4061

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Common sense?

« on: April 28, 2018, 11:51:09 AM »

Don't forget the airline industry, the shipping industry, the satellite TV industry etc, etc.

4062

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Horizon is Always at Eye Level

« on: April 28, 2018, 11:49:35 AM »

Water flows down hill. How do we know that water was perfectly leveled out at the point of the line ups?

Wow. So you think that the water in the two connected tubes could be at different heights because "water flows down hill".
I think that's my new favourite Tom Bishop quote.

4063

Flat Earth Theory / Re: No sun

« on: April 28, 2018, 09:10:21 AM »

You are going to need to irrefutably  prove RET or irrefutably disprove FET. You have not met that level.

But that is only because "that level", in your mind, is summed up by a Wiki page which I see has now been deleted.
It was on this page, which is now blank:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Place_of_the_Conspiracy_in_FET

I'm not sure why it has been removed because it perfectly summed up your mindset. It said:

P1) If personally unverifiable evidence contradicts an obvious truth then the evidence is fabricated
P2) The Flat Earth is an obvious truth

You declare the flat earth as an obvious truth (you provide no basis for claiming that) and so all the evidence which shows you to be wrong has to be fake or wrong.
The laser and boat experiment you spent ages trying to prove fraudulent or wilfully misunderstanding it. You finally understood it and conceded that point but have declared it fake anyway because it shows you wrong.
You have been shown three different ways of measuring horizon dip and have dismissed all of them on spurious grounds because they show you to be wrong.
Worse, you refuse to conduct your own experiment even though the equipment to do so would cost you virtually nothing.

The level of proof you require doesn't exist. Or rather, it does but you repeatedly dismiss it because the flat earth is an "obvious truth" so everything contradicting it must be fabricated. You're not an empiricist, you're not a "free thinker", it's just denial. You can prove anything to yourself if you ignore or dismiss any evidence showing you to be wrong.

 

4064

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 28, 2018, 07:12:29 AM »

You CAN'T explain it.

Well, not in a way you can understand, apparently. But I honestly think that says more about you than me.
You are the only person in this thread who thinks there is anything to explain here.

The illuminated portion of the earth spins around 365.25 times in a Solar Year.

Correct. Well, close enough. The whole earth spins 365.25 (roughly) times in a Solar Year.
That is 365.25 Solar Days. That's what a Solar Day IS - it's a rotation of the earth.
And a Solar Year is how long it takes the earth to orbit the sun. It takes 365.25 times as long to do that as it does to rotate on its axis.

The illuminated portion needs to be pointing at the sun when it reaches the point it started from.

No it doesn't. That would only be true if there were exactly 365 solar days in a solar year, or some other integer. But there aren't.
So if the sun is exactly overhead, say, New York at the start of one solar year it will not be at the start of the next, it will have been overhead about 6 hours previously.
You are the only person who sees this as a problem.

This is the entire reason we have leap years, to keep things in sync.

4065

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 27, 2018, 03:30:22 PM »

On a diagram of the earth going around the sun the problem is clear. The illuminated portion needs to be pointing in the same place.

Why?

The illuminated portion needs to point at the sun because it comes from the sun.

No idea what that's supposed to mean.

The illuminated portion can't turn 365.24 times on a diagram that illustrates the earth going around the sun to its same spot on the oval path.

I've highlighted your problem. The diagrams you're looking at are for illustration only and don't exactly represent the reality. After a solar year the earth is in the same PLACE in its orbit but is not in the same orientation, it's a about a quarter turn different, there's your .24 days or 6 hours.

4066

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 27, 2018, 02:50:43 PM »

On a diagram of the earth going around the sun the problem is clear. The illuminated portion needs to be pointing in the same place.

Why?

4067

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 27, 2018, 02:42:41 PM »

The Solar Day is the illuminated portion of the earth rotating around the sun. It will be misaligned with the position of the sun on ANY diagram of the earth's oval path around the sun when the earth returns to the starting point.

It really is not a difficult concept.

No, it isn't.
But you are the only person on this thread who thinks that the earth spinning a non-integer number of times in a solar year is a "problem".
Or, more likely, you're just stringing people along for your own amusement.

4068

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 27, 2018, 02:07:38 PM »

Yes, Tom. It's definitely me who is confused. Just like with the laser and the boat.
Jura is right, you've had your fun.
</thread>

4069

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 27, 2018, 08:36:17 AM »

He already knows. Anyone past the 5th grade would have understood by now, and clearly Tom is not stupid.

You say that...he thinks that shadows change angle because of perspective and that spectroscopy is looking at something and thinking "ooh, that's a bit red".
There are a load of things he doesn't seem to understand but thinks he understands.

But...yeah, maybe he does understand and is having fun. Which is fine, other people will see the arguments for what they are.

Other people will also see the debate as some kind of validation for his nonsense assertion.

Isn't there a risk that debating nonsense makes everyone a little dumber.

I don't think nonsense should be left unchallenged but I do think we've indulged him for too long in this thread.
Quite how you can think that a year is 365.24 days and then be confused that the number of rotations of earth in a year is not an integer is beyond me.
I do suspect at times he's only in this for a laugh and does really understand all this.

4070

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 27, 2018, 07:39:34 AM »

He already knows. Anyone past the 5th grade would have understood by now, and clearly Tom is not stupid.

You say that...he thinks that shadows change angle because of perspective and that spectroscopy is looking at something and thinking "ooh, that's a bit red".
There are a load of things he doesn't seem to understand but thinks he understands.

But...yeah, maybe he does understand and is having fun. Which is fine, other people will see the arguments for what they are.

4071

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 27, 2018, 07:13:32 AM »

At the point of September Equinox the sun is illuminating half of the earth.

Solar Time is 24 Hours. One Solar Day is 24 Hours.

After 365.24 Solar Days the earth has returned to the starting point on the earth's orbit around the sun, yet illuminated differently.

Yes. Because of the .24. 365.24 is a count of the number of times the earth has rotated. That's what a day is.
So the earth is in the same place but it isn't in the same orientation, it has done 365 complete rotations and then .24 of another.
Which is about a quarter. And what's a quarter of a 24 hour day? 6! There's your 6 hours.

Hooray! I've solved another mystery of the univers.

4072

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 26, 2018, 06:25:20 PM »

Those diagrams are only representative. They are not exactly what happens.
The solstice and equinox dates aren't even the same each year

4073

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Possible Issue with Solar Noon in Round Earth Theory

« on: April 26, 2018, 06:08:22 PM »

I'm really hoping that Tom isn't thinking that the fact its 365.24 is in some way related to there being 24 hours a day 
For a start, 365.24 is rounding, according to:
https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/tropical-year.html

A tropical year, also known as a solar year, an astronomical year, or an equinoctial year, is, on average, approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds long (365.24219 days)

And secondly, the 24 hour day apparently comes from the ancient Egyptians who would not have had the ability to measure the length of a year that accurately.

I have no idea why anyone would think there would be any correlation between the time it takes a planet to orbit its star and the time it takes a planet to rotate on its axis. They are two completely separate motions.

4074

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: April 26, 2018, 03:55:04 PM »

-This doesn't happen in the UK
-Yes, it does, here's an upcoming event
-Oh, but that takes place in a baddie-no-no city, that doesn't count

Straw man.

The "this" was never that no-one in the UK believes in a flat earth, it was that very few people do.
The fact that there is a convention in Birmingham for people who do believe that - or are flat-curious - is not an indication to the contrary.
You can get conventions and conferences for all kinds of niche views, that doesn't make them prevalent.

Quite tempted by the £20 web streaming option although quite honestly I suspect it would be like watching a compilation of flat earth YouTube videos.

4075

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: April 26, 2018, 12:49:56 PM »

I've seen no evidence of that in the UK although admittedly I tend not to go round asking people.

That, once again, is because you actively don't want to find out. If you change your mind, you still have two days to register for the Birmingham FE convention

By the way, if this wasn't in Birmingham I'd be quite tempted.
But Birmingham is a proper shit-hole, there would have to be a very good reason for me to go there and this doesn't qualify.

4076

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: April 26, 2018, 12:42:48 PM »

You're copping out. You started out by objecting to the suggestion that FET is growing. Now that you've been provided with evidence, you're shifting the focus to whether or not you think it's of any significance.

Interest in it is certainly growing, I never disputed that. I guess that means that the movement itself will grow because "x" percent of people who are interested might see some merit in what I will charitably call the "arguments" of the movement.
But I would suggest that "x" is very small. I said before that:

I think you're massively over-stating the acceptance of flat earth belief, there's a lot of interest in it, I'm interested, but that's not the same thing.

I pretty much stand by that. I'm not buying "exponential growth" or "the tide is turning".
If it is then we're that's a pretty damning indictment of our education system.
You have the Analytics stats for this site, I guess. And maybe that's going through the roof. But look who is actually posting, it's mostly round earthers.

4077

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: April 26, 2018, 10:28:10 AM »

Once again, you are suffering from cognitive dissonance. You want to claim that the number is small, so you'll perceive it as small regardless of what it was.

That's sweet. Have you seen me say that on here about others and you're doing a slightly grown up "you know you are, you said you are?" 
I'm well aware of cognitive dissonance. I actually do want the number to be small because I think it's sad if a lot of people are unable to think rationally or clearly, but if the number was large - statistically speaking - then I wouldn't deny that. I've seen no evidence of that in the UK although admittedly I tend not to go round asking people.

I can believe that belief in a flat earth is growing in America. There's a guy in the White House who wouldn't know the truth if it punched him in the face.
People believing crazy things and belief in that crazy thing increasing is not evidence that the thing isn't crazy. I don't think "the tide is turning" though or that it will ever become a mainstream belief because it is clearly wrong and doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.

In the UK there was a load of stuff about the MMR vaccine being linked with Autism - the whole thing was based on some flawed research and whipped up by the media. Parents were literally refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated and the result is a big rise in the incidence of measles

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/19/who-warns-over-measles-immunisation-rates-as-cases-rise-400-across-europe

A lot of people believed a wrong thing, that didn't mean it was a valid thing to believe.

4078

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Horizon is Always at Eye Level

« on: April 26, 2018, 10:18:32 AM »

This is something that's really easy to test. I'd like to see an acknowledgement that

• "The horizon is always at eye level" is a testable proposition.
• Agreement on a test that can be readily carried out.
• Acceptance that if the test disproves the proposition, that it should no longer be put forward.

I don't expect people to reject flat Earth altogether when this test is proposed, but I would hope that the "horizon rises to eye level" idea could at least be addressed. If the FE proponents are confident that the horizon does rise to eye level then they should be demanding that such experiments take place.

I'll state my own POV up front. I'm interested in the cognitive dissonance of the FE movement, and I'm reasonably confident that the items on the above list wouldn't be accepted by any FE proponents. If I'm wrong, then a test will be devised, the experiment performed, the results accepted and the FAQ on this site amended accordingly.

It should be something performable with some kind of levelling device, a camera, and a hillside overlooking the sea.

I do find this one particularly weird because you can think about horizon dip theoretically but then you can go and test this yourself. It can be measured.
3 different ways of doing this have been shown on here recently, they've all been rejected on spurious grounds. The real reason they've been rejected is that they don't show what the FE Dogma claims. As you say, cognitive dissonance.
Tom did outline a method of testing this which involved a camera looking across a tall building towards the horizon which actually would work in theory but there are two quite serious problems with that method
1) Buildings are, in general, not that tall and significant horizon dip can only be clearly seen at higher altitudes.
2) There is no way of accurately determining that the height of the building and the height of the camera are exactly the same.

This is where the experiment shown above wins because you can take the simple equipment with the water to any height and be sure that looking across the two tubes will be level. Tom's rejection of that was that it was hand held and therefore not that steady, but I took these stills which shows the result very clearly:



It's quite hard to argue people who literally refuse to concede a point when it is demonstrated so clearly.
For his next trick, to misquote Douglas Adams, he'll claim black is white and get killed on the next zebra crossing.

4079

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: April 26, 2018, 09:38:52 AM »

But the analogy in this case would be Geller volunteering to come to my house and bend a spoon of my choosing without him touching it.

That would be analogous to me taking an item of my choosing to NASA (I'll let you in on the fact that it would be a banana, for the sake of an old inside joke) and demanding that they put it in a polar orbit. I doubt they'd entertain me.

Well no, because in your example you - the sceptic - are the one challenging NASA to do something. If you went up to Geller with a spoon he'd probably bend it for you using "the power of his mind" (read "slight of hand"). If you said he couldn't touch it though, then he wouldn't. Because he can't.

Your example would work better as an analogy if NASA came to you and said "hey, I hear you've always wanted to put a banana in polar orbit. We'll get right on that for you". It is NASA providing these live streams. NASA providing the website telling you where you can see the ISS (have you checked to see if you can? I haven't because I don't feel the need to, if you're a sceptic then this is easily testable). NASA keep putting people up there and shooting video of them in weightless conditions. They're not doing it in response to any great public clamour for this.
Why would they bother doing all that?

And I think you're massively over-stating the acceptance of flat earth believe, there's a lot of interest in it, I'm interested, but that's not the same thing.
From that Economist article

On November 9th, 500 “flat-Earthers” assembled in North Carolina for the first annual Flat Earth International Conference.

500  . And while we're here, a load of Americans believe in aliens visiting earth too. Americans are not renowned for critical thinking.
A high percentage of 6 year olds believing in Santa Claus is not an indication of the abilities of 6 year olds to think rationally or the validity of the theory that there's a fella coming down their chimneys to deliver presents every Christmas.

4080

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: NASA Live Stream

« on: April 26, 2018, 08:10:22 AM »

I think if you're going to look at these live streams and look for the ISS in the sky when they say it's going to be overhead then you're fairly inquisitive.

It's the intellectual equivalent of believing in what Uri Geller is telling us because he totally showed us his abilities.

Not really. Geller does what he does, I have a problem with him because he pretends his tricks are him really doing stuff.
But the analogy in this case would be Geller volunteering to come to my house and bend a spoon of my choosing without him touching it.
If he can really do stuff "by the power of his mind" then he could do that, right?
But he can't. I know he can't, he knows he can't. So he's not going to do that.
Why would he go out of his way to make life difficult for himself? Stick to staged stunts on telly, fella.

If NASA are going to maintain a pretence of space travel then pretending to collaborate with a bunch of other countries to build the ISS, have numerous people pretend to live there for periods of time and making loads of videos of them doing so, creating a fake live stream, publishing a website which tells you exactly when you can see the ISS for yourself. It does all seem to be making it life difficult for themselves. It's not like people are crying out for these things. I'm actively interested in space travel and I don't sit watching the live stream or watch the videos from the ISS or go into my back garden to see it as it flies overhead. I'm sure some people do but why they would go to the hassle of creating all this "fake" content for a relatively small audience, content which can be scrutinised and, in the case of the times the ISS flies overhead personally verified...well, it does all seem like they're making lives far harder for themselves in keeping up the pretence.

And point taken about the growth of the FES but I honestly don't think I know anyone who genuinely believes it - I know some conspiracy theory nuts but even this is a step too far for them, probably a whole flight of steps. Quite simply because it doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. The fact that pretty much the first question in your FAQ is "is this site a joke" indicates you realise that most people regard this with a certain amount of amusement.
[I did search for your "sinking ship" evidence on the other place, by the way, you can search posts unless you sign up]