YMMV / The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown

• Older Than They Think: Flynn points out that at several points, ancient and medieval thinkers espoused scientific concepts that seemed relatively far ahead of their time. Ptolemy's model of the planets, though geocentric, roughly approximates elliptical orbits. 14th century astronomer Nicole Oresme argued Galilean relativity centuries before Galileo. Pope Urban VIII espoused a concept of falsifiability that would be paralleled by Karl Popper 300 years later.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: The text amusingly mentions how Kepler, in need for a force that makes the planets circle the Sun, decided it was the Holy Spirit.
• The Woobie: Kepler looks like a minor example. While it is underlined that he produced the best support for heliocentrism of the era and did so without making a fuss, the author also mentions the several unrelated misfortunes that hit him.