What is an example of a scientific theory?
The Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system is good example of how these guidelines show it to be a scientific theory. For the purpose of a providing a simpler explanation for the movement of the planets, Nicolaus Copernicus suggested that the Sun rather than the Earth is the center of what was then thought to be the universe. Two of the many strong points of the Copernican model were that it gave a logical explanation for the phases of the Moon and the apparent retrograde motion of Mars as seen from the Earth. Yet like many scientific truths it was unsetting to many people to think that the Earth is not the center of the universe so more evidence was needed before it could be accepted. At this point the Copernican model would be considered a strong hypothesis rather than being a theory. It was only much later when the philosopher Giordano Bruno promoted its merits throughout Europe and the scientists Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler provided the additional evidence that w
