Eclipses

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes in front of the Sun. Solar eclipses occur when the moon slowly turns red; RET states this is because the Earth passes between the Sun and moon, while FET uses the Shadow Object.

The Argument
How are various organisations able to predict the occurence and location of eclipses if they do not have an accurate model of the Earth? If the math that governs RET can predict the future, it is said that this would be persuasive evidence.

The Response
Eclipses, both solar and lunar, have been predicted for thousands of years, not by any equations but by recording when past eclipses occurred. The celestial objects that govern them are part of a regular, repeating pattern that by its nature as a repeating pattern can easily be predicted.

A saros is a period of time, known about 5-6 centuries BC at the very latest, though it is likely to have been discovered far earlier with the limited surviving texts from that time. It marks the point at which eclipses repeat; at the start and end of a Saros, a period of a little more than 18 years, the Sun and Moon will be in the same positions with the same orientations relative to the Earth. If an eclipse occurs on a date, then one saros later an identical eclipse occurs.

All that changes is the geographical location of the eclipse, but this too is predictable. With a record of past eclipses, it becomes easy to predict both the time and extent of future lunar and solar eclipses.

The equations governing RET do not predict this. Rather, these figures were used to develop it. If the unknowns they incorporated did not agree with the saros, they would have tweaked until it did. It was not a prediction but rather the building blocks of the equations themselves.