On 11/14/2019 5:48 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:
On Thursday, November 14, 2019 at 5:34:02 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote: On 11/14/2019 4:20 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:Newton is considered superior, not just because his theory was more accurate, but because it had a universal application. The greatest importance of Newton was that he broke the idea that the heavens went by different rules than the Earth. So "truth" per se is not the distinction. As Bill can tell you astronomers have no problem with regarding the Earth as stationary and the Sun going around it. But they use Newton's equations to determine how it goes. It's convenience...not truth. Bill's failing, as I recall, was the belief and insistence that he's always right. No astronomer of sound mind would regard the Earth as stationary and the Sun going around it. AGNot at all. They do it all the time, because when it comes to aiming your telescope you do it relative to the Earth, not the Sun. BrentI was thinking of calculating the orbit of a planet. For stars apparently fixed on the celestial sphere, Earth centered calculations are convenient. AG
Which is the point. There is no "true" center of the solar system, there are just more and less convenient coordinate systems in which to calculate things. So you need to ask yourself what do you mean when you say it is more true that the Sun is the center of the solar system and the Earth orbits the Sun than the other way around? If you're honest you will conclude that you mean it is easier to make good estimates of the future in that coordinate system. Why is Einstein's gravity "truer" than Newton's. Why is the quantum atom better than the Bohr atom? Why is Darwinian theory better than Lamarckian. The reason one scientific theory is better than another is three dimensional:
1. It gives more accurate predictions where the theories overlap and no emprically false ones. 2. It has a wider domain of application. It applies in more places or over a bigger range of parameters. 3. It is consilient with our other best theories. So it reduces the number of different things we must understand as independent.
A theory that is better on all three dimensions, we regard as truer. Not the other way around: It is not the case that we judge it better because it's truer, because we don't, and can't, know where the truth is.
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