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Our galactic neighbors will not disappear if we ignore them, in much the same way that the Earth-sun system was under no obligation to satisfy the self-centered notion of geocentrism.

Information-based theories of physics seem like a throwback to geocentrism, which assumed the universe revolves around us.

It is compatible with all sorts of different forms of new knowledge, with the geocentrism of Riccioli as well as the heliocentrism of Copernicus, with Descartes’ denial of a vacuum and Pascal’s acceptance of one, with Newton’s view of uniform space and time and Einstein’s theory of relativity; it does not lead of necessity to any particular type of science.

It is precisely because the Duhem-Quine thesis, so interpreted, cannot handle either the demise of the two spheres theory or of Ptolemaic geocentrism that these crucial historical events have been invisible to those who are convinced of the truth of the thesis.

Sacrobosco retained his position until, after 1611, Ptolemaic geocentrism was no longer intellectually respectable.