So the Economist's point is that a "research" project exploring an idea about the universe which has been known to be incorrect for centuries somehow proves the value of the humanities? Really?
He's essential in the history of science for introducing aristotalean traditions and ideas, to the scientific discourse at the time, as well as being one of the early founders of science. For that reason at least he's well worth studying, and especially his ideas, which are very close to what we have now. What the science researchers are doing is helping the historians formalise his ideas in todays language and notations so that their similarities can be seen with todays ideas.
Source: I worked on this project over last summer as a computer science student visualising his explanation for the start of the universe.
The substantive topic is the historical material, and history is welcome on Hacker News. In fact, it's a protected species—we don't have nearly enough of it.