I'll reply to each of these.
- Pareidolia - this isn't even a claim. It's just an ad hominem. "FE'ers like to experience a cognitive bias that everyone experiences." This is somehow a step down from his usual low quality.
I can pull up multiple quotes from this site where a Flat Earther claims a space picture is fake because they see a squirrel in some rocks.
Pareidolia is real, our brains are indeed wired to see patterns, especially faces and animals that may be hiding in the brush.
So Pareidolia is a very plausible explanation why people look at a rock and insist it's a squirrel. Or swear that sliding chunks of ice are mice. Or that Mars has a face.
- South Star - does not make a claim about FE'ers. Skipping.
I can't find any Flat Earther claiming there should be a South Pole Star. I'll give this one strawman status, I can't find anything like this despite a lot of looking.
- Pocket of Gravity - "Flat-Earthers were unaware it was a mere magic trick and wrongly assume it demonstrates things are falling in the ISS, despite other objects in the scene that float." - I consider this to be a blatant strawman. I'm sure you can find some idiot who claimed that, but it should not be attributable to the entire community. I'm sure you could similarly find a RE-believing space conspiracy theorist who might have been tricked, but you wouldn't be happy with me saying that "Round Earthers believe this".
You are using the "No True Scotsman" argument here. Saying that anyone who said such a thing couldn't be a real Flat Earther.
Here is one Flat Earther post about it.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2542890946022065- Selenelion - I can confirm that this subject has been discussed on this forum, brought up by Tom in 2014. Not a strawman.
Ok.
- Moon Landings post-Apollo - "Flat-Earthers claim that there have not been any missions to the moon after the Apollo missions" - This is a blatant strawman, and one you tried defending, much to my disappointment. Some FE'ers claim that the moon landings have been faked, and many (accurately) claim that there haven't been any manned moon landings after the Apollo missions. This is an obvious attempt at generating clickbait.
How is this a strawman? I can find countless discussions about the Moon landings being a hoax just on this site. And since many Flat Earth theories rely on the Moon being close and small, the Moon landings contradict that and are attacked as hoaxes or lies.
Your Wiki states:
"The Moon is a revolving sphere. It has a diameter of 32 miles and is located approximately 3000 miles above the surface of the earth."The Moon landings happened 250,000 miles away on a Moon with a diameter of 2,000 miles. It's a very clear link between the discrepancy of these two claims, and the many claims of the Moon landings being a hoax.
- Angular Resolution - Blatant strawman, and you didn't even try to read the claim before rushing to its defence. @febunk claims that FE'ers "like to demand images of the lunar landers taken with a telescope as proof that the Apollo Moon landings did occur. In reality, no optical telescope on Earth is large enough to resolve the landers." You provided a link to a Wiki article which acknowledges the problems associated with limited angular resolution. This does the opposite of supporting your position.
Not a strawman at all, this is an argument I've seen. Here is one example. Flat Earthers do indeed claim we should be able to see the landers from Earth, and use it as evidence the landings were fake.
Do you have any evidence that we landed on the Moon? We have telescopes that can make out a single star called Icarus, 5 billion light years away. That's roughly 4.73x1022 kilometres away. That's an insane amount of distance. Yet we cant get a telescope to resolve any man made junk supposedly left behind on the Moon?
We have satellites orbiting the moon yeah? Why no happy snaps of the rover? The satellites here on Earth can get a pretty clear picture of my car in my driveway afterall....
- 2001 Mars Oddysey footage demands - I am willing to accept that this might be a demand FE'ers make.
Skipping since we agree.
- Flight Dynamics - "Flat-Earthers claimed to have exposed ‘a secret document’ from NASA, saying that Earth is flat & non-rotating." Amazing. This is a satirical post that @febunk chose to present as factual. Flatearth.ws is now the top search result for this claim, precisely because it isn't made.
It seems to be taken quite seriously here.
https://www.galileolied.com/post/15-nasa-research-papers-admit-flat-nonrotatingAnd yuou can find many questions people are asking about this. It seems quite valid that they debunk it as people ARE talking about it.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/319909/why-does-nasa-need-an-aircraft-model-flying-over-a-flat-and-nonrotating-earth- Oblate Spheroid - "Flat-Earthers claim that in photos taken from space, Earth appears as a perfect sphere, unlike what science tells us, and they use it to discredit science." - I have not seen this one, but it smacks of blatant satire. If you've found someone who makes this claim seriously, you have my blessing to dismiss them just as rapidly as flatearth.ws
There are people who wonder this, and I agree it's a silly argument.
https://www.quora.com/If-the-Earth-is-an-oblate-spheroid-why-do-we-not-have-photos-of-it-looking-this-wayBut again, remember the title of the site. "Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions"
This includes both "true" Flat Earther arguments as well as people who are just confused or curious or don't understand something.
It's certainly not a strawman, it's a question that real people ask.
- Simulations - "Flat-Earthers like to reject the results of simulation as being unreal, not real-world observation." - This is just a truism. Anyone who asks for direct observation and received a simulation should point out that it doesn't answer their question. There is nothing FE specific here
That's not what he is saying. He is saying that we create simulations to verify our assumptions, to provide more evidence that our reasoning is correct. Flat Earthers do indeed dismiss such things, Tom for instance claims that n-body simulations are not possible or accurate.
We observe the motion of the planets, come up with a theory for how they move, and run simulations of that theory to see if they match. These simulations themselves are not proof, the simulations are always matched up with real world observations.
There are also physical processes it's currently impossible to observe, and for these we use simulations.
In Summary:
It looks to me like most of these are valid. I found a few (two) that I can't verify, but in no way is this site some massive straw man argument. They are things people say and ask about, so are quite appropriate to respond to.