I think it's called "normalization", which apparently hasn't yet been crammed into the omnipresent work-in-progress "religious = nut" equation.
No, it isn't called "normalization," it's called "deliberate misunderstanding." Here's the entry for earth from RadioAstronomer's table:
Earth: e = 0.0167 and its AU = 1
Note that "e" is very low, nearer zero than one by quite a bit. Zero is circular. One, as longshadow explained to me last night when I was groggy from a wine-soaked dinner, is parabolic.