{"id":72124,"date":"2019-03-28T16:52:19","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T22:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=72124"},"modified":"2019-03-28T16:53:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T22:53:57","slug":"72124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/03\/72124.html","title":{"rendered":"On ignoring the evidence of our eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"Copernican<\/a>
An image from Nicolaus Copernicus\u2019 \u201cDe revolutionibus orbium coelestium\u201d
(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Raw and unprocessed notes from a manuscript, drawn from Allen R. Buskirk\u2019s review of Carl Sagan,\u00a0The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark<\/em>, which appeared \u2014 back during my reign of terror as editor of the FARMS Review<\/em>, a time of evil, viciousness, and fear when that journal published nothing but lies and mean-spirited ad hominem<\/em> attacks \u2014 in\u00a0FARMS Review<\/em>\u00a017\/1 (2005): 273\u2013309 as\u00a0Allen R. Buskirk, \u201cScience, Pseudoscience, and Religious Belief\u201d:<\/p>\n

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Contemporary science often requires that we ignore the evidence provided by our own eyes in favor of abstract theories. \u00a0(\u201cWho are you going to believe?\u201d goes the old joke about a quick witted scamp. \u00a0\u201cMe, or your lying eyes?\u201d) \u00a0How many have ever seen a quark or a muon or even an electron? \u00a0What evidence do we really have, speaking of us personally or individually, that the earth orbits the sun?\u00a0 To the human eye, it appears that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, while the solid earth,\u00a0terra firma<\/em>, remains motionless and at rest.\u00a0 What sensory data tell us that the earth revolves annually around the sun?\u00a0 None.\u00a0 Which is why ancient peoples universally \u2014 and, on the whole, understandably and reasonably \u2014 held to a geocentric view of the universe.\u00a0 But then along came Copernicus (1476-1543), arguing that, in fact, it is the earth that moves around the sun.\u00a0 Which should take precedence?\u00a0 Theory, or common sense and what we can see with our own eyes?\u00a0 Galileo (1564-1642) once expressed his admiration for Copernicus on the grounds that Copernicus let \u201creason so conquer sense that, in defiance of the latter, the former became the mistress of his mind.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 In other words, Galileo admired precisely the fact that Copernicus permitted\u00a0theoretical principles to override the data presented by his senses.\u00a0 But the surprising truth is that the weight of the actual evidence both in Copernicus\u2019s time and \u2014 in part anyway \u2014 in Galileo\u2019s time some years later, was against Copernicus\u2019s proposal. \u00a0That is why the Dane Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), the greatest astronomical observer of his era and, arguably, the greatest in world history to that point, never fully bought into the Copernican model of the sun and its satellites. \u00a0It was not until approximately sixty years after Copernicus\u2019s death that the data were on hand to begin to vindicate his heliocentric model of the solar system.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0Cited in Steven Shapin,\u00a0The Scientific Revolution<\/em>\u00a0(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 93. \u00a0[see original]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOn ignoring the evidence of our eyes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/03\/72124.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On ignoring the evidence of our eyes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    I do not know what I may appear to the world; 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