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== Copernican Revolution ==

== Copernican Revolution ==

Copernicus's book title used the word "revolution" in the sense of planets revolving around the Sun, not in the sense of an intellectual revolt. In the late 20th century, the term Copernican Revolution has come to mean the prototypical [paradigm shift], where scientists suddenly became enlightened by rejecting the prejudices of their predecessors.

Copernicus's book title used the word "revolution" in the sense of planets revolving around the Sun, not in the sense of an intellectual revolt. In the late 20th century, the term Copernican Revolution has come to mean the prototypical [[paradigm shift]], where scientists suddenly became enlightened by rejecting the prejudices of their predecessors.

In fact the Copernican theory was no more accurate than the Ptolemaic model. It had no compelling physical arguments for its superiority, and it proposed no experiments for testing its novel features. Some people claim that it was aesthetically superior because it eliminated epicycles, but it actually had about the same number of epicycles as the Ptolemaic model. Many of the ancient Greek arguments for and against [heliocentrism] remained unresolved.

In fact the Copernican theory was no more accurate than the Ptolemaic model. It had no compelling physical arguments for its superiority, and it proposed no experiments for testing its novel features. Some people claim that it was aesthetically superior because it eliminated epicycles, but it actually had about the same number of epicycles as the Ptolemaic model. Many of the ancient Greek arguments for and against [heliocentrism] remained unresolved.