On Dec 4, 11:57*pm, oriel36 wrote:
but the
exception to this will always be when the tools of the telescope and
clocks (timekeeping averages) were used to distort and vandalise the
great astronomical achievements for the most spurious of correlations
- that planetary dynamics and structural astronomy can be reduced to
terrestrial ballistics and the behavior of objects at a human and
experimental level.

I realize I seem a nuisance to you, nitpicking at your comments like
this, but here you illustrate what appears to be your fundamental
misconception.

Clock time isn't a "timekeeping average". The 24 hour period of time
which our clocks use as their basic unit of time is a timekeeping
average, developed so that the obvious and basic night and day cycle
by which we live our lives could be approximated by a mechanical
clock, despite the Equation of Time.

But while the size of the scale we use to measure time is a
"timekeeping average", clock time itself isn't one. Just as we can
measure distances in either inches or centimeters, we can measure time
in average 24-hour solar days... or we can use the "sidereal day", and
then we don't have to take an average.

This fact - that the apparent movement of the constellations around
Polaris doesn't need to be averaged to be in step with our mechanical
clocks - tells us that looking at the Earth's rotation in relation to
the constellations is following the right path to greater
understanding.

But you want us to throw all that away. To refuse to ask "why" the
planets move the way they do, to reject the achievement of
demonstrating that the same laws of motion apply to the planets as to
objects on a human scale on Earth. We should, instead, according to
you, be happy to be ignorant, to just speculate and guess with our
intuition - under the supervision of the religious hierarchy.

Some people who are panicked by global warming think the only solution
is to go back to a way of life that involves a massive reduction in
energy use, an abandoning of reliance on technology. The only
palatable solution, instead, is to use technology to shift to clean
and abundant energy sources, including nuclear power.

People won't abandon the modern world even to avert global
catastrophe, so they're not likely to be interested in doing so
because you tell them this will help them appreciate Copernicus
better!

John Savard