Consider astronomy one of the most ancient scientific disciplines and known to human

mankind. Observation of stars and planets was well known already to ancient
civilizations, from the Mayan to the Babylonians, as is recorded by historical records
such as astral apes, like this one of Hispano-moresque origin and is Japanese
hemisphere based on a Korean map of the 14th century. The ancient Greek are
developed a very sophisticated astronomical system with Ptolemy in the second century
A.D. In the Ptolemaic system planets moved along orbital shells. This was the simplest
astronomical hypothesis but it required some tweaks to account for some anomalous
phenomena. One of those phenomena are well known already to the ancient Greeks
which is so-called "Retrograde Motion of the Planets". During the course of the year, the
trajectory of any planet in the blue sky at night appeared to form little loops. Now to
explain this loops, Ptolemy assumed that each planet moved along a small circle called
"epicycle" which in turn moved along a larger circle called "deferents", but neither
Ptolemy nor Ptolemaic astronomers believed that epicycles and deferents where
necessarily a true description of planetary motion. There were more like mathematical
contrivances or sophisticated hypotheses that could save the appearances that could
save the upper and motions of planets in the blue sky at night. The French philosopher
Pierre Duhem in a short but very illuminating book which was written at the start of the
twentieth century called "To Save the Phenomena", reconstructs the history of physical
theory from Plato to Galileo and in that book Duhem captures very well the spirit of
ancient Greek astronomy, as that of saving the phenomena. So there are lots of quotes
from, for instance is Simplicius commentary to Aristotle de caelo that nicely captures
this idea that aim of science, the aim of ancient Greek astronomy wasn't really to tell as
a true story about planetary motion but to provide us with a system of hypotheses that
could save the appearances.

So interestingly enough for ancient Greeks the aim of astronomy was not to provide the
true story about planetary motion but just to save the appearances. Not surprisingly in
1543, when Copernicus' book, "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" was published.
The book came out with a letter to the then Pope Paul the third, where Copernicus very
modestly presented his hypotheses as just another hypothesis that could save the
appearances although in a kind of a more promising way than the hypothesis of his
predecessors. This is what Copernicus says in the Court of Duhem, "I began myself to
consider the movement of the earth. It seemed an absurd notion. Yet I knew that my
predecessor had been granted the liberty to imagine all sorts of fictive circles to serve
the celestial phenomena. I therefore thought that I will be similarly granted the right to
experiment to try out whether by assigning a certain movement to the earth. I might be
able to find more solid demonstrations of the revolutions of the celestial spheres than
those left by my predecessors."

Despite the apologetic tone, Copernicus didn't hide too much is belief that there is a
Euro centric hypothesis was more certain that any of the fictitious hypothesis of his
predecessors. Yet Copernicus died at the very same year in which his book was
published. The book came out with an anonymous preface which was very carefully
crafted by someone called Andreas Osiander and the preface somehow mitigated the
spirit of Copernicus work by presenting it as yet another exercise in this world thralldom
tradition of saving the phenomena. "For the astronomer's job consist of the following; to
gather together the history of the celestial movements by means of painstakingly
unskillfully made observations and then to think up or construct whatever hypotheses it
pleases. As such that on their assumption, the self-same movement's, past and future
both, can be calculated by means of the principles of geometry. It is not necessary that
this hypotheses be true. They need not even be likely. This one thing suffices that the
calculation to which they lead agree with the result of observation." No wonder the
publication of Copernicus book didn't set religious authority aflame until almost a
century later when someone else dared to overthrow this received view of astronomy as
just saving the phenomena. And there is to say that the Copernican system was actually
true of the heavens. That person was Galileo Galilei