Answering Shubinski on Proofs for Orbiting Earth

"Did the V838 Monocerotis explode faster than light?" - Geocentric Solution Overlooked Again · Mechanism for Light Echo Proposed · Answering Shubinski on Proofs for Orbiting Earth · CMI Again Against Geocentrism ...

Here is his article, from the March 2017 issue of Astronomy:

When Did We Realize That the Earth Orbits the Sun?
Published: Monday, January 30, 2017 | by Raymond Shubinski Contributing Editor
https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2017/01/proof-earth-revolves-around-the-sun

Here is the double question he answered:

Q: What are the accepted proofs that Earth revolves around the Sun? When did this realization take place?
Bob James, Las Vegas

And here I will dissect the arguments of the answer:

We had no direct view of Earth until the dawn of the Space Age.

A direct view of Earth doesn't prove it even turns around its own axis, nor that it orbits the Sun. If the views that we normally have of celestial bodies as moving can be put down to Earth moving (as heliocentrics regularly do), the views of Earth as moving can be put down to the angle of observation moving, in ways not foreseen by heliocentric astronomers.

In 1610, Galileo turned his new telescope toward Venus. To his amazement, he saw the planet pass through phases just like the Moon. Galileo correctly surmised that this could happen only if Venus had an orbit closer to the Sun than Earth’s orbit.

Or closer to the Sun than Sun's orbit around Earth. See Tycho Brahe, actually cited to him, and who had given the Tychonian explanation this would need on Geocentric terms.

With improved telescopes, astronomers started looking for another proof of Earth’s motion around the Sun, stellar parallax. Earth’s orbit is huge — some 186 million miles (300,000 kilometers) in diameter. If an astronomer measures the position of a nearby star, and then measures it again six months later, the star’s apparent position against the background of more distant stars should shift a tiny amount.

Observing this would prove that Earth in fact is not stationary.

In Galileo's time, what one discussed was a uniform parallax of the shell-like "sphere of fix stars" which neither Galileo nor his judges denied, nor Copernicus either.

However, finding a "non-uniform parallax" could prove either that Earth moves and stars have very different distances from us, or that we are dealing with somewhat random movements in the stars - not totally random, as circular movements would need a voluntary agent, like angelic movers, but random as to relation to an actually uniform distance from earth, retaining the shell of fix stars.

As Earth orbits the Sun, we can detect a “tilt” of incoming starlight. English astronomer James Bradley discovered this phenomenon in 1725 by accident — while he was searching for stellar parallax! This aberration of starlight, as it is called, is a result of light having a finite speed and Earth’s motion around the Sun.

Or, of angels moving with stars, in a somewhat less random way (with "parallax" marginally randomising it, since "parallax" is measured against the background of "aberration").

So, Shubinski gives three "accepted proofs" and I find that the "accepted proofs" don't actually prove what they are supposed to prove. Observation from spacecraft can "show earth moving" due to spacecraft moving (in other ways than foreseen by astronomers), and both parallax and aberration can be proper movements, performed by angels, and there are proper movements admitted as astronomers too, namely if they are linear rather than circular, and therefore would be put down to inertia rather than angels.

In fact, Frédéric Chaberlo gave 6 reasons for Earth orbitting the Sun in one book about the Milky Way and 6 more for Earth turning around its axis in a book about Scientific Methodology, in which, not surprisingly, he cites The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959 book by Arthur Koestler) and Paul Karl Feyerabend.

I have made a series of posts for each of the books, but as they are in French, so are my posts. Pour francophones tendance monoglottes, sur d'autres blogs links to one series starting with Frédéric Chaberlot n'est pas musicologue and another starting with En lisant La Voie lactée par Chaberlot : en guise de Proesme.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Joseph of Calasanzi
27.VIII.2021

Sancti Josephi Calasanctii, Presbyteri et Confessoris, qui Ordinis Clericorum Regularium Pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum exstitit Fundator, atque octavo Kalendas Septembris obdormivit in Domino.

PS, Lita Cosner for tomorrow's feed back has repeated one untruth often seen on CMI:

You mock the Catholic church for believing the earth was at the center of the universe a few hundred years ago. But that view came not from the Bible but Aristotelian philosophy, and it was believed by the pre-eminent scientists of the day as well. See our Geocentrism Q&A for more if you’re interested.

Response:

• 17th C. Catholic clergy did NOT uphold an integral Aristotelic world view - a void with celestial bodies moving individually Westward was accepted, contrary to Aristotle and St. Thomas;
• early dabbling in heliocentrism had been tolerated up to Bruno suggesting one God the Son for each Solar System and up to Galileo and Foscarini suggesting a wrongful exegesis to Joshua 10;
• pretending Joshua 10 is compatible with Heliocentrism involves devaluation of the words of miracle workers who were inspired to their words, in verse 12, after having spoken to God, Joshua adresses, not earth for it to cease to turn, but Sun and Moon to cease moving.