== Link: History Must Be Curved (Galileo and the heliocentric revolution)

This is the kind of thing where I'll start out by quoting some text:

> HISTORY MUST BE CURVED, for there is a horizon in the affairs
> of mankind. Beyond this horizon, events pass out of historical
> consciousness and into myth. Accounts are shortened, complexities
> sloughed off, analogous figures fused, traditions “abraded into
> anecdotes.” Real people become culture heroes: archetypical beings
> performing iconic deeds. (Vansina 1985)

This is from the conclusion of Michael Flynn's masterful
nine part essay on [["The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown"
http://www.popehat.com/2013/10/09/history-must-be-curved/]] ([[also
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html]]).
This is all about how geocentrism (the view that the Earth was at the
center of the universe) gave way to heliocentrism, how surprisingly
small a part Galileo actually played in it (contrary to common stories
about him), and exactly how he got himself into trouble with the Church.

To increase your interest: it turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that
geocentrism actually had a fair amount of evidence going for it and the
last explanation for why part of that evidence was wrong was only worked
out in in *1835*. As Flynn notes:

> ==== Conclusion: Our ancestors were not fools.
> In three centuries, the long complex story of how the mobile Earth    
> replaced the stationary Earth dipped below the horizon from History   
> into Legend. Like all good legends, the story of heliocentrism and    
> the culture-hero Galileo is simple and general and geared toward      
> supporting the Rightness of the Modern worldview. But history is      
> always detailed and particular.                                       

If this sounds like a great read to you, rest assured: it is.
Go ahead and start at [[part 1
http://tofspot.blogspot.ca/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html]].

(Via [[Popehat
http://www.popehat.com/2013/10/09/history-must-be-curved/]], as you
might have guessed.)