Teaching Galileo? Get to know Riccioli! -- What a forgotten Italian astronomer can teach students about how science works
Christopher M. Graney

TL;DR
This paper explores how studying Riccioli, a 17th-century astronomer who supported geocentrism, can help physics students understand the iterative and uncertain nature of scientific progress.
Contribution
It highlights the educational value of teaching about scientists with incorrect theories to illustrate science's evolving and provisional nature.
Findings
Students gain insight into science's non-linear progress
Learning about Riccioli shows science involves revising beliefs based on new evidence
Historical cases of incorrect theories can enhance scientific literacy
Abstract
What can physics students learn about science from those scientists who got the answers wrong? Students encounter little science history, and what they have encountered typically portrays scientists as The People with the Right Answers. But those who got the wrong answers can teach students that in science answers are often elusive -- not found in the back of a book or discovered in a bold stroke of genius. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, a 17th-century astronomer who argued that science supported a geocentric universe, and whose arguments made sense given the knowledge of the time -- is an example of such a person.
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