Tags: solar systems, stars
Categories: Pseudo-explanations
An historical example of apparent teleology (the stars are there for some unknown purpose) in scientific writing.
"The same reasoning which places the stars at such immeasurable remoteness, exalts them at the same time into glorious bodies, similar to, and even far surpassing, our own sun, the centres perhaps of other planetary systems, or fulfilling purposes of which we can have no idea, from any analogy in what passes immediately around us."
Sir John Frederick William Herschel
Herschel, J. F. W. (1830). Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.
Read about teleology in science
Read examples of teleological (pseudo)explanations for scientific phenomena
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