Quote:There are about 200 billion galaxies in the universe, consisting of nearly 200 billion stars in each. Most of these stars have planets, and most of those planets have satellites. All of these heavenly bodies move in very precisely computed orbits. For millions of years, each has been "swimming" along in its own orbit in perfect harmony and order with all the others. Moreover, many comets also move along in the orbits determined for them.
Well, I can say one thing as an astronomy hobbyist and as one who has taken college courses on it : The celestial bodies do not move in "perfect harmony and order with all the others".
Last time I checked, asteroid and comet collisions are not "perfect harmony". The orbits also undergo precession ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_precession ) , and their gravity may interfere with each other, and orbital paths may cross such as Neptune and Pluto. Don't forget that not everything is in a "perfect" orbit, many things are not perfectly aligned with the ecliptic plane, and some captured satellites move in backwards orbits. Don't forget that Uranus is practically rolling around the sun instead of spinning like a tilted top. This is thought to be due to a large collision at some point in its history.
That's hardly PERFECT, very good, perhaps, but not perfect. And the reason it is so good today is that the solar system has been around for billions of years, and most of the major collisions between bodies has happened, the planets have largely cleared their orbital paths, etc. It's an example of a self-organizing system in nature. Creationists LOVE to say that systems cant organize themselves in nature. Then you quip back that the laws of nature allow for it, then they say "Where did the laws of nature come from", and they give you this dumb look like you started speaking Aramaic when you say "The laws of nature are not given laws, the speed of light isn't a cosmic speed limit. The laws of nature are descriptive of what we observe, not prescriptive, and are open to change."
Now, as far as
Quote:"By the sky full of paths and orbits."
(The Qur'an, 51:7)
Even in an Earth centered cosmology, they still thought that the planets, etc, might rotate around the Earth. They didn't think the Earth itself was spinning, instead everything else is.
As another poster said, these things are as vague as anything Nostradamus said, and some of these ideas had already been floating around. Calling an astronomical measurement of orbital speed precise is like measuring the height of someone and being astounded that "they are EXACTLY 6 feet tall! Who would have guessed my accurate measuring tape would yield precise results!?" or being slack jawed that an officer measured you going exactly 6 miles over the speed limit.
