[dr_lew]

The myth of Odysseus is a myth even if every word about him were (somehow) true

The same may be said of our scientific myth of the solar system as it is presented to school children, and the public. The most revealing mythic element in this presentation is the ubiquitous depiction of the planets on a compressed distance scale, so that they are bunched together. When you say "solar system" this is how people will think of it, never minding the justifications for these depictions in the name of expediency. How can this image be rectified with the actual observation of the planets by ones own eyes in the night sky? Only by contortions which are absent from the minds of the unwashed, who accept these depictions purely as myth.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

What's even more mythical (sorry, if this is off topic) is the absolute myth that Copernican astronomy was superior to Ptolemy's. Or that Copernicus suffered any push back from the church. (Copernicus was a Cannon, an ecclesiastic sinecure.) Martin Luther, personally attacked and derided the Copernican heresy, the Pope was utterly indifferent. Copernican astronomy was arguably a scientific set back and would have been worse than a dead end, had he not inspired Kepler to invent a truly revolutionary model based on Tyco’s observation.