[qayxc]

"Epicycles" may refer to ancient astronomers who started with the assumption that Earth is stationary and objects in the sky circle around it.

When observed planetary motions were found to be incompatible with the assumption, epicycles were introduced to keep the initial assumption working.

[goto11]

Yeah, sorry, I do know what epicycles are. I just don't understand the connection to this issue. It is not like predicate logic was invented to explain the behavior of Python.

[qayxc]

I obviously failed to illustrate the connection the author maybe was referring to: it's an after-the-fact rationalisation, just like epicycles were.