400 years ago the best scientific minds combined with the best technology available thought the sun....?

Question

revolved around the earth and some people still believed the earth was flat. What makes us right today about anything? Admit it, we don't really know anything about anything.

Answer 1

Are you talking about the reality of perception? Because in that case you can't know if you are in you room now looking at your computer screen or not... or if you, your room, or computer actually exist. However it does no one any good to think like that unless your solution is to curl into a ball in the corner of you make believe room and wait until your non-existent body dies of thirst.

That aside we DO know more about the universe today that 3000 thousand years ago. The greatest difference between our knowledge and theirs is our way of getting it. Philosophers in Ancient Greece thought experimentation was beneath them. They falsely believed every truth of the universe could be attained by mere thought while today we gather the facts and never say anything is 100% true. I like this story I heard a while back to represent their flawed mentallity, "A group of famous philosophers set out to solve many of the great mysteries of the universe back in ancient Greece. After awhile there thoughts wander to the question 'how many teeth does a horse have'? A passing farmer overhears this, walks in, and says 'I have a horse outback, I could go count his teeth for you gentlemen'. At this remark the philosophers break out into laughter. This poor commoner was so unintelligent that he didn't even know that the only way to attain answers were through thought"!

We must be doing something right because if we don't know the exact movements and effects of the Sun planets on other objects we must be the luckiest species in the history of the universe for being able to send all those probes to the other side of the solar system.

Oh, and the best scientific minds 400 years ago were what they are today. The best scientific minds back then were a collection of of teachers from around Europe when the scientific community was in it infancy. Today the best minds are drawn from around the entire world. That combined with the fact there are billions of people alive today to draw from compared to the millions 400 years ago and you can surmize the top 0.1% of the population is a LOT smarter than the 0.1% was 400 years ago.

Answer 2

Why do thumpers even bother coming to this board.

Answer 3

Science has a self-correcting mechanism built in, called The Scientific Method.

Science keeps growing and evolving. The accumulation of knowledge leads to further discoveries.

Many things are known.

I know i am not you and You know you are not made of straw.

I'm sure many will give much better answers than this.

Answer 4

Well, speak for yourself.

400 years ago, human minds tried to understand, and to ask questions. They theorized to explain what they say. They learned, and asked new questions. The theories that worked were kept, the ones that didn't were discarded.

We got better at asking questions, and creating theories. In the case of the Earth being flat, the theory that the Earth is round is still the best way to explain what we see. We kept that theory, and discarded the flat Earth idea.

Many of the people who refused to believe put their head in the sand and could not understand the evidence. That doesn't make the theory wrong if someone chooses not to believe it.

If you choose to be ignorant, you'll stay that way.  

Answer 5

We launch satellites into earth orbit all the time.  You can see them yourself if you watch the night sky long enough.  I've seen several.  That pretty much proves that the earth is round.  We also know that it is spinning, because the extra boost in speed lets us launch satellites in an easterly direction to save fuel.  Therefore, since the earth is round and spinning, that pretty much rules out the sun going around the earth like the ancients believed.

Answer 6

"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong.

When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong.

But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just

as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger

than both of them put together." - Issac Asimov

Answer 7

actually, we do know a great deal. the problem is your understanding of science.

we explain our world with the tools available to us and the knowledge we possess. we make predictions based on those theories, then test the predictions.

a casual observer might conclude, by looking at the sky, that the sun moved around the earth. it certainly looks that way, at first glance. only with more careful observation were ppl able to come up with better answers.

Answer 8

The answer is clear: we are not sure that we are right about anything.  That's the best and most beautiful thing about science.  As soon as something comes along that goes against what we previously thought, everyone gets really excited.  That's when new discoveries and breakthroughs happen.  Only pseudo-scientists that don't really know anything say that we know anything for sure.  

Answer 9

The fact that we can send space craft to other planets successfully is absolute proof that we do know exactly how the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun. Those space craft would all totally miss their intended destination planet if we had it wrong.

Answer 10

Sounds good, but misguided. We do not know everything, but we certainly know quite a bit about quite a bit. Admit it.