If the Inquisition had seriously tried to understand the world in terms of the theory they tried to force on Galileo, they would also have understood its fatal weakness, namely that it fails to solve the problem it purports to solve. It does not explain planetary motions ‘without having to introduce the complication of the heliocentric system’.
Perhaps the ad hoc modifications to an explanation are closer to the truth; may try removing the underlying explanation and working from the ad hoc modifications alone to see what problems they address in the prior, underlying explanation and then build a new explanation with them.
