Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« on: May 27, 2019, 06:42:26 PM »
There's plenty of debate here. Let's try something different. Who is interested in trying to seek some truth?

We're all biased. I'm totally biased. When trying to seek out some truth on this issue, I really need somebody to help me check my bias. I'm looking for a friendly flat Earther who would be willing to work together to our mutual benefit.

We'd try to help each other see our biases. We'd explore what we agree on and where we disagree. We'd try to seek the root of that disagreement, and we'd search for a way to objectively determine if one or the other is more correct... or is there some way they can both be correct?

Anybody interested?

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2019, 03:07:44 PM »
I would be interested, but most people don't consider me very friendly.
All we need to do is remember that the point is to work collaboratively towards the idea of a consensus. The point is not to win, but to find the truth. There's plenty of room to disagree while not getting angry or defensive about it, and if we keep to that, we should be fine.

I'd suggest we start by explaining our general beliefs and philosophy. My own goes something like this...

I've always been highly skeptical. I don't remember a time when I ever believed in Santa Claus. This has led me to a lot of truths, but many times it has turned out that my skepticism was unfounded. I think skepticism is a good thing, but it won't get you any answers.

When it comes to science, I've always been skeptical there as well. So far, it has been my experience that virtually everything I was taught in a science class has checked out. As a result, I've come to trust science as my default position, but that trust does NOT extend to science in the media. In that area, I have become even more skeptical. I'm pretty sure chocolate is not healthy.

So about the shape of the Earth... My default position is to presume that the material from science class was accurate, however, I have been perfectly willing to challenge that material. So far, every single test I've run in this area has conformed with the standard science material.

Through my exposure to the FE movement, I have heard many challenges to this material that I'd never thought of myself. I've checked them out, and so far, each of them has turned out the same way. It seems like a lot of these challenges come from the overly simplified models that we teach in science class. As educators, we understand that there are details we're glossing over for now, but I don't think all the students caught on to that. When folks listen to the lecture on the ideal gas law, they hear how pressure cannot exist next to a vacuum. From there, the logical extension is that space cannot exist. As someone with a healthy relationship with the science, I understand that the teacher just skipped over the part about external forces acting on the gas because those aren't relevant in the scale of a steam engine, but to someone else, that omission seems like a lie.

So that sums up what I believe about the shape of the Earth and why. I think it pretty much matches what we were taught in school because I've tested it. I'd love to hear about how you've come to a different conclusion.

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2019, 09:12:24 AM »
REs should first make a step towards building a consensus themselves. FEs are scared of posting in the forum for being attacked, and REs are quite aggressive and insisting. Probably REs should create a flatearth-discussion etiquette?
Quote from: Pete Svarrior
these waves of smug RE'ers are temporary. Every now and then they flood us for a year or two in response to some media attention, and eventually they peter out. In my view, it's a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2019, 02:45:09 PM »
REs should first make a step towards building a consensus themselves. FEs are scared of posting in the forum for being attacked, and REs are quite aggressive and insisting. Probably REs should create a flatearth-discussion etiquette?
Sounds great. I don't know what happened to totallackey, but perhaps you're willing to participate instead.

I'm asking for 1-to-1 representation for friendly discussions only.

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2019, 02:53:53 PM »
Sounds great. I don't know what happened to totallackey, but perhaps you're willing to participate instead.

His post got moved to CN or AR
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2019, 06:01:25 PM »
I'll correspond with you.

You say "So far, it has been my experience that virtually everything I was taught in a science class has checked out."

Of course that will be the case. If you lived in Ancient Greece at a time when the supernatural ruled and Aristotile taught that flies spontaneously generated from rotting meat, what reason would you have to doubt him? All of Aristotile's teacher buddies in the pantheon seem to agree. After all, you have seen flies swarming around rotting and decaying substances all the time, often multiplying in numbers. Spontaneous Generation confirmed! It is only natural to observe and interpret that this is where they must come from.

Opinions were not significantly swayed until experiments were performed almost two thousand years later:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

Quote


Caption: "A modern rendering of Francesco Redi's 1668 experiment on abiogenesis. Flies form on the meat in the open jar (left) but not in the closed jar (right)."

So why should we believe Aristotle the next day when he gives similar observation and interpretation on a few topics on the shape of the earth?

All societies will have explanations and interpretations for nature. It "seems to check out" is not enough. If there is no direct experimental exploration and verification of an idea, any interpretation of nature invalid.

It is the responsibility of science to prove itself absolutely, not "seem to check out". Astronomy, for example, is to a great degree a science of observation and interpretation. It is for this fact alone that it may be incorrect. It is Astronomy's responsibility to prove itself to you, to separate one interpretation from another experimentally, to separate any possible phenomena which creates the event experimentally, with no other possible explanation. If there is another possible explanation, because experimental verification is impractical or impossible, then the science is of little value for truth.

"Observation and interpretation" is the largest fallacy in the history of science. It is for this reason that the Scientific Method was created to determine truth and became expected in most terrestrial empirical sciences. A hypothesis must be tested and experimentally verified to determine a cause. Yet we find that Copernicus performed zero experiments for his theory of terrestrial motion, and nor did Stephen Hawking perform experiments for his ideas on the metric expansion of space. A mere collection of ideas. A contest of "who has the best idea" is not science.

Today's purveyors of astronomical science seek to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’, building one hypothesis upon the next in mumbling pretension until we have house of cards model of the universe consisting nothing but undiscovered phenomena like graviton particles and dark matter to glue the entire horrid mess together. We should be disgusted every time we read about it.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2019, 07:36:14 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2019, 06:20:48 PM »
Opinions were not significantly swayed until experiments were performed almost two thousand years later:

IMG

So why should we believe Aristotle when he gives similar observation and interpretation on a few topics on the shape of the earth?

Because opinions were significantly swayed by experiments performed almost two thousand years later (or after some other period, I haven't looked them all up).


Norwood determined the length of one degree of meridian, and hence the circumference of the Earth in the 1600s
The French Geodesic Mission of the 1700s confirmed his findings
Jump forward to present day, and there are now thousands of orbital satellites above us, also confirming the same thing, sometimes by measuring what they track from above.

There's a international network of scientists tracking them from the ground by laser ranging, thus providing another method to confirm the findings of hundreds of years prior.

Their findings are confirmed by numerous and varied visual means - weather observation photos from Russian, American, European and Japanese weather satellites, live video from various independent operators' satellite launches - SpaceX and the like, and a host of imagery from historic missions since the 1960s.

If you determine the same thing by a number of different methods .... by a number of different operators ... in a number of different countries ... and the results all agree, then I have to ask;

How many different proofs by different methods must be presented to you before you accept that they're all in accord?   
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2019, 06:34:51 PM »
There you go. You have no real proof from science. Public science is peer reviewed, and its results have been tested by independent scientists and organizations in world-wide agreement. Public science is not a matter of putting your trust in the claims of government. In one breath someone will agree that the government lies a lot, has conducted secret wars, native american genocide, etc, and in the next breath they will tell us that the government is truthful about space.

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Offline markjo

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2019, 06:53:11 PM »
There you go. You have no real proof from science. Public science is peer reviewed, and its results have been tested by independent scientists and organizations in world-wide agreement. Public science is not a matter of putting your trust in the claims of government.
Tom, space launch and satellite services are not the exclusive domain of shadowy government organizations.  The commercial space industry is worth several hundred billion dollars and is projected to grow to a trillion dollar industry in the 2040s with more and more private and public players joining the fray (especially in the small sat sector). 

Speaking of astronomers, they have recently scolded Elon Musk for his recent launch of 60 Starlink satellites claiming that his proposed constellation of 12,000 satellites could seriously impact ground based astronomical observations.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2205172-astronomy-group-calls-for-urgent-action-on-spacex-starlink-satellites/

This is what was observed shortly after those first 60 satellites were deployed:


I really have no idea of how much more independent confirmation you would need that satellites are real.
Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin

If you can't demonstrate it, then you shouldn't believe it.

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #9 on: June 05, 2019, 07:16:04 PM »
You say "So far, it has been my experience that virtually everything I was taught in a science class has checked out."

Of course that will be the case. If you lived in Ancient Greece at a time when the supernatural ruled and Aristotile taught that flies spontaneously generated from rotting meat, what reason would you have to doubt him? All of Aristotile's teacher buddies in the pantheon seem to agree. After all, you have seen flies swarming around rotting and decaying substances all the time, often multiplying in numbers. Spontaneous Generation confirmed! It is only natural to observe and interpret that this is where they must come from.

Opinions were not significantly swayed until experiments were performed almost two thousand years later:
This is an excellent point. When I learn some new science fact, I question it, and then I am convinced by the self-same argument that convinced the person who discovered it. If they were blind to some shortcoming, I am likely to be blind to it as well.

All societies will have explanations and interpretations for nature. It "seems to check out" is not enough. If there is no direct experimental exploration and verification of an idea, any interpretation of nature invalid.

It is the responsibility of science to prove itself absolutely, not "seem to check out".
Here I disagree. Science is explicitly NOT in the business of "proving" anything. We often use the word "proof," but rarely do we mean that in the mathematical sense. In fact, I suggest that science is all about "seems to check out."

We make mistakes, and we go down blind alleys, but we keep on trying to check it out. Any hypothesis is solid right up until it isn't.

I think this right here is our core difference of opinion. Your posts seem to create a pattern that suggest exactly what you're outlining here. You seem to have a philosophy that anything short of perfect mathematical certainty is simply "unknowable."

Let's dive into that. What makes you so adamant that perfect certainty is required or even desired?

I'll try to describe why for me, it is not. I'm really more an engineer than a scientist. I design things, and I want them to work - ideally on the first try. For this, I need a working model that can predict what my thing will do. Will that bit hold up to its stress load? How much energy will it take to get this thing started? etc. What I need is a model that I can use to design my thing on paper. I need enough confidence that when I build my thing, it'll actually work. If my model is good enough, my thing should work. If my model was too inaccurate, my thing will surely fail. So all I need is a model accurate enough. It doesn't need to be perfect. In fact, I know it won't be. I'm going to build in a good margin of error into the strength of my parts to account for that type of thing.

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2019, 08:28:30 PM »
There you go. You have no real proof from science. Public science is peer reviewed, and its results have been tested by independent scientists and organizations in world-wide agreement. Public science is not a matter of putting your trust in the claims of government. In one breath someone will agree that the government lies a lot, has conducted secret wars, native american genocide, etc, and in the next breath they will tell us that the government is truthful about space.

Why are you disagreeing with stuff I didn't say?

I mentioned no Governments.

Are you suddenly introducing a distinction between science and "public science" now?
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2019, 11:29:07 PM »
Quote from: ICanScienceThat
Here I disagree. Science is explicitly NOT in the business of "proving" anything.

That is certainly not what I learned in my education. I have been under the impression that science had a mission to find the truth about nature.

We must reject "Seems to" and seek "Demonstrated to". My issue with the history of RET and astronomy is that it is based on pseudoscience. Consider the sinking ship proof of the Round Earth, as it is given in textbooks.

Aristotle gave out his 'proof' that the earth was round by saying that ships sink when they recede from us. But did Aristotle perform any studies, experiments, documentation on that? How many months or years of observations did Aristotle perform on this proof, exactly? Did he show that it was a consistent effect which occurs in different environments and that we could get the properties of the earth from it and compare it to Eratosthenes' ideas about the size of the earth? The answer is that he did none of that. That's not the story. The story is that Aristotle gave it as his proof and that's that. Lazyness and incompetence, to my mind. With that the earth is round, along with a few other observations. These matters were not studied at all. It is only now that the matter is being closely scrutinized.

None of this would fly with traditional empirical sciences. Chemistry doesn't work on "Seems to". This is the error of humanity. To the heliocentric theorists, as long as it "seems to be explained" by some mechanism, that is good enough. That is not good enough for truth, however. Real evidence is required, and this is not a "mathematical proof" type of requirement. Scientific investigation consistent with other sciences should have taken place, but they have not taken place.

If there were studies where Aristotle and Copernicus demonstrated their ideas we would not be having this discussion. It is for this reason FE might be correct. A nearly complete lack of real investigation has taken place, with only some cartoons and explanatory diagrams to "explain" how the seasons and to "explain" the equinox works. It is considered sufficient that things seem to be explained rather than any real demonstration of the matter.

A society of people with a relentless goal to "explain things" for the Concave Earth model of the earth that proposes that we are living in a hollow world would achieve that goal. Anything can be "explained". It is a fallacy to think that because someone can explain something that it means anything at all. These lessons have been learned in other fields, for which the Scientific Method was developed. Yet Astronomy has historically stood alone in this endeavor.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2019, 11:55:47 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Tim Alphabeaver

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2019, 11:55:14 PM »
It is the responsibility of science to prove itself absolutely

I think that's an oxymoron. If I do an experiment a single time, that's clearly not absolute proof. What about 3 times? 5 times? 100 times? At what point does "maybe true" morph into "probably true" and then finally into "absolutely true"? Science can't give absolute truths, just the most likely explanation given the results of repeated observation.

Can you go into more detail about why you think astronomy is a pseudoscience? Let's say I'm trying to measure the redshift of some galaxy by pointing my big telescope at it and measuring the wavelength of the light that comes off. Which part of this observation isn't scientific?
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #13 on: June 08, 2019, 12:02:09 AM »
It is the responsibility of science to prove itself absolutely

I think that's an oxymoron. If I do an experiment a single time, that's clearly not absolute proof. What about 3 times? 5 times? 100 times? At what point does "maybe true" morph into "probably true" and then finally into "absolutely true"? Science can't give absolute truths, just the most likely explanation given the results of repeated observation.

Can you go into more detail about why you think astronomy is a pseudoscience? Let's say I'm trying to measure the redshift of some galaxy by pointing my big telescope at it and measuring the wavelength of the light that comes off. Which part of this observation isn't scientific?

Yes. Proof does exist in science! Spontaneous Generation was proven false. People studied the matter. Flies don't pop out of nowhere. People did experiments. You know, science?

A near complete lack of science has occured in Astronomy, however.

Per your redshift query, it is based on multiple hypothesis'. Blueshift and redshift as we experience on Earth doesn't occur with stars and galaxies. The theories need to be modified. Most galaxies we see are redshifted to a degree that doesn't really make sense, and the implication is that we are the center of the universe. The cosmological redshift is known as Hubble’s law, and postulated that the known universe is expanding. Hypothetical mechanisms were put in place to change the observation and its implications into an expanding universe.

See this quote from Edwin Hubble:

Quote from: Edwin Hubble
“Such a condition [the red shifts] would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central earth. The hypothesis cannot be disproved but it is unwelcome and would be accepted only as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. Therefore, we disregard this possibility and consider the alternative, namely, a distribution which thins out with distance.”

“A thinning out would be readily explained in either of two ways. The first is space absorption. If the nebulae were seen through a tenuous haze, they would fade away faster than could be accounted for by distance and red-shifts alone, and the distribution, even if it were uniform, would appear to thin out. The second explanation is a super-system of nebulae, isolated in a larger world, with our own nebula somewhere near the centre. In this case the real distribution would thin out after all the proper corrections had been applied.

Both explanations seem plausible, but neither is permitted by the observations.

The apparent departures from uniformity in the World Picture are fully compensated by the minimum possible corrections for redshifts on any interpretation. No margin is left for a thinning out. The true distribution must either be uniform or increase outward, leaving the observer in a unique position.

But the unwelcome supposition of a favoured location must be avoided at all costs….Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable … Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position, the departures from uniformity, which are introduced by the recession factors, must be compensated by the second term representing effects of spatial curvature. There seems to be no other escape.“

Stephen Hawking says:

Quote from: Stephen Hawking
"...all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe."

"There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe."

From Paul Davies in Nature:

Quote from: Paul Davies
"If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked! This theory seems quite consistent with our astronomical observations"

The concept of a central earth was rejected because it was unwelcomed and alternative hypothetical ideas were pushed. Never was it proven experimentally that the metric expansion of space was actually occurring to cause the redshifts. It is deemed sufficient that an explanation seems to work.

If your science is merely about getting things to seem to work, then you are basically just telling me a story. Astronomy is a contest of who has the best explanations and stories. It is simply not a science like other science.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2019, 01:20:50 AM by Tom Bishop »

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #14 on: June 08, 2019, 02:46:19 AM »
Everyone please remember this is a friendly discussion to BUILD CONSENSUS. We aren't debating here.
Please keep in mind that Tom is outnumbered here at least 3 to 1. Let's all be extra sensitive to that, please.

Quote from: ICanScienceThat
Here I disagree. Science is explicitly NOT in the business of "proving" anything.

That is certainly not what I learned in my education. I have been under the impression that science had a mission to find the truth about nature.

We must reject "Seems to" and seek "Demonstrated to".
I'd like to just focus on this part, and I think we should be a bit more careful tossing around inflamatory words like "pseudoscience". This is a friendly discussion.

I agree that science IS on a mission to find the truth. Normally, I'd go along with the "about nature" part as well, but recently, a whole segment of FEs have weaponized that "about nature" part. In the interest of keeping things on the friendly, perhaps it's best we set that aside.

I also really like the use of the phrase, "Demonstrated to".

The problem that we're bumping into is very much one of nuance. Words are imprecise. What's the difference between, "seems to" and "demonstrated to"? To me, those are precisely the same thing. Perhaps there's a subtle connotation to "seems to" that makes it less rigorous than "demonstrated to". I think I'd go along with that. I figure the likelihood of something could be placed onto a scale something like this:
proven not
certainly not
probably not
completely unsure
probably
seems to be
demonstrated to be
proven to be

What is science trying to do? Well any of it is good science, honestly - just as long as you say what you mean clearly enough.

So about "proof". That's a tough word. It all depends on just what it means. If you get right down to it, "proof" could be taken to mean perfect knowledge with absolutely no chance of being incorrect. That is something we can get in mathematics, but many well-known scientists have been very explicit that science doesn't go there. I like to say, "I can't even prove that you exist." So if you're going to insist on that type of proof, science won't get you there.

If science can't "prove" stuff, what good is it?
1) Science can disprove things. That's not hard.
2) Science can describe things with a degree of confidence. In science, we like to have a confidence level at "5 sigma" or better. (As you've seen, there seems to be some fudging on that from time to time.)
3) Science can build a model that can be used to make accurate predictions. That model may not be perfect, but if we can describe what the limitations of the model are, it can be extremely useful.

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #15 on: June 08, 2019, 11:54:58 AM »
REs should first make a step towards building a consensus themselves. FEs are scared of posting in the forum for being attacked, and REs are quite aggressive and insisting. Probably REs should create a flatearth-discussion etiquette?
Sounds great. I don't know what happened to totallackey, but perhaps you're willing to participate instead.

I'm asking for 1-to-1 representation for friendly discussions only.

Trying to dress as a (missing) FE: I don't like the arrogance of REs and overall I wish we wouldn't have to discuss with them. By some accident, or convenience, you were lured into a false view of the world. Why should I waste my time with you? What's the benefit of showing the falsity of a round earth? As all bubbles, it will eventually pop, but until then I just want to be informed and explore real truth. If what you see as truth is different from my view, let our paths diverge (in a friendly way), because consensus is already here in the fact that I can live with my ideas and you with your ideas.
Quote from: Pete Svarrior
these waves of smug RE'ers are temporary. Every now and then they flood us for a year or two in response to some media attention, and eventually they peter out. In my view, it's a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #16 on: June 08, 2019, 09:12:15 PM »
Quote
If science can't "prove" stuff, what good is it?
1) Science can disprove things. That's not hard.
2) Science can describe things with a degree of confidence. In science, we like to have a confidence level at "5 sigma" or better. (As you've seen, there seems to be some fudging on that from time to time.)
3) Science can build a model that can be used to make accurate predictions. That model may not be perfect, but if we can describe what the limitations of the model are, it can be extremely useful.

If we went through life believing that things were true because someone 'explained' why it occurred, we would be prone to believe in all sorts of things. There are many failed sciences in history which have created elaborate explanations for natural occurrences but went out of favor due to a lack of experimental demonstration.

A round earth can be demonstrated. Why should that be impossible? The phenomena used to determine things about the Round Earth Theory need only to be cross-correlated to provide controls for a given explanation.

If the distance to the sun could be determined with multiple triangulation methods, that would provide demonstration of the matter. For example, Aristarchus used the phases of the Moon to measure the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon. During a Half Moon, the three celestial bodies should form a right angle. By measuring the angle at Earth between the Sun and Moon, his method shows that the Sun is 19 times as far from the Earth as the Moon, and thus 19 times as big, which is far different than the current Transit-of-Venus method. Indeed, his method was accepted as the truth of the sun's distance in RET for over two thousand years... If we question the two thousand years of science's ability to measure angles, a modern version of his method to come up with an agreement with current theories would provide confidence of truth. In contradiction, the history of the sun's distance tells a story of disagreement and conjecture.

If one could find cross-correlation between different techniques, that demonstrates the truth of the matter. This is how other sciences work to demonstrate their explanations. Multiple methods, multiple scenarios, to demonstrate a truth.

As an example, there are many different radiometric dating methods. If each of those dating methods agrees that a given sample is about the same age, this gives us confidence for the accuracy of that method. If they vary wildly with each other, it shows that something must be incorrect. This is an obvious thing which should be done, right?

This is not a "it's impossible to prove anything" discussion. Demonstration is possible. Standard scientific competency is desired, and achievable, for these matters. Once multiple methods are involved to correlate results to verify explanations it transforms the observation and interpretation into an experiment. The interpretation is corroborated by independent methods. No longer is the matter mere speculation. It has become demonstrated.

Given the incredible effort of all of humanity to interpret and describe this theory, this level of simple scientific quality control should be an easy slam dunk. Anyone who promotes integrity in science should surely champion the suggestions and statements above.

From my research I do think that people have tried, and have failed, to do what I have described, and so the stories are kept to the simple observation-and-interpretation ones. The information is all there, if one were to look and document it, of science's failed and contradicting efforts to determine the properties of the model.  I'll continue to document it on the Wiki when I have the time. It most certainly is not a resolute story of agreement and success. The truth will come out, sooner or later.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2019, 11:32:57 PM by Tom Bishop »

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #17 on: June 08, 2019, 11:31:07 PM »
Quote
If science can't "prove" stuff, what good is it?
1) Science can disprove things. That's not hard.
2) Science can describe things with a degree of confidence. In science, we like to have a confidence level at "5 sigma" or better. (As you've seen, there seems to be some fudging on that from time to time.)
3) Science can build a model that can be used to make accurate predictions. That model may not be perfect, but if we can describe what the limitations of the model are, it can be extremely useful.

If we went through life believing that things were true because someone 'explained' why it occurred, we would be prone to believe in all sorts of things. There are many failed sciences in history, now considered to be pseudosciences, which have created elaborate explanations for natural occurrences but went out of favor due to a lack of experimental demonstration.
Exactly! That's how science works. We're always looking for something better. In the meantime, the best we've got is ... the best we've got. That's not a criticism.

A round earth can be demonstrated. Why should that be impossible? The phenomena used to determine things about the Round Earth Theory need only to be cross-correlated to provide controls for a given explanation.
I agree completely. The ability to cross-correlate all aspects of a model is crucial.

If the distance to the sun could be determined with multiple triangulation methods, that would provide demonstration of the matter. For example, Aristarchus used the phases of the Moon to measure the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon. During a Half Moon, the three celestial bodies should form a right angle. By measuring the angle at Earth between the Sun and Moon, his method shows that the Sun is 19 times as far from the Earth as the Moon, and thus 19 times as big, which is far different than the current Transit-of-Venus method. If we question Aristarchus' ability to measure angles, a modern version of his method to come up with an agreement with current theories would provide confidence of truth. In contradiction, the history of the sun's distance tells a story of disagreement and conjecture.
You've got an excellent point here, but I would say your logic is flawed somewhat. We are faced with quite a puzzle here. Instead of throwing out the observations altogether, let's try to work the puzzle. How can it be that one observation gives us the answer 19, and another gives us 400? Here's what I've got:
a) One of these observations is wrong.
b) Both of these observations is wrong.
c) The margin of error on the pair of observations overlap.
According to mainstream science, the truth of the matter is that the original measurement was rather inaccurate. If Aristarchus' method were used again with better accuracy, the results should be consistent with the other methods. The Aristarchus method would remain less precise, but its error margin should contain the modern accepted value. Do you agree with this assessment?

If one could find cross-correlation between different techniques, that demonstrates the truth of the matter. This is how other sciences work to demonstrate their explanations. Multiple methods, multiple scenarios, to demonstrate a truth.

As an example, there are many different radiometric dating methods. If each of those dating methods agrees that a given sample is about the same age, this gives us confidence for the accuracy of that method. If they vary wildly with each other, it shows that something must be incorrect. This is an obvious thing which should be done, right?
We generally do not demand cross-correlation between different techniques before we accept a scientific discovery to be, "the best we've got so far." Back to the earlier topic, we understand that science is always evolving, so the science of any given moment is simply, "the best we have so far."

That said, we really prefer to have such cross-correlation. Going further, when we try for cross-correlation and fail to get it, this highlights a major flaw in the science. There are examples of this in modern science today. When this happens, we do not throw out everything and give up. Instead, we work with the best models we have while we search for more clues.

This is not a "it's impossible to prove anything" discussion. Demonstration is possible. Standard scientific competency is desired, and achievable, for these matters. Once multiple methods are involved to correlate results to verify explanations it transforms the observation and interpretation into an experiment. The interpretation is corroborated by independent methods. No longer is the matter mere speculation. It has become demonstrated.

Given the incredible effort of all of humanity to interpret and describe this theory, this level of simple scientific quality control should be an easy slam dunk. Anyone who promotes integrity in science should champion the suggestions and statements above.

From my research I do think that people have tried, and failed, to do what I have described, and so the stories are kept to the simple observation-and-interpretation ones. The information is all there, if one were to look and document it, of science's failed and contradicting efforts to determine the properties of the RET. I'll continue to document it on the Wiki when I have the time. It most certainly is not a resolute story of agreement and success. The truth will come out, sooner or later.
I want to remain friendly here, but your Wiki documentation is rather offensive to me, so let's just not discuss it.

As I've said, it's not a debate. Let's build consensus. We agree that cross-correlation is strong evidence, and failed correlation indicates a flaw.

But what do we do when there is a failed correlation? I would hope that we could agree that repeatable measurements are still genuine - even if they don't agree with each other. I hope we can agree that if they do not agree, there must be an explanation for that. The most obvious explanation to begin with is the margin of error involved with any empirical observation.

An excellent example of this is the measurement of the gravitational constant G. As you've pointed out, the scientists' estimations of their own accuracy preclude them all being correct. There is simply no way they can all be correct to within the accuracy they claim. The most obvious explanation for this is they have overestimated their accuracy. There are other possibilities (remote possibilities), but the accuracy explanation seems most likely. Of all the possibilities, the suggestion that the correct number lies outside the range of ALL the experiments is EXTREMELY unlikely.

tellytubby

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #18 on: June 09, 2019, 03:03:01 PM »
What I actively object to in the strongest possible terms is when Tom comes out with these sort of comments...

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A near complete lack of science has occured in Astronomy, however.

Absolute rubbish I'm afraid Tom. Astronomy is widely regarded as the oldest of all the sciences and is followed by literally millions of people of all ages all over the world.  It is also one of the most accessible to people of all ages.  I won't ask you to take back the comment because I know you won't. But just to make the comment shows a major ignorance on your part of what astronomy - especially recent astronomy has achieved. I'm sure that several other members on here will back me up on this.

So if we are to build a concensus of anything on here, this point has to be made.

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Offline Tim Alphabeaver

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #19 on: June 11, 2019, 11:36:37 PM »
Yes. Proof does exist in science! Spontaneous Generation was proven false. People studied the matter. Flies don't pop out of nowhere. People did experiments. You know, science?
So if I do a single experiment that doesn't observe Spontaneous Generation, that means Spontaneous Generation is impossible? Maybe it just didn't occur in that one experiment. Maybe the experiment was poorly designed. Maybe my equipment malfunctioned. Maybe it just doesn't happen very often. The only way to prove that Spontaneous Generation false with 100% certainty is to have perfect fly detectors covering 100% of the universe. Even if "people" did 100 experiments, that doesn't prove anything. This is why any semi-serious experiment will put a lot of time into determining reasonable error bars.

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Per your redshift query, it is based on multiple hypothesis'.
As is any observation.

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Blueshift and redshift as we experience on Earth doesn't occur with stars and galaxies. The theories need to be modified. Most galaxies we see are redshifted to a degree that doesn't really make sense
Most galaxies lie on a nice straight line. How does that not make sense?



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The cosmological redshift is known as Hubble’s law, and postulated that the known universe is expanding. Hypothetical mechanisms were put in place to change the observation and its implications into an expanding universe.

[...]

If your science is merely about getting things to seem to work, then you are basically just telling me a story. Astronomy is a contest of who has the best explanations and stories. It is simply not a science like other science.
You're now quibbling about the interpretation of the results. My question was about the observation itself: what part of my observation of redshift is not scientific? You're acting like astronomy is the only field of science where there are multiple possible interpretations for a single observation.
**I move away from the infinite flat plane to breathe in