Ptolemy And Nicolaus Copernicus: The Abuse Of Authority

Authority is power to give orders. In society, people are often led to respect and follow the demands and wishes of people with authority, and not question them. This is what leads to the abuse of authority, the power to change what people think, leading people to believe authority is always correct. However, it is important to question the ideas and decisions of people in positions of authority, as demonstrated by the contrast between Ptolemy and Nicolaus Copernicus on ideas about the movement of planets.

Ptolemy was an influential Greek astronomer and geographer. He created the Geocentric Theory, which states that the Earth is the center of universe and that the sun an other planets orbited the Earth. However, the idea that Earth was the center of the universe was merely an assumption, and never proven. During the Renaissance, European scholars studied ancient Greek works,

including the works of Ptolemy. Thus, these Greek rationalists became authorities on these topics. For 1,400 years, people had accepted these beliefs as facts. As more modern science has proved, this theory is incorrect, and even back then, this theory had very low credibility. Because of the simple fact that the Greek rationalists were authorities, Europeans did not question or even doubt what the Greeks had said, but a discovery led them to think differently.
Nicolaus Copernicus was one of the few people who came to question the Geocentric Theory.

Despite the widespread belief the theory was correct, he still decided to study the movements of the planets. Strangely, Ptolemy’s ideas made less sense to him. Copernicus decided to test a different theory, the idea that the sun was the center of the universe, and the planets orbited the sun instead. After testing his theory, Copernicus’ observations started to make sense. Instead of simply taking in an old idea, Copernicus questioned authority and found the truth. However, the main importance of his discovery was not the idea, but the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, when people started to question the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. Copernicus’ fame and importance in our lives is not because he just found a new discovery, but because of his questioning of authority. Without questioning the ideas or decisions of authority, the people under authority will never correct the unknown issues with authority, and the old ideas assumed to be correct will remain and continue to corrupt

authority.
Authority is never correct all the time. This is why people need to question authority, as Copernicus did to Ptolemy, to correct the faults of authority. Even though authority is source of guidance for many people, people should sometimes consider the morality, credibility, and dependability of authority, and question authority if they believe authority is wrong. The more people question authority, the more likely people will end bad theories, decisions, and ideas.