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In the wake of Columbus’s discovery of America a silent revolution occurred, the invention of what we now call ‘the terraqueous globe’.

Again, the example of sailing to America presents problems for the principle of underdetermination: we have seen that although Bodin proposed an alternative to the terraqueous globe theory, it was never viable; not a single person came to its support.

The terraqueous globe theory was not underdetermined; in this case the relationship between the theory and the facts was a tight one, not a loose one.

An immediate consequence, therefore, which is the subject of Chapter 4, was a radical transformation in the understanding of how the Earth is constructed: the emergence of the concept of the terraqueous globe.

I use ‘Earth’ for the modern, Copernican conception of the Earth as a rotating terraqueous globe, which is one of the planets; ‘earth’ for the pre-Copernican conception of the world we inhabit, being made up of the element earth, which is stationary at the centre of the universe.