I don't believe Copernicus and Galileo and Newton and every common man alive today. Church for the win. Heck, the Sun goes around the Earth. I see it everyday. When it comes close, its summer, when its far, its winter. The Earth is the centre. And I snort in derision when you tell me the Earth rotates around its own axis. I am right here, sitting still, not feeling dizzy.
Recently, my University (yes, I'm in university now) took us to the IUCAA, Pune, an Astronomy centre, for a lecture on the Sun (which goes around the earth), preceded as well as succeeded by a visit to the "Foucault Pendulum". To see first hand, how the pendulum shifts as the earth rotates. Confused?
Look this up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum
In essence, the Foucault Pendulum is simply a long pendulum which is, by some mechanism, made to oscillate without any damping. The Principle is that the plane of oscillation of the pendulum doesn't change even as the earth rotates, thus creating the illusion that the pendulum has changed its orientation of rotation but in fact it is the Earth under the pendulum that has rotated.
Scandalous! Absolutely PREPOSTEROUS!
Despite being educated in a "Helio-Centric Model" of the Solar System since I can remember, my mind still sniffs something devious at work when I see the pendulum changing its orientation. (Oops, the pendulum staying there and earth going round).
Of course, I'm a practical man. I'm studying pure science, I had better believe that the Earth goes around the Sun. I still feel there's something dark at play. Some witch-craft. Somebody's propaganda.
If the idea that the pendulum stays there and the whole building and the floor moves after a lecture of an hour and a half is so very indigestible to my mind, I can't imagine what the men of the time must have felt when Galileo and Copernicus propounded that the Sun is the centre. You almost sympathise with the desire of the people to burn them alive. For corrupting the minds of the public.
It is indeed to their credit, that not only did they dare to think what they saw was false and misleading, which is itself a result of great insight and probably unparalleled genius, but they actually had the bloody guts to tell the people what they felt. The balls to go public with their views. They were probably unaware of the sensitivity of what they were saying. Unaware that the truth could injure all those who believed their eyes.
Today, nearly half a millennium later, when humanity is daring to go to other planets regularly, when there exist massive machines worth billions and billions simply to help us discover what is inside the nucleus, when theories that claim to explain everything, every single thing are being devised, we still are repelled by the idea of believing something our eyes don't tell us.
They saw it then.