Fred Hoyle spoke about Ptolemy as being too smart to accept the heliocentric view, considering all he new in his time.
Hoyle wrote this 50 years ago.
OTOH Hoyle was controversial himself. Some of his theories were very wrong, some were less wrong. I couldn’t swallow his idea that the oil glued planets together. He was very against the view on oil as a biological product. Fine, but gluing the planets is too weird.
Yes, the history of science is more messy then one might think.
Fred Hoyle spoke about Ptolemy as being too smart to accept the heliocentric view, considering all he new in his time.
Hoyle wrote this 50 years ago.
OTOH Hoyle was controversial himself. Some of his theories were very wrong, some were less wrong. I couldn’t swallow his idea that the oil glued planets together. He was very against the view on oil as a biological product. Fine, but gluing the planets is too weird.
Yes, the history of science is more messy then one might think.