6 ms·

'anyone who says anything contrary to my point of view shouldn't be able to put their opinion forward!'

cryptoz 10y ago
Who are you quoting there? Certainly not me. I merely said that I'm sad. Not that certain people should be banned from speaking. Also, the reality of climate change isn't a "point of view" any more than saying that "the earth orbits the sun" is a point of view.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Well, technically, "the earth orbits the sun" is precisely nothing more than a "point of view" (or a choice of reference frame, if you wish). The laws of physics tell us it's an arbitrary (though very convenient) choice, and you are free to make any other choice you like, such as "the sun and the planets all orbit the earth". Poor analogy, I guess?
  - VikingCoder 10y ago
    Actually, it IS more than that, because it fits the current models better, and the current models have remarkable predictive power. Whereas "the sun and the planets all orbit the earth" has astonishingly little predictive power.
    - dsp1234 10y ago
      Whereas "the sun and the planets all orbit the earth" has astonishingly little predictive power. Not a geocentrist myself, but it did have good predictive power. "To summarize, Ptolemy devised a system that was compatible with Aristotelian philosophy and managed to track actual observations and predict future movement mostly to within the limits of the next 1000 years of observations. The observed motions and his mechanisms for explaining them include:"[0] Obviously not as good as current models, but it's a bit of historical rewriting to say that geocentrism wasn't a good model for the time, which is one part of why there was push back for heliocentrism. With the tools of the time, the heliocentric model had similar predictive power. Geocentrism at the time wasn't just about god, it actually had predictive power. "He also argued that his system was more elegant than the traditional geocentric system. However, the predictive power of his model was not substantially better than its competition."[1] [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model [1] - http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast105/Ast105week04.html http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast105/Ast105week04.html
      - VikingCoder 10y ago
        Those models predicted the orbits of the planets because they had been fitted precisely to them - and explained only them; but the models did not and could not predict anything else about gravity, or the motions of other bodies. Had Jupiter's moons been visible to them, their motion would have confounded their model entirely. Also, "The change from circular orbits to elliptical planetary paths dramatically improved the accuracy of celestial observations and predictions." Your own link says the predictive power was "dramatically improved."
  - Etzos 10y ago
    Saying that the earth orbits the sun is actually a bit more than just a choice in reference frame. When you have two bodies (or more, although it gets more complicated) orbiting where one is significantly larger you can end up with a center of mass of the two objects (barycenter) which will be inside of the larger object. So from either reference frame the barycenter can determine that the smaller object is orbiting larger object. So while it's true that you can work the equation from either reference frame defining each as orbiting the other, the center of mass will more than likely lie in or closer to one or the other, and with that you can define which is orbiting the other canonically.

Who are you quoting there? Certainly not me. I merely said that I'm sad. Not that certain people should be banned from speaking. Also, the reality of climate change isn't a "point of view" any more than saying that "the earth orbits the sun" is a point of view.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Well, technically, "the earth orbits the sun" is precisely nothing more than a "point of view" (or a choice of reference frame, if you wish). The laws of physics tell us it's an arbitrary (though very convenient) choice, and you are free to make any other choice you like, such as "the sun and the planets all orbit the earth". Poor analogy, I guess?
- VikingCoder 10y ago
  Actually, it IS more than that, because it fits the current models better, and the current models have remarkable predictive power. Whereas "the sun and the planets all orbit the earth" has astonishingly little predictive power.
  - dsp1234 10y ago
    Whereas "the sun and the planets all orbit the earth" has astonishingly little predictive power. Not a geocentrist myself, but it did have good predictive power. "To summarize, Ptolemy devised a system that was compatible with Aristotelian philosophy and managed to track actual observations and predict future movement mostly to within the limits of the next 1000 years of observations. The observed motions and his mechanisms for explaining them include:"[0] Obviously not as good as current models, but it's a bit of historical rewriting to say that geocentrism wasn't a good model for the time, which is one part of why there was push back for heliocentrism. With the tools of the time, the heliocentric model had similar predictive power. Geocentrism at the time wasn't just about god, it actually had predictive power. "He also argued that his system was more elegant than the traditional geocentric system. However, the predictive power of his model was not substantially better than its competition."[1] [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model [1] - http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast105/Ast105week04.html http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast105/Ast105week04.html
    - VikingCoder 10y ago
      Those models predicted the orbits of the planets because they had been fitted precisely to them - and explained only them; but the models did not and could not predict anything else about gravity, or the motions of other bodies. Had Jupiter's moons been visible to them, their motion would have confounded their model entirely. Also, "The change from circular orbits to elliptical planetary paths dramatically improved the accuracy of celestial observations and predictions." Your own link says the predictive power was "dramatically improved."
- Etzos 10y ago
  Saying that the earth orbits the sun is actually a bit more than just a choice in reference frame. When you have two bodies (or more, although it gets more complicated) orbiting where one is significantly larger you can end up with a center of mass of the two objects (barycenter) which will be inside of the larger object. So from either reference frame the barycenter can determine that the smaller object is orbiting larger object. So while it's true that you can work the equation from either reference frame defining each as orbiting the other, the center of mass will more than likely lie in or closer to one or the other, and with that you can define which is orbiting the other canonically.