> Right now we seem stuck with Ptolemaic astronomy, scholastically adding epicycles upon epicycles, without making the leap to hit the inverse-square law.

This is a great analogy but just isn’t what happened at all. There is no evidence medieval astronomers added epicycles. Copernicus added epicycles to his heliocentric model - and this was a reason his model was criticised was because it was too complicated!

It’s still good analogy, but in reality each planet required a hand tuned; equant, deferent, epicycle and sometimes 1 epicyclet..

Also surely the great logical leap was Kepler’s elliptical orbits which broke free of the perfect circle constraint?

> Reason may be employed in two ways to establish a point: firstly, for the purpose of furnishing sufficient proof of some principle [...]. Reason is employed in another way, not as furnishing a sufficient proof of a principle, but as confirming an already established principle, by showing the congruity of its results, as in astronomy the theory of eccentrics and epicycles is considered as established, because thereby the sensible appearances of the heavenly movements can be explained; not, however, as if this proof were sufficient, forasmuch as some other theory might explain them.

Thomas Aquinas (dumbass Scholastic)