But that is just hand-waving and spouting off about topics we have vague understanding of. What is this gravity you speak of and how do you prove it has any sort of effect on things like planets and stars? I don't think you'd have any idea where to even start. I'm not being critical. I don't think I could *prove* the sun was at the center. I don't know how I would prove it using astronomy (but it is certainly posible, and that would be easiest). You're going to need to be versed in a TON of mathematics and physics to even begin to start proving gravitational theory (and by proving it; I don't even mean from scratch... I just mean understanding and explaining the proofs that have been worked out). So your explanation of why the sun is the center is about equivalent to an evolutionist "proving" evolution by saying "Well it has to be evolution because of genetics. And changes in the code were passed on via natural selection or something?"
after general relativity, the idea was that gravity was a distortion in spacetime. i believe that has since fallen away to hypothetical particles.
what gravity is, has yet to be fully discovered, but the effects are very much measurable and can be described quite well by newtonian physics for a lot of applications.
here's how to prove the sun goes around the earth...
by way of astronomy, we can chart our progress in the solar system. the earth-centric models do not come close to replicating the what is actually going on. you can use geometry to show that the earth is moving, where is star A, in june vs it's position in september?
after we've proven that the earth moves, then we can say at the very least, that it's quite possible that the earth moves around the sun, or the move around each other, etc.
going back to charting the progress of noteable stars and planets, the reality of the stars, moon and planets' progress throughout the year suggest that these things are most certainly NOT revolving around the earth.
using the heliocentric model, all of a sudden, reality and theory meet in holy matrimony. the fact that we can predict the positions of the stars and planets based on the heliocentric models lend further proof that the earth goes around the sun and our ability to navigate the solar system when shooting off scientific instruments lends further credibility.
onething to note is that the orbits are not perfectly circular. the heliocentric models did not support that, they were close but not perfect. i believe it was tycho brahe (i probably butchered his name) that put forth the idea that the orbits were elliptical and i THINK he and gallileo worked together or at least talked on occasion about their respective work with gravity and it's application to the solar models.
essentially, the closer we are to the sun, the faster the earth moves, much like water circling the drain. this is supported by parallax measurements.
as far as evolution, genetics IS the key mechanism, with room for disturbances such as radiation events, natural disasters (which would wipe out certain genetic features/animals and plants), etc.
we can offer detailed descriptions and short sweet descriptions. we can also sit down and work out the math and logic to prove x,y,z. all of that is a lot of time and work. that's what people go to school for. in lecture, you learn the proofs for all of this stuff. if night owl truly wanted to learn, rather than remain ignorant to science, he/she would have to spend the time, money and effort to learn these proofs. i'm not sure why night owl feels entitled to demanding anyone force feed him/her information in such an arrogant way when everyone else has gone through the trouble to learn this stuff for themselves?
