Whoa, I missed this entirely. I just recognized the quote that Tom Bishop gave from Copernicus.
Tom gave this quote from Copernicus as evidence that Copernicus admitted that his system was merely an assumption and incapable of demonstration:
"It is not necessary that hypotheses should be true, or even probable; it is sufficient that they lead to results of calculation which agree with calculation. Neither let anyone, so far as hypotheses are concerned, expect anything certain from astronomy, since that science can afford nothing of the kind, lest, in case he should adopt for truth, things feigned for another purpose, he should leave this science more foolish than he came. The hypothesis of the terrestrial motion was nothing but an hypothesis, valuable only so far as it explained phenomena, and not considered with reference to absolute truth or falsehood."
The problem is that
Copernicus never said this. I recognize this quote from Copernicus' book "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium."
This quote was added
after the book was finished by the Lutheran Minister Andreas Osiander, to whom the publication had been entrusted. Oceander was what we call scientific instrumentalist, and felt that science was incapable of uncovering true causes.
But if you read the rest of the book, it is clear that Copernicus was what we called a scientific realist, and believed the exact opposite of what the quote claims.