>Weren't the ancients nigh-obsessive in attention to
>detail in their astronomy?
>
>After all the
>astronomical theories of the middle ages could account for the facts as
>well as the heliocentric theory. Geocentrism just had to be a little
>more complicated in order to account for the facts.
>
>Joanna
Before modern scientific methods were developed astrology and astronomy overlapped and I'd say that in the middle ages astrology trumped astronomy. Medieval intellectual pursuits were about love and law and poetry, to borrow a phrase from Morrissey. Empirical quantification and measurement were then gleams in the eye of philosophers studying optics and were widwifed by double entry bookkeeping.