@guitarvydas we need a whole separate thread from your comment to nitpick this, just because it is such a fascinating topic for me: > I think of Ptolemaic vs. Copernican cosmology. Galileo championed Copernican cosmology (which raises the question of why don’t we call it Galilean cosmology?). 1. Galileo would never in a million years dream of championing anyone else. He was a renaissance man when it came to self-promotion and exercising privilege. The phrase "Copernican principle" was only coined in the 1950s. 2. In fact, in the early 1600s there were 7 competing models of the cosmos. And Ptolemy's model was still the one to beat! We moderns also know that the errors in it that led people to look for alternatives were in fact caused by transcription errors over 2000 years. 3. Copernicus's model had epicycles! More epicycles than Ptolemy's! 4. The ancients were more aware of the ideas of heliocentrism than we moderns are of the ideas of (strong, empirical) geocentrism. I'm getting all my information from https://web.archive.org/web/20140310031503/http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html, which seems an excellent series.

Science is: (1) create a theory (2) create a falsification of the theory (i.e. state one thing that would destroy the theory). Your (1) is that you think that people in FoC can state in one sentence (or one paragraph) succinctly what problem that they are trying to solve. What is part (2)? What can destroy your theory that FoCers can make sensible problem statements? What if their problems seem to be ill-defined? What if their problems seem to lead in unpopular directions? I think that the epitome of FoC is to think-outside-of-the-box. I think that Galileo did just that but was rewarded with house arrest. You assume that your question leads to honest answers, but, what if it doesn’t? What if responders hold back or can’t express in words what they think that the problem is? What if they aren’t able to verbalize their problem statement(s) - they just “intuit” a problem a chase after it?

Ah, I see. This is now substantive enough to belong back in the main thread 😂 I didn't even think I was formulating a hypothesis there! Empirically I'd say the data has already falsified it to a great extent. At any rate, I think I have strong data now the next time someone bemoans our inability to work together on one project. "Look!" I'll say, "we're in a Tower of Babel situation where we can't even understand each other's words."

Copernicus’s model had epicycles! More epicycles than Ptolemy’s!

I agree. I think that the factor was x2. Today, we generally believe in the Copernican model (championed by Galileo, not by Copernicus, ironically).

Well, the Newtonian model descends from Tycho, who was one of the 7 (but widely ignored, until Kepler put him on the map). Copernicus and Galileo seem like dead ends to me from a cosmological perspective. (Though Copernicus does get credit for a philosophy of the heavens that it took 400 years of hindsight to appreciate. And Galileo did great work using the newly invented telescope.)

Argh - it appears that my earlier response was obliterated due to operator error. I get most of my information from Koestler’s “The Sleep Walkers” and just sitting in front of a telescope at night.

I do see that statement above! And I'm going to read The Sleep Walkers.

Do you know that you can see the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye (no telescope)? If you know where to look? aside: I learned to hate full moons and aurora…

Yes! Sadly there was still too much light pollution where I was near Yosemite Valley to see much of either the Milky Way or Andromeda. But I have seen both during my childhood in India.

Bleah. We bought a cottage at the southern tip of Georgian Bay (Wasaga). At that time, the sky was dark and I immediately bought my first telescope (4" Newtonian - a drop in the bucket relative to the mortgage for the cottage). Now, though light pollution is creeping in and the skies are hazy much of the time. I - once - saw a green flash (I assumed that it was a figment of imagination until I saw one). And, I saw some 700 meteors one night (I was disappointed until I tabulated my notes the next morning).