Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #20 on: June 12, 2019, 04:07:59 AM »
Some of this stuff is drifting dangerously into debate again.
We're not arguing. We're talking. We all understand we have different takes on it. The difference is we want to listen to the other side as they tell us why they think the way they do.

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Offline Tim Alphabeaver

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #21 on: June 12, 2019, 07:43:08 AM »
Some of this stuff is drifting dangerously into debate again.

Sorry.
**I move away from the infinite flat plane to breathe in

totallackey

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #22 on: June 12, 2019, 11:40:04 AM »
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.
Perfect certainty is not required.

I believe most RE adherents exhibit the urgent "need," for certainty.

It is expressed by statements such as, "This [insert example here] demonstrates spherical earth perfectly..."

FE adherents seldom engage in this type of behavior. 

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Offline AATW

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #23 on: June 12, 2019, 12:39:21 PM »
I believe most RE adherents exhibit the urgent "need," for certainty.

It is expressed by statements such as, "This [insert example here] demonstrates spherical earth perfectly..."

FE adherents seldom engage in this type of behavior.
If anyone says "perfectly" then I agree that is over-stating it. But what we can say is that these observations:



Are consistent with the globe earth model. Part of the building is hidden by the curve and the further you are from the building the more of the building is hidden.
That is as we would expect.

The FE behaviour I see is people then get very excited if they use curve calculators and can show that the observations don't exactly match what the calculator says.
But that's a bit unreasonable. Those calculators are fairly obviously using a simplified model. Some do take refraction into account but they have to use a standard model of that, the calculators can't possibly know what the atmosphere was like at the location on the day the observations were made.
The more important point is not whether the observations exactly match the calculators but whether they are within a reasonable degree of accuracy.
And on a FE we wouldn't get this observation at all. There should be nothing stopping you seeing the whole building no matter the distance - so long as the atmosphere is clear enough.

The FE explanations for that are things like EA or "waves" or some weird version of perspective. All these explanations are basically claiming that the earth is flat but there are various effects which make it appear as if it was curved which feels like a bit of a cheat.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

totallackey

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #24 on: June 12, 2019, 03:47:58 PM »
I believe most RE adherents exhibit the urgent "need," for certainty.

It is expressed by statements such as, "This [insert example here] demonstrates spherical earth perfectly..."

FE adherents seldom engage in this type of behavior.
If anyone says "perfectly" then I agree that is over-stating it. But what we can say is that these observations:



Are consistent with the globe earth model. Part of the building is hidden by the curve and the further you are from the building the more of the building is hidden.
That is as we would expect.

The FE behaviour I see is people then get very excited if they use curve calculators and can show that the observations don't exactly match what the calculator says.
But that's a bit unreasonable. Those calculators are fairly obviously using a simplified model. Some do take refraction into account but they have to use a standard model of that, the calculators can't possibly know what the atmosphere was like at the location on the day the observations were made.
The more important point is not whether the observations exactly match the calculators but whether they are within a reasonable degree of accuracy.
And on a FE we wouldn't get this observation at all. There should be nothing stopping you seeing the whole building no matter the distance - so long as the atmosphere is clear enough.

The FE explanations for that are things like EA or "waves" or some weird version of perspective. All these explanations are basically claiming that the earth is flat but there are various effects which make it appear as if it was curved which feels like a bit of a cheat.
Your post, despite the opening, essentially boils down to "perfectly," (on the side of RE).

Just highlighting the most troublesome (and what I believe to be somewhat disingenuous)statements giving me this impression(compare and contrast these statements):
Are consistent with the globe earth model. Part of the building is hidden by the curve and the further you are from the building the more of the building is hidden.
That is as we would expect.


vs

The FE behaviour I see is people then get very excited if they use curve calculators and can show that the observations don't exactly match what the calculator says.
But that's a bit unreasonable.



« Last Edit: June 12, 2019, 03:51:14 PM by totallackey »

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #25 on: June 12, 2019, 04:42:02 PM »
Those aren't really issues, it's consistent within a reasonable margin of error and to be expected. I'm not sure why any FE'er would take issue with things having a margin of error for a spheroid earth while not having the same level of scrutiny for flat earth 'evidence'.
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #26 on: June 12, 2019, 06:49:53 PM »
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.
Perfect certainty is not required.

I believe most RE adherents exhibit the urgent "need," for certainty.

It is expressed by statements such as, "This [insert example here] demonstrates spherical earth perfectly..."

FE adherents seldom engage in this type of behavior.
Welcome back totallackey.
Let me remind everyone once again that this thread is not here for debate. We're trying to avoid arguments here.
I was asking Tom how he felt about the certainty issue. He had said he thought that science must prove itself absolutely. I have pointed out that is really not my point of view of it.
Please tell us how you feel about the need for certainty.
Speaking for myself, I was probably clear already. I personally feel no need for perfect certainty. Instead, I'm looking to separate the possible and the likely from the impossible and the unlikey.

totallackey

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #27 on: June 13, 2019, 12:04:50 PM »
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.
Perfect certainty is not required.

I believe most RE adherents exhibit the urgent "need," for certainty.

It is expressed by statements such as, "This [insert example here] demonstrates spherical earth perfectly..."

FE adherents seldom engage in this type of behavior.
Welcome back totallackey.
Let me remind everyone once again that this thread is not here for debate. We're trying to avoid arguments here.
I was asking Tom how he felt about the certainty issue. He had said he thought that science must prove itself absolutely. I have pointed out that is really not my point of view of it.
Please tell us how you feel about the need for certainty.
Speaking for myself, I was probably clear already. I personally feel no need for perfect certainty. Instead, I'm looking to separate the possible and the likely from the impossible and the unlikey.
I do not believe issues to be perfectly certain and as I wrote, it is not required.

I am not arguing the issue, merely pointing out things seem to be stated as being final, mostly from the RE adherents.

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #28 on: June 14, 2019, 05:08:42 AM »
I do not believe issues to be perfectly certain and as I wrote, it is not required.
Great! Consensus. It is not an issue for anyone here if we cannot achieve perfect certainty.
Do we also agree that we DO wish to eliminate the impossible and the highly improbable?

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #29 on: June 14, 2019, 07:06:54 AM »
I do not believe issues to be perfectly certain and as I wrote, it is not required.
Great! Consensus. It is not an issue for anyone here if we cannot achieve perfect certainty.
Do we also agree that we DO wish to eliminate the impossible and the highly improbable?

Hello everyone! I used to post here some 18 months ago, but I got a bit tired. However I have been lurking around and reading for my own amusement and have noted that the discussions are moving towards a more professional manner, and this initiative is great.

Wikipedia has this to say: "A fact is a thing that is known to be consistent with objective reality and can be proven to be true with evidence. For example, "this sentence contains words" is a linguistic fact, and "the sun is a star" is a cosmological fact. Further, "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" are also both facts, of the historical type. All of these statements have the epistemic quality of being "ontologically superior" to opinion or interpretation — they are either categorically necessary or supported by adequate historical documentation.

Conversely, while it may be both consistent and true that "most cats are cute", it is not a fact (although in cases of opinion there is an argument for the acceptance of popular opinion as a statement of common wisdom, particularly if ascertained by scientific polling). Generally speaking, facts transcend belief and serve as concrete descriptions of a state of affairs on which beliefs can later be assigned.

The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability — that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means".

This makes sense to me. Could this define a common plattform, or are there issues with this?

totallackey

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #30 on: June 14, 2019, 10:31:02 AM »
I do not believe issues to be perfectly certain and as I wrote, it is not required.
Great! Consensus. It is not an issue for anyone here if we cannot achieve perfect certainty.
Do we also agree that we DO wish to eliminate the impossible and the highly improbable?
While you and I can achieve a consensus of two in this particular instance, it is a matter of certainty (LOL!) our attainment of consensus regarding issues of impossibility and highly improbable would be more difficult to achieve.

I would submit it is the occurrence of these highly improbable and (some would say) impossible events affecting  my life that would make it so.

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #31 on: June 14, 2019, 07:07:54 PM »
Wikipedia has this to say: "A fact is a thing that is known to be consistent with objective reality and can be proven to be true with evidence. For example, "this sentence contains words" is a linguistic fact, and "the sun is a star" is a cosmological fact. Further, "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" are also both facts, of the historical type. All of these statements have the epistemic quality of being "ontologically superior" to opinion or interpretation — they are either categorically necessary or supported by adequate historical documentation.

Conversely, while it may be both consistent and true that "most cats are cute", it is not a fact (although in cases of opinion there is an argument for the acceptance of popular opinion as a statement of common wisdom, particularly if ascertained by scientific polling). Generally speaking, facts transcend belief and serve as concrete descriptions of a state of affairs on which beliefs can later be assigned.

The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability — that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means".

This makes sense to me. Could this define a common plattform, or are there issues with this?
This is brilliant. I think that we need to give our FE friends the benefit of eliminating this part, "Standard reference works are often used to check facts." I think we can all agree with the rest of it, but we would not want to accept any existing reference work as fact without verification. Sound fair?

I propose that any verifiable, repeatable observation would be considered factual by all. The INTERPRETATIONS and CONCLUSIONS drawn from any given observation is something we would need to discuss further. There are also observations that are inconsistent. There is a lot of talk about these. If an observation is demonstrably inconsistent, then each individual observation is still factual, but we can also gather that they are inconsistent. Like if I flip a coin and it comes up heads, that much was factual. If I deduce from this that the coin will always come up heads, that is probably not going to fly as a fact. I can do 3 coin tosses in a row and get 3 heads, and now we'd start to think maybe it IS heads every time. But then on the 4th time, I get a tails. So all 4 coin tosses are factual, but the statement, "it always comes up heads" is clearly not. One more point that's often overlooked is that we can establish the RANGE of values we get even with this inconsistency. After tossing the coin many times, we can establish that we get "heads" and "tails", but we never get "banana." Furthermore, we can establish that we get heads about 50% of the time and tails about 50% of the time. (Depending on the coin, it IS possible to get "edge" in very rare cases, but I digress.)

Edit: There are also certain observations made in error or deliberately fraudulent. These are a dangerous area for friendly discussions. Let's agree to start from a position that the observer was genuine, but they may have made some mistake. If we can identify the mistake, we can react accordingly.

So I would like to invite all of our FE contributors to weigh in on this. Can we establish certain facts that we would all agree on within this type of framework - stressing that the CONCLUSIONS will NOT be considered facts, but that the observations would?
« Last Edit: June 14, 2019, 07:26:24 PM by ICanScienceThat »

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #32 on: June 17, 2019, 06:06:12 PM »
Tom, we haven't heard from you in over a week. What do you think about the idea of facts? Maybe that could be a way to structure our conversations more productively.
totallackey, that sound good to you?

Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus
« Reply #33 on: June 17, 2019, 07:18:03 PM »
As an individual I believe I have a choice to learn biographic evidence in Flat Earth and the right to believe the truth about the universe in which we are experiencing as intelligence.