http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/science/geochallenge.htm

Granted, using any accepted law (i.e. Newton's Laws of Motion) is likely to not be accepted, but have fun.

I get the feeling that this is a parody site. If it's not......wow.

Wow, not only do you have to have a testable model to show that the Earth revolves around the sun, but you have to prove that your model is the ONLY possible model. That is, your model has to show that any other conceivable model is wrong... that's a tall task. I think it is very likely that nobody will be able to win the $1000, not because heliocentrism is false, but because the scope of the project is massive.

That and they seem a little bias towards geocentrism, and they're the judge and jury.

I'm pretty sure that it is NOT a parody.

whadya mean the catholic church is a parody

Nope, it's not a parody. This site is infamous for their radical views and general condemning of anything that isn't directly "explained" in the Bible.

http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics ... icreed.htm
It looks like they are of the thinking that if the Bible doesn't say explicitly that its true, then it cant be true.


I'm pretty sure that they would call Newton's Laws of Motion indirect means of persuasion, as they already say they won't take a mathematical proof. Which also means that you can't use Occam's Razor as part of explanation for why the Sun is the center of the solar system.

Alright, I got it. Take a video camera to the next galaxy and film the earth and sun for one year. How much better proof can you get?

For the win.

Is the above (first) link dead for everyone else?

-jsn

It wasn't half an hour ago, but it is now apparently.

Wow.... I ran across something like that at one point. I really don't understand why anyone would believe that geocentrism is how things work. Of course, from a fixed rotating reference frame of a point at the center of rotation of the earth, the whole universe does revolve around the point. But, that is a moot point because from ANY fixed(or should I say rotating) axis frame, everything spins around it.

My point is, the Bible doesn't even point toward geocentrism. It uses phrases like 'the sun came up' or 'the sun went down' or 'the sun stopped in its motion across the sky'(all paraphrased). It was written to common people from a time range of ~3500-4000 years ago to 1900 years ago. We still very commonly use the same imagery today. So, the 'apologists' in favor of geocentrism, in my opinion (and pretty much everyone else's) are being rediculous, even from a contextual standpoint in the Bible

So here's my feelings (again).

Let's just say that the Universe works in some way, the probability of the Universe working is 1. Now, let us say that ANY and ALL explanations of how the Universe works each have their own probability, each with probability greater than 0. Some of the explanations have higher probability than others (geocentrism definitely has a higher probability than the Universe being sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure). So, CAI is proposing that one must PROVE that the probability of any explanation other than heliocentrism is exactly 0.

So when they say "we at CAI don't think anyone CAN prove it" they are most definitely correct. I don't think that anyone will ever be able to flawlessly prove the workings of the Universe. They'll keep their insufficient $1000 prize, and they'll be happy to tell the world that "nobody in the world can prove heliocentrism"... likewise, nobody in the world can prove geocentrism. They'll be happy to take geocentrism on faith.

I personally believe that due to the evidence at hand, heliocentrism has a higher probability than geocentrism. I also believe that the CAI is right about how the challenge affects the view of modern man. I mean, we have to remember that many years ago the most scientific minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat (now disproven, unless you trust the Flat Earthers), that lead could be turned into gold by simple chemical reactions, and spontaneous generation (you know, rain + ground = new worms, because you see the most worms after a rain storm). I'm willing to concede that we could be wrong about heliocentrism.

On a gramatical note, you'd think that such an organization proposing such a lofty challenge to fly in the face of science, would proofread/spellcheck their document. They use "effect" or "effects" 5 times, when they really want to say "affect" or "affects" (yes, there IS a difference, they ARE different words, and it's a pet peeve of mine when people use them incorrectly)... I already sent them an email about it, let's see what they say.




Note that the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI.

copernicus already proved this, is he getting the money?
for real

No, because Copernicus didn't really prove anything, he just said that, given the current (ptolemaic) system, sticking the sun in the middle and making the planets revolve around it is a lot simpler than saying that the earth is in the center and everything else moves around it somewhat erratically.
See here for more
Also, no one can prove that heliocentrism is the only possible system, which is what is being asked for.