Sort of related to Jared's question...

but not really.

As I was reading the Cohen/ Pesic chapters about Kepler, I was examining how great innovators of the past can help and/or hinder a scientist. Cohen mentions Occam's razor at the beginning of the chapter, stating that that which is simplest is best: "Nature does nothing in vain, and more causes are in vain when fewer suffice" (Cohen, 127). However, when one has been bombarded in one's education that circles are the most simple (like Copernicus) or one has been taught only the _Physics_ of Aristotle, perhaps figures such as the one on page 135 does look simple with different Aristotle's five forms for the six planets.

In fact, Cohen states: "Alas, Kepler remained so enmeshed in Aristotelian physics that when he attempted to project a terrestrial physics into the heavens, the basis still came essentially from Aristotle" (147). My question is how much of science is overcoming the biases we're born into and how much is building off the discoveries and information of others?