Who Were the Sea Peoples?

Stark ( Bearing False Witness ) seems to think that Copernicus had to introduce “loops” (epicycles) into the planets' circular orbits to get the orbital period correct: “it would not do for the earth to circle the sun in only three hundred days” (151). This is silly: one can always change the diameter or speed of a circular orbit in one's model and thus get the orbital period correct. The real problem with positing circular orbits instead of the actual elliptical ones has to do with the relationship of different parts of a planet's orbit, as can be seen with a visual representation: In the portions of a planet's orbit where the ellipse if flatter than a circle, the planet will appear to move too fast for it to have a circular orbit. And in the portions of its elliptical orbit where the ellipse is more curved than a circle, the planet will appear to move too slowly . So the actual problem with Copernicus's system (and Ptolemy's) is not that circular orbi...

Stark ( Bearing False Witness ) notes that while slavery was hardly questioned in antiquity, the Catholic Church gradually eliminated it in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. When Aquinas condemned slavery as "contrary to natural law," this soon became the official Church position. Nevertheless, some Church officials, even some popes, continued to own slaves. But some popes engaged in fornication and had children out of wedlock, despite official Church opposition to sex outside of marriage. And the Spanish and Portuguese imperialists often continued to enslave people, despite Church opposition. For instance, Spain colonized the Canary Islands in the early 1400s, and started enslaving the islanders.  This prompted Pope Eugene IV to declare that "these people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without exaction or reception of any money" (quoted on 171). In the 1500s, Pope Paul II asserted that "the same Indians and all other p...