Geocentrism

This debate should have been called “Galactocentrism” but alas, it's too late to change the title now. It was clarified in Round 1 however, so it shouldn't be a problem that I'm arguing for galactocentrism and not geocentrism. Unscientific Prejudice Against Galactocentrism Over the past century, mainstream science has consistently demonstrated prejudice against galactocentrism, the idea that the Milky Way holds a uniquely special place in the universe. This is due to the culture following the rejection of geocentrism, as well as the prevailing ideology. In the 60s, Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, explained: “I suspect that the assumption of uniformity of the universe reflects a prejudice born of a sequence of overthrows of geocentric ideas[...] It would be embarrassing to find, after stating that we live in an ordinary planet about an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy, that our place in the universe is extraordinary[...] To avoid embarrassment we cling to the hypothesis of uniformity.”(1) This assumption of uniformity is, by definition, not supported by observation. Mainstream science has abandoned the possibility of galactocentrism on ideological grounds, as Stephen Hawking plainly admitted in 1960: “[W]e are not able to make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology.”(2) In 1996, Hawking clarifies: “[I]f we observe all other galaxies moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe. There is, however, an alternative explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too[...] We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption.” (3)(emphasis mine) This unwarranted prejudice against the resolution of this debate can be traced back to 1937, when Edwin Hubble wrote: “The assumption of uniformity has much to be said in its favour. If the distribution were not uniform, it would [increase or decrease with distance]. But we would not expect to find a distribution in which the density increases[...] symmetrically in all directions. Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central earth. The hypothesis cannot be disproved but it is unwelcome[...]”(4)(emphasis mine) Now that I've shown ideological assumptions, and not scientific observation, is the root of modern prejudice against galactocentrism, let me move on to the empirical evidence in favor of the resolution. Waning Density The farther one travels away from our galaxy, the less dense the distribution of galaxies becomes. This is depicted clearly an image constructed from data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (and edited by myself to illustrate our location in the center). The Milky Way is in the center of the image, and the colored particles represent galaxies: (5) Obviously, our galaxy is in the center of the universe. It's the only plausible explanation for why the other galaxies are arranged around us like that. Concentric Density Spheres If that wasn't enough, the density is roughly arranged into concentric spheres around our galaxy, as can be observed in these chart (also compiled from SLOAN survey data, with the 2nd edited by myself for clarity): (6) Fingers of God This is the phenomenon where clusters of stellar objects are arranged in an oblong cluster that points towards our galaxy, as seen in this chart compiled from The CfA Redshift Survey data: (7) Interestingly, my source for this chart demonstrates that same, unscientific prejudice towards galactocentrism when it says the following: “We should know by now that we are not privileged observers, thus this effect must be unphysical.” Restated, their argument is this: P1: We should know by now we aren't privileged observers. P2: Evidence shows we actually are privileged observers. C1: The evidence is an illusion. This is absurd reasoning, and not scientific. It's obvious that if gigantic, stellar formations are “pointing the finger” at our location, our location is the center of the universe. (1) Feynman, R.P., Morinigo, F.B. and Wagner, W.G., Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, Penguin Books, London, 1999. (2) Hawking et al., The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1973. (3) Hawking, S.W., The Illustrated A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, 1996. (4) http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu... (5) http://space.mit.edu... (6) http://www.sdss.org... (7) http://astro.berkeley.edu...