[Tom Bishop]

For the most part RET proponents rely on theories and axioms that are incredibly rationalized, and are unjustifiable at their foundations. You are fighting with swords made of jello, and this is what prevents you from making conclusive arguments.

Just for clarification, Tom;
Classic physics = Sword made of jello?

Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.

[spoonbow]

For the most part RET proponents rely on theories and axioms that are incredibly rationalized, and are unjustifiable at their foundations. You are fighting with swords made of jello, and this is what prevents you from making conclusive arguments.

Just for clarification, Tom;
Classic physics = Sword made of jello?

Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.

And yet you are comfortable wielding these same swords to explain FE phenomenon? Geometry to describe the path and position of celestial bodies, physics to explain the Atmolayer Lip, etc?

[Scroogie]

We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.

So who is the closed minded thinker here?

There is a single word in the passage above that gave me pause. It is the word truth. It wasn't set in quotes; it wasn't stated that that FEers question "supposed truths" or "accepted truths" or anything of the sort. Truth is, quite literally, true. It has, by dictionary definition, "the quality or state of being true". If a thing is true, then it cannot be questioned, it is simply true. If it is believed to be true, or supposed to be true, it is open to question, but if it has attained the status of truth, it is no longer open to question.

This caused me to wonder if that wasn't a Freudian slip - an indication that Tom subconsciously knows full well that what he is questioning is, indeed, true, believable, correct, testable - however one may wish to define it - yet continues the futile battle because his belief system forces him to do so. It seems to me that such a situation would force one into an ongoing internal battle between one's intellect and one's belief system, (one's ability to rationalize and one's need to believe) a very difficult situation which would result in a great deal of inner turmoil.

I refer to it as a Freudian slip given my assumption that Tom would never knowingly acknowledge that the things he was questioning were, indeed, true.

[Scroogie]

Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.

At a fundamental level, and one potentially more easily understood by the lay classes, we have technology. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge, or science applied. Technology is what has given us automobiles, trains, airplanes, medical tools, eyeglasses, telescopes, cell phones, televisions, radios and even IPods. All technology is based on the science that went before, its discoveries creating the knowledge which allowed the creation of the products that technology has afforded us.

If the science were flawed, the products of technology would be similarly flawed. They're not. Hence the science upon which they're based is assumed to be sound. It's that simple.

[BrownRobin]

We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.

So who is the closed minded thinker here?

There is a single word in the passage above that gave me pause. It is the word truth. It wasn't set in quotes; it wasn't stated that that FEers question "supposed truths" or "accepted truths" or anything of the sort. Truth is, quite literally, true. It has, by dictionary definition, "the quality or state of being true". If a thing is true, then it cannot be questioned, it is simply true. If it is believed to be true, or supposed to be true, it is open to question, but if it has attained the status of truth, it is no longer open to question.

This caused me to wonder if that wasn't a Freudian slip - an indication that Tom subconsciously knows full well that what he is questioning is, indeed, true, believable, correct, testable - however one may wish to define it - yet continues the futile battle because his belief system forces him to do so. It seems to me that such a situation would force one into an ongoing internal battle between one's intellect and one's belief system, (one's ability to rationalize and one's need to believe) a very difficult situation which would result in a great deal of inner turmoil.

I refer to it as a Freudian slip given my assumption that Tom would never knowingly acknowledge that the things he was questioning were, indeed, true.

I caught Tom's Freudian slip also.

When you are debating a Flat Earther like Tom, you have to realize that a big part of Tom's identity and (perhaps) livelihood depends upon propogating and selling the Flat Earth society / society beliefs. Debating Tom and trying to convince him to believe in a Round Earth is as likely as Tom being able to convince a Round Earther that the geometrically square and rectangular shaped ISS orbiting Earth is debris from space or that the moon landing was a hoax. It just isn't going to happen, no matter how much evidence is put forth... photos and videos will never be accepted because they will be deemed as CGI or being fake.

As Scroogie has stated above, "Technology is what has given us automobiles, trains, airplanes, medical tools, eyeglasses, telescopes, cell phones, televisions, radios and even IPods. All technology is based on the science that went before, its discoveries creating the knowledge which allowed the creation of the products that technology has afforded us. If the science were flawed, the products of technology would be similarly flawed".

I never would have thought that in 2018 there would still be people that believe that the Earth is flat.

[AATW]

What makes you think that our models or arguments don't evolve from time to time? Do you think that Samuel Birley Rowbotham believed in the Universal Accelerator?

No idea. He believed the moon was translucent so who knows what other crazy stuff he believed. He was wrong about pretty much everything.
While we're here, UA is a rationalization. It's a fudge you use to replace gravity - which is ridiculous it's Physics 101 to measure gravitational force with the Cavendish experiment

Things do change over time. Occasionally there will be something that needs to be rethought about. Most of the arguments posted here on a daily basis just aren't good enough or clear cut enough to compel change, however.

That's just not true though. You just don't understand the arguments, or maybe you pretend not to. My thread about long shadows was ignored by you and all the other flat earthers:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8672.0

This proves that the sun is not where you think it is at sunset. And it is proof as others have acknowledged. You not understanding the proof doesn't mean it isn't sound. It doesn't necessarily prove a globe earth by the way, but it does prove that the sun is not where your current model claims it to be at sunset.
If you think you can design an experiment which casts long shadows with an object on the ground and a light source which isn't physically close to the ground then I'd like to see it. You can shout perspective all you like. Shadow angle depends on the PHYSICAL relationship between object and light source, not perspective. And if you believe light travels in straight lines then it doesn't matter how far the light source is away, the angle remains the same so the shadow length remains the same.

So this is an example of an argument which, if you were as open minded as you pretend, should change your model because the current one demonstrably doesn't work. Your two options to fix that are:
1) The sun being in a different physical place to where your current model supposes
2) Light bending in some way so it appears to be.

Those really are your only two options. But you pick the thirds which is "Laa, laa, laa can't hear you".
Nothing is preventing us making conclusive arguments, you are simply not understanding them. Or you're pretending not to.

Your psychology is a mix of:
Dunning-Kruger - you think you understand things which you really don't
Cognitive Dissonance - your identity is so wrapped up in the flat earth movement you cannot admit to yourself you are mistaken about anything
Confirmation Bias - you cling on to any scrap of evidence which you think shows you may be correct and ignore the tsunami of evidence and proof which shows you are not.

[totallackey]

I think that the Flat Earthers can be separated into two types:

1. Those who wholeheartedly believe in it, have made up hypotheses for it, and generally suffer from too much confirmation bias to convince. Science is extremely complex, and many of these people do not understand that even a PhD in physics only understands an extremely small fraction of current science. Many of their clever rebuttals are trivially shown (and have been shown long ago) to be fallacious. Their knee-jerk reaction is to attempt to disprove modern science without a full understanding of it. Take, for example, Tom Bishop's assertion that if you hold your hand so it's at a higher angle ("above" from your perspective) than a distant lamppost, the lamppost looks upward to see your hand... that's false, and obviously so. Or his various machinations about Doppler shifting from the stars (like randomly looking up the term bathychromic shift without understanding that these apply to molecular spectra). That's not to say Tom's a bad person. He's actually one of the better people here, because he engages constructively in debate, and a lot of wrong stuff he says not out of bad faith, but of ignorance. He's just heavily affected by these psychological biases, specifically the backfire effect and confirmation bias. Or you can take a look at Pete Svarrior's nitpicking at arguments while denying the obvious truth through circumlocution and technicalities. That's called muddying the waters.  These are the people who are heavily affected by the psychological biases you talk about; they perform mental gymnastics because in their minds, they cannot possibly be wrong. But you should remember that they could say the same about us, because from their perspective, they think they know the "true science" and that we're being dogmatic. Of course, this is not true (precisely because of all of the scientific verifications that they're ignorant of as a result of almost no physics education), but it's an understandable thought. These are the people who, short of throwing them out of an airlock with a space suit of their own making, and then interviewing them afterward, will never believe in a round Earth. This is because they've gone so deep that their minds have closed to learning science (they question before they understand what they're actually questioning), and without a reasonable degree of scientific knowledge, one cannot ascertain the validity of FE or RE as currently presented.

2. These are the people sitting on the fence, usually because they don't understand the entire debate and from a layman's point of view, a lot of what FE says makes sense. While those who usually respond to the various threads in FE debate are mostly part of the first class, I spend time rebutting them not to convince the people who are actually debating. It's not untrue that in debates, both sides usually think they won. But for someone sitting on the fence, reading the various debate threads may at least convince them to second-guess the fallacious explanations of those without expertise in the relevant parts of science, and take a skeptical eye toward hypotheses/explanations that are widely panned by scientists worldwide. The main point here is that science requires domain-specific expert knowledge to critique; for example, you cannot critique Special Relativity without understanding all of the experiments that went into making this rather unpleasant theory.  Of course, the flatness of the Earth is a rather irrelevant debate to today's society, as Flat Earth believers will never work on space exploration, long-range navigation systems, and space-based telecommunications by virtue of their complete wrongness on several levels of science. But hopefully people on the fence of Flat Earth, and then convinced of the rigors of scientific study (even if it's impossible for them to understand), can apply this elsewhere. Maybe the next time they see a conspiracy claim (vaccines cause autism, chemtrails, global warming hoax) that's not as clear-cut (I mean they're pretty clear-cut, but nothing compared to the flatness of the Earth), they'll think twice about "doing your own research" (from poorly-made YouTube videos chock full of technobabble or fallacious reasoning from obvious non-experts) and then choose to actually inquire through reputable sources (and rely on them for scientific reasoning, while still leaving the standard logical deduction to themselves.


TL;DR: you shouldn't heed any of the meta- arguments of Tom Bishop, Pete Svarrior, etc. They're irredeemably mistaken on their belief that science is simply a fallacious appeal to authority. This is because they aren't aware of and don't understand all of the evidence that was collected to back up current scientific understanding. This is a result of a lack of a true understanding of the basics of science.

Couldn't have said it any better.

Allow me to be of assistance:

Allow me to bloviate for just a bit...Actually, I have nothing meaningful to write and just appreciate the opportunity to pontificate from the luxury of my basement.

There.

I think I paraphrased that quite accurately.

[Tom Bishop]

Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.

At a fundamental level, and one potentially more easily understood by the lay classes, we have technology. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge, or science applied. Technology is what has given us automobiles, trains, airplanes, medical tools, eyeglasses, telescopes, cell phones, televisions, radios and even IPods. All technology is based on the science that went before, its discoveries creating the knowledge which allowed the creation of the products that technology has afforded us.

If the science were flawed, the products of technology would be similarly flawed. They're not. Hence the science upon which they're based is assumed to be sound. It's that simple.

Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.

[juner]

Allow me to be of assistance:

Allow me to bloviate for just a bit...Actually, I have nothing meaningful to write and just appreciate the opportunity to pontificate from the luxury of my basement.

There.

I think I paraphrased that quite accurately.

Really not adding anything to the thread with this. Please refrain from low-content posting in the upper fora.

[AATW]

Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.

It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
GPS has to take relativistic time dilation into account for example, the fact it does so and that GPS works gives confidence in Relativity as a theory.

[Tom Bishop]

Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.

It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.

"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers

[xenotolerance]

Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.

well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this:

At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.

[Curious Squirrel]

Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.

It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.

"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers

"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity."
~ Abraham Lincoln

I can find only a single source for this quote. That being a FES flier from some time ago where it's stated they 'famously' said this. Yet I can't find a single other source attributing this quote to them. Doesn't seem a particularly famous quote to me in that case, and certainly casts doubt on it ever having been uttered.

[Northman77]

Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.

It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.

"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers

"The science of today is the technology of tomorrow." - Edward Teller

[xenotolerance]

So, Tom threw out a fabricated line probably written by a flat Earth believer, not being skeptical enough to double check his sources. The point of the fake quote is to emphasize 'threw out all science' like they actually ignored every last piece of prior knowledge, or to imply the false belief that if they did, it would disprove all prior knowledge. But, they didn't, and it wouldn't, and they didn't actually say it in the first place.

Tom's next move will be illuminating - will he quibble with us about how real the quote is? The meaning of the quote, fake or not? Accept that it was a mistake?

I predict obstinance

[Northman77]

Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.

It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.

"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers

"The science of today is the technology of tomorrow." - Edward Teller

Probably not the best person to quote from in this forum, but that every piece of technology we have has its basis in science is a fact. I cannot begin to understand why you have this need to separate different lines of "research" in regards to choosing one above the other. Empiricsm certainly is important, but not valid as a stand alone tool. You cant have one without the other.

[AATW]

So, Tom threw out a fabricated line probably written by a flat Earth believer, not being skeptical enough to double check his sources. The point of the fake quote is to emphasize 'threw out all science' like they actually ignored every last piece of prior knowledge, or to imply the false belief that if they did, it would disprove all prior knowledge. But, they didn't, and it wouldn't, and they didn't actually say it in the first place.

Tom's next move will be illuminating - will he quibble with us about how real the quote is? The meaning of the quote, fake or not? Accept that it was a mistake?

I don't think I've ever seen Tom admit a mistake about anything. He really is dishonest in his posting and debating style. He takes one probably made up quote and uses that to refute the entire concept that a lot of technology is based on science and the fact that technology works affirms that underlying science.

The first thing the Wright brothers did was research the science of aeronautics
https://wright.nasa.gov/overview.htm
(I know, a link from NASA so must be fake - I really can't be arsed getting into that argument)
And yes, of course the actual invention came from a lot of trial and error and flying various "kites" but it wasn't complete blind trial and error, it started with an understanding of lift.
All modern aircraft design starts with understanding the science of lift and drag.

[ShowmetheProof]

Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.

It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.

"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers

Yes, but when saying that they didn't mean "We stopped believing in gravity and most scientific facts", they mean "We tried ideas that were thought to be impossible because others got the science wrong".  They still paid attention to gravity.

[Tom Bishop]

Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.

well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this:

At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.

It looks like you have already done my work for me. Not only did you find a non-flat earth source for that quote, you did further research showing that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science.

Good research. Maybe you are arguing on the wrong side.

[StinkyOne]

Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.

well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this:

At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.

It looks like you have already done my work for me. Not only did you find a non-flat earth source for that quote, you did further research showing that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science.

Good research. Maybe you are arguing on the wrong side.

Yeah, googling that quote proves there is literally no proof they ever said that. A few flat earth and creationist links. Try hard, Bishop. You would never accept this scant evidence from a REer.