This really bugs me.
People who should know better–including Ph.D.s–keep making the same mistake. I just read it in a 2008 book, which I will not name to protect the guilty.
The Myth. In the Middle Ages people believed the sun went around the earth because it put the earth and humanity at the center of the universe–elevating the prominence of humanity in the cosmos.
The Fact. According to Medieval cosmology, the hierarchy of the cosmos was from the outer extremes (most important and most perfect) down to the center (least important and least perfect). Aristotle said that the heavenly realms were so superior that they were made of something entirely different from the four elements of earth, water, air and fire. The fifth element–the quintessence, or aether–was found only in the heavenlies. In other words, the closer to the center something was, the less ethereal, and thus the more imperfect it was.
Earth, being irregular (mountains, valleys, etc.), changing and subject to corruption, was the least perfect. The moon, as Medieval cosmologists could clearly see, also had imperfections but fewer than earth. The planets were more perfect (but had an irregular motion accounted for by epicycles). The realm of stars was even more perfect. Beyond that, well, heaven of course. Some cosmologies also put the most imperfect–hell–at the very center of the earth itself.
So putting earth at the center of the cosmos was not a statement of human hubris but of human humility.
There, I feel better already.