Top all-time · #2281
The TOF Spot
Personal blog · tofspot.blogspot.comsciencephilosophy
The TOF Spot is a personal blog at tofspot.blogspot.com about science and philosophy. Since 2011, 34 different Hacker News readers have linked it 116 times, most often “The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown (2013)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-09-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Often recommended · 18 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Mike Flynn's blog, best known for the nine-part 'The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown' on the Galileo affair and the geocentric versus heliocentric debate. Commenters cite it on Galileo, Copernicus and early astronomy.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The OFloinn's random thoughts on science fiction, philosophy, statistical analysis, sundry miscellany, and the Untergang des Abendlandes
Most-linked posts?
- The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown (2013)10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2014-09-16
- /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html7 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2019-06-15
- /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2014-01-23
- /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-04-05
- The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown: From Plausible to Proven4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-05-13
- /2014/11/first-way-part-iv-cascades.html3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2023-07-24
- /2015/02/hypatia-part-i-mean-streets-of-old.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-02-24
What Hacker News says?
Confident predictions regarding climate change over the past 100 or so years[0] [0] https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.ht...
Comment linking /2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.html
on “Coronavirus and Credibility”Submitted The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown (2013) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSo what do we do about all of the doom and gloom climate predictions of the past that failed to materialize[0]? If something has changed about either the science or the media reporting of scientific results, what evidence do lay folk have that this is the case? [0] https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.ht...
Comment linking /2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.html
on “Coronavirus and Credibility”Submitted Post-Darwinian Evolution as a story · 3 points
HN discussionPtolemaic cosmology was hardly a bad idea. It was the simplest model that fit the available evidence for a long time. The Heliocentric model didn't really make sense until Newton's theory of gravitation was developed. https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-sma...
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Open Letter to the Linux Foundation”Submitted Michael F. Flynn has died as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMy "interpretation" of the situation comes mostly from http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Have you read this perspective before? Is it a well known "oh not this again" incorrect source in the world of renaissance italy theology and history?
Comment linking /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
on “I can't let go of “The Dunning-Kruger Effect is Autocorrelation””Submitted The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown: From Plausible to Proven as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGalileo didn't really do a good job of proving the heliocentric view though. His advocacy of it was based more on aesthetics than observations. There was a great look at this in an article called "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown and Down 'n Dirty Mud-Wrassle" in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Analog. The author has an expanded version on his blog here [1]. [1] http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac...
Comment linking /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
on “Joe Rogan, confined to Spotify, is losing influence”Submitted The importance of Geography as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe best article I know if http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... As mentioned by another user below. The story in that link is really a great read. However, I'm unable to tell you how accurate or complete that account is.
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious”Submitted The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown (2013) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMike Flynn has a very long and detailed story of Galileo and more generally geocentrism vs. heliocentrism at http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Among the things I learned: * The Copernican model had more epicycles than the Ptolemaic * Galileo thought tides were caused by those same epicycles.
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious”Submitted Numbers, We Got Numbers as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> My perspective is that atheism is not a lack of worship, but a lack of faith. Can you define what you mean by "faith"? * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z4wKCsD59Q * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4PSgFjtvI > Faith requires you suspend critical thinking on a predetermined set of claims. People like Thomas Aquinas would disagree. * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-... * https://www.go…
Comment linking /2014/07/first-way-some-background.html
on “Choose your status game wisely”Submitted Medieval SF as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIf you have a few hours to kill, page through this: https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-sma...
Comment linking /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
on “YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke”Submitted The Triumph of Education as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe best source which I've read that corrects the myths behind the Galileo affair was written by science-fiction author Michael F. Flynn. The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-sma...
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Novelty and Heresy”> In college I took a great "Philosophy of Physics" class, where on the first day the professor asked everyone to write one page on whether the Earth revolves around the sun, and the final project was another paper on the same topic, so we could see how nuanced a question it was and how our views had evolved over the course. A lengthy and enjoyable read of the original controversy is "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown."…
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Technically, Earth Does Not Orbit Around the Sun (2014)”You should read more about Gallileo. He was wrong in many ways, and it's entirely likely that he was punished for his tendency to be a jerk as much as anything else. Actually, the analogy isn't half bad, come to think... http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac...
Comment linking /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
on “Shame Storm”> Copernican revolution The guy who did the hard work was Kepler. Copernicus's model of the solar system was just idle speculation. Also widely off the mark (it had epicycles, lots of thyem, twice as many as the Ptolemaic model [1]). Kepler sifted through the mountains of astronomical observations made by Tycho Brahe over many decades, and used the latest cutting edge math tools available (logarithms) to come up wit…
Comment linking /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
on “It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end”> Context: Galileo was the first person to see with his own eyes with his first of the kind self-made telescope the moons that are today known as Galilean moons and recognized them as the satellites of Jupiter in March 1610. Which was not evidence for heliocentrism. In the early 1600s there were seven models floating around: Heraclidean (geo-heliocentric), Ptolemaic, Copernican (heliocentric, pure circles with lots…
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Salt and salary: Were Roman soldiers paid in salt? (2017)”Hypatia was a Neoplatonist who lived in Alexandria in the late Roman Empire. Egypt had been integrated into the Roman sphere for centuries at that time. If "Western" implies a connection with the Greco-Roman tradition, which it often does, then Hypatia certainly seems to fit that. The modern notion of the "Middle East" being distinct from "the West" was less strong at that time because the Western world was more of…
Comment linking /2015/02/hypatia-part-i-mean-streets-of-old.html
on “‘Hypatia’ Stone Contains Compounds Not Found in the Solar System”I'm not trying to be facetious, but: Skepticism is a core quality of being a scientist. Is something I'm skeptical about (if we all end up learning something here, I'll definitely appreciate the irony ... also I'm happier with your "a core" than I would be if you had said "the core"). Anyway, I just got done reading [1] and found it interesting that Galileo's biggest advantages as a scientist were that he could grin…
Comment linking /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
on “I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views”Galileo's problems weren't due to his findings and theories going against the current consensus. Galileo's problems were a combination of: 1. His heliocentric theory wasn't actually noticeably better at explaining observations than the current geocentric theories. Galileo, like the Church, believed in a universe intelligently designed by an all-powerful God, and he believed that said God would of course choose laws…
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change”Here's a collection of quotes from major news publications over the past 100 years related to climate change: https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.ht...
Comment linking /2010/10/goosey-goosey-gander.html
on “How climate change is melting, drying and flooding Earth – in pictures”> The universe became conscious in the form of humans and asked ‘who made me?’ Or, more subtly, " who is making me? ": > Distinction: A sequence of changers can be ordered essentially or accidentally. These are called per se and per accidens sequences. > A sequence is ordered accidentally if each changer in the sequence possesses the power to change another regardless whether any prior changer is still acting. For e…
Comment linking /2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-lemmas-make-lemma.html
on “The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals”Here is a great write-up on the subject of the transition to the heliocentric model: https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-sma... One key element is that heliocentric models where just not as good at making predictions. It took new data for them to finally get to a dominating position.
Comment linking /2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
on “Researchers home in on possible “day zero” for Antikythera mechanism”There's an interesting series called the Great Ptolemaic Smackdown that charts one of the more prominent examples (i.e., the Copernican/Galilean revolution): https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-sma...
Comment linking /2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
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