What To Do, Scientifically, When Everyone Is Wrong

When one faction asserts “A” while another insists on “B,” it’s worth considering that all parties might be mistaken.

One of the primary obstacles to uncovering scientific truth is the creation of a false dichotomy. For many years, cosmologists debated the expansion rate of the Universe: one group posited a range of 50–55 km/s/Mpc based on certain data, while another suggested 90–100 km/s/Mpc from a different perspective. Following the pivotal discoveries made by the Hubble Space Telescope, it has become clear that neither estimate is correct. Although there remains some debate over the precise figure, the generally accepted rate lies between 67–74 km/s/Mpc.

In this case, nearly everyone was incorrect, yet few dared to propose an alternative outside these established ranges. Even amid significant contention — where neither position could satisfactorily account for all evidence — scientists, who are meant to be impartial, often picked sides. However, we need not succumb to such thinking. A better approach exists, one demonstrated by Johannes Kepler nearly 400 years ago, and here’s a narrative you may not be familiar with.

For countless millennia, humanity gazed at the sky, captivated by a few luminous objects that behaved differently than the fixed stars. While stars twinkled and maintained their positions relative to each other, five celestial bodies moved independently, earning the title of "wanderers." These planets did not twinkle and instead seemed to shift across the night sky from one evening to the next.

This movement was not straightforward. Typically, planets drifted slightly eastward each night, but at times they would slow down, reverse their course, and then resume their eastward path. This phenomenon, known as retrograde motion, was a significant focus of ancient astronomical studies.

Around 2000 years ago, a successful explanation for this behavior emerged: the geocentric model. If one positioned Earth at the center, it could be imagined that the Moon, planets, and even stars revolved around our stationary planet. However, what about the shapes of their orbits?

Due to preconceived notions — not supported by evidence — it was assumed that these orbits must be circular, as circles seemed the only logical shape. However, perfect circles did not account for observations accurately, leading to the introduction of three concepts:

• A deferent, the large orbital circle for a planet.
• An epicycle, a smaller circle that a planet followed as it moved along the deferent.
• An equant, the point offset from Earth’s true position around which the deferent rotated.

With these mathematical constructs, the planets' movements could be described quite well, but not perfectly. Mars, in particular, often strayed from the model's predictions before realigning. For over a millennium, the geocentric model thrived, needing only minor adjustments over time.

Then, in the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus reintroduced an ancient proposition: perhaps the Sun, not Earth, was the center of the Solar System. This radical idea suggested that Earth was merely another planet, orbiting along with others around the Sun.

The brilliance of this model lay in its ability to explain retrograde motion without invoking epicycles. Instead of a planet genuinely reversing its path, it merely appeared to do so when an inner planet overtook an outer one.

Though Copernicus’s idea was compelling, it came with its challenges. He struggled to accurately predict planetary motions with circular orbits. In his attempts to refine his model, he reintroduced epicycles, yet still could not match the successes of the geocentric framework.

Around 50 years later, Johannes Kepler sought to advance Copernicus’s vision and crafted a remarkable model known as the Mysterium Cosmographicum. In astronomy, six naked-eye planets exist, and in geometry, there are five Platonic solids — the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron.

Kepler envisioned a solar system where each solid was nested within the others, each circumscribed and inscribed by celestial spheres, with each sphere corresponding to a planet's orbit.

Kepler conceived this system in 1595, publishing his findings two years later. Like Copernicus, he explained retrograde motion without the use of epicycles. However, unlike any other models at the time, he provided explicit predictions about the relative distances between planetary orbits, leaving no room for ambiguity. Yet, similar to his predecessors, his predictions did not perfectly align with observed planetary motions, especially for Mars.

At this stage, Kepler had not yet achieved anything groundbreaking. The two prevailing ideas — geocentrism and heliocentrism — suggested planetary movements around either Earth or the Sun in circular patterns. While Kepler’s concept was aesthetically pleasing, it did not present a fundamental departure from earlier models, nor was it more scientifically successful; it failed to match observations as effectively as the best geocentric models.

Here, Kepler made a remarkable leap that we should all recognize. In science, as in life, one of the most difficult tasks is to abandon an idea we hold dear, especially if it originated from our own intellect, in the face of contradicting evidence. It would have been easy for Kepler to resort to fixes like epicycles to salvage his preferred model.

However, Kepler took a different path. He set aside his model and examined two facets of the problem:

1. The observed data, detailing the positions of each planet.
2. The extensive mathematical knowledge at his disposal, offering a variety of possible models to fit the data.

This merging of observation and theory marked a pivotal moment in the evolution of modern science.

After years of meticulous research, Kepler accomplished perhaps the most challenging task of all: he discarded the widely held assumption that governed previous thought. For the first time, he considered planetary motion models based on shapes other than circles. For centuries, astronomers had been captivated by the notion that earthly occurrences were flawed, while celestial phenomena were perfect. Mathematical perfection — circles and regular polygons — was thought to belong exclusively to the heavens, an implicit yet unexamined belief.

Until Kepler, that is, who proposed elliptical orbits. Rather than circling, planets moved in elliptical paths with the Sun located at one focal point. The ratios of their orbital parameters did not adhere to any specific ratios but were determined by internal characteristics, such as speed and distance. With this revolutionary concept, Kepler's model surpassed all others, yielding more accurate predictions than any existing model.

From a scientific standpoint, this serves as a guide for how we aspire for science to function. One encounters a set of data with numerous interpretations, some appearing unconventional or implausible. Each interpretation — every theoretical model aiming to describe the data — should produce outcomes or predictions connected to observable phenomena. A successful model will yield predictions consistent with observations and surpass the previous model in some manner.

Thus, if one seeks to challenge or replace the scientific consensus, three hurdles must be overcome:

1. You must replicate, at least as well as the existing model, all its successful predictions.
2. You need to explain at least one instance where the old model faltered.
3. You must present a novel prediction that differs from the old model’s forecasts, which can then be empirically measured.

In contemporary discussions, many issues in science and society are misrepresented as dichotomies: either the prevalent view or the contrarian perspective held by a select few. Yet history often reveals that this is an oversimplification. Frequently, it is the unconventional, innovative ideas unbound by previous assumptions that lead to significant advancements. In science, adherence to evidence — rather than preconceived notions — is essential for success.

In the 19th century, the scientific community believed that nature operated on deterministic laws, an assumption that impeded progress in quantum mechanics. In the 18th century, a three-dimensional understanding of space was widely accepted, but this constrained advancements in relativity. In the 16th century, the belief that planets followed circular trajectories hampered progress in understanding gravitational forces. Today, there are numerous commonly accepted beliefs. Perhaps reevaluating our long-held assumptions and the false dichotomies they create is precisely what we need to advance our scientific boundaries today.

Starts With A Bang is now on Forbes and is republished on Medium with a seven-day delay. Ethan has authored two books, Beyond The Galaxy and Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive.