How did the Scientific Method lead from a transition of an Earth Centric view to a Heliocentric view of the Universe?

Answer 1

Nothing in science is ever "settled". There are no final answers. Every bit of new information that comes to light may cause us to realize that one or many of our previous theories about science is incorrect, and we frequently have to go back and start over.

Aristotle said that everything revolved around the Earth in perfect circles. (Aristotle may have been the wrong-est person in the history of the Earth!) Over the course of the next 1600 years, astronomers made more and more accurate observations of the heavens and came to realize that nothing travels in circles, and the Earth wasn't at the center.

The "scientific method" is simple.

1. Observe the world around you.

2. Try to understand how it works.

3. Using your understanding, make one or more predictions about the next thing that you might discover.

4. Devise an experiment and see if your prediction is accurate.

5. Go back to step 1 and repeat, infinitely.

Answer 2

The basis of the "scientific method" is to observe what's happening, try to come up with an explanation, use this explanation to make a prediction, and check the prediction to see if it works. If your predictions are accurate, then you probably understand the explanation; if your predictions are incorrect, then your explanation is wrong.

Astronomers looking at the skies tried to calculate how the planets, Moon and stars would move. When they based their calculations on the assumption that the Sun went around the Earth, then none of the predictions seemed to work for very long. When they based their calculations on the idea of a Sun-centered system, and then based on the idea of elliptical motion in the orbits, then the predictions matched observation.