iii. Scientific models and evidence for an Earth that moves

"It is important to note that well-tested theories in the mature sciences are supported in general by a powerful web of interlocking evidence coming from a variety of sources."

 - Alan Sokal 

If you didn't already know something about this subject, you've undoubtedly attended the University of Google and graduated with a degree in astrophysics by now. So what's your "proof" - or "smoking gun" evidence for heliocentrism? Retrograde motion of the planets? The phases of Venus? The aberration of starlight? Stellar parallax? And more importantly, do you have any personal experience with collecting or analyzing any of this evidence? I doubt it.

Or perhaps you're frustrated that you couldn't really find a single line of "smoking gun" evidence that conclusively proves heliocentrism? But did you spend any time looking at non-parsimonious geocentric models with epicycles - for example, to explain the retrograde motion of planets or the phases of Venus?  Did you look at evidence for any models other than heliocentrism? Why not?

Did you look at any mathematical models at all? Because that's really what we're talking about here. And it wasn't until Kepler added elliptical orbits to the Copernican model that it better fit the best data we had at that time - Tycho Brahe's very detailed and comprehensive astronomical observations.
Galileo's discovery of moons orbiting Jupiter and the phases of Venus got him into some trouble with the Church on this issue, but it was really Kepler's elliptical orbits and his laws of planetary motion, which better predicted Brahe's data, that led to a simpler heliocentric model being widely regarded as true. Not until 1838 did we have the first successful measurements of stellar parallax (Friedrich Bessel), and by then almost every educated person was already convinced that heliocentrism was true. But let's face it: Most of us don't believe in heliocentrism because of the evidence - which very few of us have even examined.

Copernican model by Andreas Cellarius, Public Domain.