodness” and perfection with successive devolution into other less perfect realms including the World of Reality which consists only of perfect Forms or Ideas to the World of Appearance, which is a shadow and copy of the former and so down to Man. “Those of the men first created who led a life of cowardice and injustice were suitably reborn as women in the second generation.” Below women in Plato’s devolutionary allegory were animals the lowest creatures who were the un-philosophical reborn. It might be noted that classical Greece was crumbling with political, economic, and moral bankruptcy prior to the conquest by Macedonia. A century of constant war and civil strife had bled the country of men and money. There must have been a wellspring desire among all the citizens of the Athenian city-state (510 BCE-404 BCE), Plato included, for the stability and harmony of perfect spheres with an honorable and just god in charge. Although it is difficult to determine whether Plato’s allegorical references need be taken literally, symbolically, or as an esoteric leg-pull. The basic trend of the whole system leans clearly toward a fear of change and contempt and loathing for the concepts of evolution and mutability. Plato’s way of thinking also fit right in with early Christian teaching which also imagined a perfect world just outside this one. Somehow during the middle ages (476-1000 AD) scientists negotiated thru the minefields of religious dogma and a platonic universe of perfect spheres. In this universe our solar system was earth centered with all of the planets and the sun revolving it in perfect circles. Each planet was a perfect sphere. Somehow these scientists of the middle ages managed to generally predict the movement of planets with an elaborate system that maintains Plato’s perfect circular orbits. Mathematicians were kept busy during that time designing models of the universe, which reduced the apparent irregularities in the motions of the planets to regular motions in perfectly regular circles. This effectively stultified astronomy until the beginning of the 17^th century when Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630 AD) proved that planets move in oval, and not circular orbits.

Aristotle (BC, 384-322) [5] who was a student of Plato but agreed more with Socrates in that observation, questioning, and logical analysis purchased valuable & practical knowledge about the world around us. Aristotle valued reason, proofs, and demonstration and with this empirical conception of the universe championed rationalism. He outlined the beginnings of the disciplines of marine biology to logic, political science, ethics, and psychology. But his reasoned arguments were often jumbles of hearsay examples and thought experiments where he created a world to his own liking one that was beautiful, symmetrical, and was intelligible. Aristotle often imposed this beautiful sense on things and did not bother to check with nature. He probably was not the careful observer that Socrates was. He also relied on reason alone more than Socrates might have approved. Therefore he agreed with Plato that the planets and sun circuited in the sky in perfectly circular orbits. In Plato’s world fact and metaphor blur into one another but that ambiguity disappears with Aristotle. In Aristotle’s universe the immobile earth sits in the center surrounded by nine concentric, perfectly circular, transparent spheres layered like onionskins. The innermost skin is the sphere of the moon and the two outermost are the sphere of the fixed stars, and beyond that, the sphere of the Prime Mover, God. In Aristotle’s universe all of this clock work and everything for that matter needs a prime mover. There is perhaps no other example in the history of thought of such dogged, obsessional persistence in error, as the circular fallacy, which bedeviled astronomy for two millennia. Plato had merely thrown out, in semi-allegorical language, a suggestion, which was quite in keeping with the Pythagorean tradition; it was Aristotle who promoted the idea of circular motion to a dogma of astronomy. For the next several hundred years the role of observation, questioning, and critical analysis would diminish in importance and Socrates and Pythagoras would largely be forgotten.

Both Aristotle (The First Lyceum) [6] and Plato (The Academy) [7] founded schools of philosophy the first of their kind, which as institutions survived for centuries. The fluid ideas of the founders were rigidified into ideologies & fixed ideas with hypothesis becoming dogmas and allegory, literal truth. The problem for the would be mathematician/astronomer was that the masters theories were crackpot half thought out ideas that had absolutely no basis in the real world of moving planets and a fiery sun. It was a solar system that was supposed to behave itself. If you used your bare eyeball to fix your gaze into the night sky at mars or Venus, for example, something very strange and unexpected would happen. You would observe something that could not possibly happen if your Master Teachers (Plato/Aristotle) were right. The first thing you would notice over many nights of careful observation is that sometimes these planets would move across the sky with the regularity of a clock just as expected. Then one night and for several nights the planet would stop moving dead in its tracks. How could this be, had the planet been zapped by the Gods into a star. Just when you had settled on the God Zapper Theory the planets would start moving again but now backward. Were your eyes now bedeviled with madness? How could this be? Then just when madness was accepted truth the planets would move in orderly fashion forward with heavenly nonchalance as if no anomaly were ever observed. All of these planetary movements were occurring around a stationary earth at the center of movement. We now know that there are eight planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune and many smaller bodies (Pluto, Comets, Asteroids, Meteors, 951 Gaspra ect).) all of which (the planets at least) revolve around a central sun in oddly shaped but generally elliptical orbits in the relatively narrow slice of sky known as the zodiac. The apparent stationary or backward (retrograde) movement was merely a positional illusion. That is from the earth’s position and orbit, these wacky movements were illusions created by the relative position of the other planets in their orbit. Did any of the very bright students of Aristotle and Plato question authority. The answer is no. They did exactly what Socrates warned against which is assuming wisdom is equal to knowledge and knowledge and wisdom increase accordingly with age. What you know and the more you know the wiser you are. Therefore they assumed the ideas promulgated by their beloved teachers were fixed and immutable to observation. If the earth is to be the center and immovable while the moon and planets revolve in circular orbits circumscribing invisible spheres then that would be a given. This should be a warning to all who wish to find objective truth independent of cultural and personal bias. Socrates pointed a weary finger in the right direction and gave his life so that we would understand his passion for the truth of his ideas. He is not remembered with the adoration of a spiritual leader but his sacrifice was no less poignant. He told us how we could know unchanging truth. Socrates was right about how clouds caused rain. It was true over 2000 years ago and it is true today, it rains when water droplets coalesce in clouds. Clouds then move across the sky because of the convection principle. Religious beliefs have changed since Socrates death. Zeus is no longer the king of the Gods and it is not sacrilegious to disrespect Him. Socrates advised that the first step to any scientific method is to forget everything you know or think you know. Carefully observe your subjects, understand what others have said, logically analyze inconsistencies, don’t be afraid to question authority, draw your conclusions tentatively. Be wary of those who have quick answers based on tradition. This got him killed.

Beginning with fallacy Plato’s pupil Eudoxus and his pupil, Calippus set out to prove that these odd stationary and retrograde movements were the result of some combination of several simple, circular, uniform motions. Keeping within the bounds of their master’s dictum would not be easy. It would require every mathematical trick and geometrical fancy these two brilliant minds could muster. We remember that the geocentric model with the planets circumscribing a transparent sphere in perfectly circular orbits at uniform speed did not account for the irregularity of the planetary motions. There must be several spheres within spheres, that is, without the dizzying complexity of detailing this, each planet revolves around the axis of an independent transparent sphere. The planet will thus participate in all the independent rotations of the various spheres, and by letting each sphere rotate at the appropriate tilt and speed; it was possible to reproduce roughly the actual motion of each planet. Another fallacy was then created to explain the first fallacy. In all thirty-four spheres with the planets and sun revolving independent axes were fashioned to explain away Plato’s dumb idea. This should be added to any talk about scientific method; sometimes really smart and charismatic people have dumb ideas. This is why authority needs questioning to clear away the rubbish so that science as a whole can move on.

Aristotle was not sitting idly by and had some ideas of his own, namely, the creation of an additional fifty-four spheres to account for the motions of the 7 planets (known at that time). Aristotle created an additional 20 (Total 34+20=54) spheres beyond the Eudoxus/Calippus model because theirs was a paper only model and Aristotle wanted to create a physical model. Aristotle’s physical model although impressively complex did not predict actual planetary motions more accurately than Eudoxus/Calippus paper model. Socrates might agree that complexity does not always equate with truth. Complexity may only confuse the underlying fallacy with truth. The simple dictums; 1.) Don’t complicate the simple 2.) Simplify the complex might have avoided this obvious folly. Red flags should have been raised high when so many levers and ropes and spheres were needed just to make a bad idea good. But it didn’t end there. Remember Aristotle’s idea that all objects including planets needed a prime mover. This would add another 55 (54+55=109) prime movers (unmoved movers), or spirits to keep the system going. Although Aristotle was well known and respected this system was bizarre and soon fell out of favor. Several equally crazy systems would follow, all attempts, toward obedience to the post-hypnotic suggestion that all heavenly motion must be circular motion centered round the earth.

There is a fly in this ointment of half-truths and every one of the characters mentioned so far knew it. All of the planets were supposed to revolve around the earth at an unvarying distance and speed. This would mean the planets should not vary in their brightness and size. The problem is that since the planets were actually following elliptical orbits both their size and brightness did vary. This is yet another lesson; Do not exclude observed phenomena just because it doesn’t fit the theory. Highlight and discuss factual incongruity hoping to spark new and better theories. None of these characters included this factual incongruity and yes it was the unmentioned elephant in the room. Aristarchus of Samos (310 - 230 BCE) and Herakleides of Pontus (390-310 BCE) both noticed this anomaly and developed correct or nearly correct model of the solar system. The only problem is few people paid attention.

Herakleides [8] [9] who was nicknamed by his friends as “paradoxolog” (maker of paradoxes) was a bit of a maverick and was known to openly and publicly contradict Plato. The biography of Herakleides is thin but what we do know is that he had both originality and contempt for academic tradition. This is the kind of guy Socrates would have endorsed were he alive. Science needs mavericks and this brief history has so few. In Herakleides model of the solar system (Egyptian System) had Venus and Mercury revolving around the sun, with the sun and additional planets (Mars Jupiter, Saturn) and moon revolving around the earth. It solved the problem of the retrograde/stationary planetary movement and also the size and brightness problems for the inner planets only.

Aristarchus of Samos [10] [11] (Greek Copernicus) was the last in line of Pythagorean astronomers born on the same island of Samos as Pythagoras. He was born when Herakleides died and produced only one surviving short treatise “On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon.” In it he demonstrates two important personality qualities to the scientific method originality of thought and meticulousness in observation. Aristarchus in an attempt to explain mathematically the anomalies, aforementioned, proposed the first known heliocentric (sun centered) model of the solar system 1700 years before Copernicus. Copernicus himself originally gave credit to Aristarchus in his own heliocentric treatise, De revolutionibus caelestibus (on the Revolutions of heavenly Spheres), where he had written, " Philolaus (480BC– 405BC) believed in the mobility of the earth, and some even say that Aristarchus of Samos was of that opinion." Interestingly, this passage was crossed out shortly before publication, maybe because Copernicus decided his treatise would stand on its own merit. The source for Aristarchus heliocentric claim has been lost but both ancient sources and modern scholars credit him. Because he had no followers and wrote so little that survives, his solar system model was forgotten.

The story of Aristarchus of Samos illustrates an important circumstance of the scientific history of critical thinking. Very smart, charismatic, administratively adept, people (Plato, Aristotle ect) can be absolutely and objectively wrong. If they produce a body of work (Plato & Aristotle produced volumes) and are able to draw followers (charismatic) and establish schools (administratively adept) stupid ideas can be promoted and innovation discouraged. Social pressure would force subsequent thinkers to begin their inquiry with certain assumptions they did not question. This is curiously similar to what many religions demand; Thomas (Doubting Thomas wanted to poke his finger into the spear hole of the risen Christ to prove it was him.) did your doubting for you and you can just believe. We all want to be accepted by the group and this may indeed be a successful evolutionary strategy; Groups survive better than individuals. Our outsized brain gave us the capacity to believe something and shared beliefs make for stronger and thus more survivable groups. Evolutionary pressures would certainly favor “Group Think” because it organizes to fight off predators, gather and hunt food. Questioning tradition, something Socrates would recommend, is both socially and personally difficult. The combined written work of Plato and Aristotle alone would be enough to intimidate even the bravest hearts among us. Aristarchus of Samos may have succeeded precisely because he was trained in the Pythagorean School of astronomy, which was free of the nonsense being taught, by Aristotle (The First Lyceum) and Plato (The Academy). This underlines the lesson first taught by Socrates, question authority. The volume of written work, number of people who believes in its validity, number of schools dedicated to teaching the ideas does not necessarily equate with truth telling. Tradition and authority must be questioned if careful observation reveals inconsistencies. Socrates, like Aristarchus, founded no schools. Socrates produced not a single literary work. The physical weight of his intellectual achievement is not revealed in physical manifestation. Plato is the significant source for Socrates ideas yet he (Plato) was vague and allegorical about his own views of astronomy, and his few ideas on this matter were all wrong. Our source (Plato) for understanding Socrates is himself blighted with the wrong headed notion that the physical world does not matter, observation should be discouraged, loyalty to fixed ideas socially favored, and tradition respected. Socrates who never accepted money for his teaching was supplanted by his entrepreneurial very bright pupil (Plato) who managed non-the less to give us a believable character sketch of his beloved teacher. Still it was not enough to inoculate thinking people of the time to the post-hypnotic Platonic suggestions.

Ptolemy of Alexandria (Claudius Ptolemaeus) (90 - 163 CE) [12] was a Greek astronomer and geographer who propounded the geocentric theory that prevailed for 1400 years. Ptolemy was in agreement with both Plato and Aristotle in their general description of our Solar System. Appollonius of Perga (262 -190 BCE) & Hiparchus of Rhodes (2nd Century BCE) both contributed to what came to be known as Ptolemy’s Ferris Wheel Universe. Ptolemy’s model of the solar system would be the last word and was treated by the scientific community as scientific fact until Copernicus. As aforementioned, it was by no means scientific fact. It does however illustrate yet another pit fall when careful observers ignore incongruities between observation & theory. If you ignore something for long enough, it becomes a traditional way of thinking and eventually accepted scientific fact. Many scientific professions probably have unexamined intellectual traditions, which fall into this category. Every profession probably needs to do its housecleaning. Ptolemy, however, only added to the confusion by keeping all of the bad ideas of the previous theories and adding a number of his own. Instead of spheres within spheres, Ptolemy added, revolving wheels within wheels. Basically, the earth is at the center of a large Ferris wheel while the planets occupy the passenger seat of a cabin suspended on a pivot connected to the rim of the wheel. The circular movement of the wheel and the rotation in circles and semicircles (epicycles) is supposed to describe the movements of the planets around the earth. A movable eccentric (the hub of the wheel was moved away from the earth rotating in a small circle near the earth) was added to describe the elliptic planetary orbits. By the time Ptolemy had perfected this wheeled solar system, the seven passengers (sun, moon, and five planets), needed a machinery of thirty-nine wheels. An additional wheel was added for the fixed stars with a total of 40 wheels. Alphonso X of Castile, (called the Wise), when initiated into the Ptolemaic system sighed: “If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I should have recommended something simpler.”

Then there was Cannon Nicolas Copernicus (Koppernigk) (1473-1543)[13], a respected member of the church, whose hobby it was to carefully observe the movement of the planets using "bare eyeball" observations thru various devices he had fashioned but without a telescope (Wouldn’t be invented for 100 years). These observations revealed a startling insight to Copernicus. According to his calculations there were certain inconsistencies between his observations and accepted Ptolemaic/Aristotelian thinking. Sound familiar, Socrates would have been proud. Time and time again he measured and re-measured and again and again the same results. It appeared that the great philosophers and scientists whose thinking had dominated 1000+ years of scientific pursuit were quite simply but profoundly wrong about our solar system. The earth was not the center of the solar system. The sun was the center and always had been. The planets including earth traveled in oddly shaped but more precisely predictable orbits around the sun. This he kept this secrete even from his trusted colleagues for fear of negative retribution and in fact did not publish his magnum opus and only scientific work (on the Revolutions of heavenly Spheres) until hours before his death of a brain hemorrhage. So powerful was the hypnotic of authoritarian fixed ideas that Copernicus was sure he was wrong and Ptolemy and other were right that he only used his system because it better predicted the movement of the planets.

Although this story is far from finished as a cast interesting characters follow Copernicus in this Journey thru our solar system and beyond. All of these characters have their own inner battles between faith and reason, from here on out at least our collective intelligence is allowed to flourish. This story has never been about denying a faith or religion. Socrates, although tried and convicted for atheism would be the first to object as he and others agreed he was a pious man. His objections should be ours, that is, curious minds must be allowed to question.

6139/300= 20.46

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