dichotomy

Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #20 on: September 06, 2019, 09:15:59 PM »
To go back to my original question, all I want to know (nothing more nothing less) is what is the most scientific way in which the FE theory has been investigated.  What experiments have been carried out, what equipment did they use and what were the results?

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You appear to have completely missed the point of "doing it yourself". Once you choose to perform the experiment, you'll be able to adjust for all of these factors, and ones you have not yet anticipated, to your satisfaction. I do realise that those who prefer the scientific method over the Zetetic method expect us to write our experiments up in great detail to save them the hassle of having to actually experience the world for themselves, but I'm simply not interested in appeasing your desires here.

So if I'm reading this right you are encouraging people to do their own research and their own experiments and reach their own conclusions but you are not interested in anyone documenting their experiments or conclusions on these forums?   So what then is the point of these forums?

« Last Edit: September 06, 2019, 10:00:57 PM by dichotomy »

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Offline AATW

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #21 on: September 07, 2019, 08:29:13 AM »
You and I have drastically different concepts of success. That's fine, I guess. To me, the philosophy responsible for anti-vaccine movements, an impending climate change catastrophe, extreme wealth disparity across the Earth's population, and overall misery is not "successful".

Science is just about understanding stuff.
It seeks to understand how things work, it tries to build models which can explain and predict observations.
Those models can be used for various things but in terms of building models it’s undeniably been a success. Our entire modern way of life depends on those models.
Obviously scientific understanding can be used for good or ill. It’s brought us nuclear power and atom bombs, the industrial revolution and smog. Rockets have brought us technologies like GPS and got us to the moon but we have ICBMs.
But in terms of science bringing us an understanding of how the universe works it’s really hard to argue that it hasn’t been successful. The proof of that is in the fact these technologies work. Diseases have been wiped out, my phone can give me directions to places, we can argue about stuff on sites like this. Debatable whether the last of those is a good thing but it demonstrably works.

Meanwhile, the philosophy of everyone checking things out for themselves and creating their own model of reality has led to the mess of competing and conflicting FE models we see on here and other sites, none of which have gained any mainstream acceptance because they are all so obviously wrong to anyone with a reasonable understanding of science.
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"

dichotomy

Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #22 on: September 07, 2019, 03:43:12 PM »
Zeteticists seem to take on the view that if you can see it with your own eyes then it is true and accepted. If you can't see it directly with your own eyes then it is must be proved before it is accepted as true. But in that sense at what stage has something been proved?

Flat Earth theory, if it is based entirely on the 'zetetic method' is then doomed to fail because not everything we directly see can be taken literally. Visual illusions are everywhere in nature.  Pete points out that because the Sun and Moon look the same size in the sky then according to the zetetic method, it follows that they must physically be the same size. Yet various scientific methods have been used to measure the distance to the Sun and Moon and those consistently show the Moon to be 400 times nearer and 400 times smaller.

So all the evidence and descriptions of how these figures have been reached are simply dismissed as faked, lied about or hoaxed. Why? Because that is the easiest way to dismiss any evidence that doesn't support ones beliefs.

The real evidence that the Earth is a sphere was presented to us directly as soon as spaceflight became possible. (I can hear the collective sighs of all the FEers out there saying yeah, yeah heard that one before...) But over the last 50/60 years countless images of the round Earth have been collected and shared from many, many independent sources. But none of those count as far as zeteticists are concerned because of the reason I mentioned in the first sentence. I cannot recall a single photo however of a flat Earth taken from space. Zeteticists respond with same old 'get out of jail' excuse that no one has ever actually been into space so how could anyone get such a photo? Fair enough.. whatever you say guys.  The same excuse conveniently gives them a reason to dismiss all the round Earth photos from space as being faked.

Rowbotham was apparently one of the leading zeteticists of his day (mid 1800s?). His publications that are linked to in FE Wiki describe several of his experiments in detail. Unfortunately for various reasons his conclusions are wrong - but good effort nonetheless. Why then are modern zeteticists far less willing to share details of their own experiments now that far better and more accurate equipment is available to them? 

 
« Last Edit: September 07, 2019, 03:55:44 PM by dichotomy »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #23 on: September 07, 2019, 05:18:52 PM »
Science is just about understanding stuff.
A convenient way of making yourself able to sleep at night, I'm sure.

So if I'm reading this right you are encouraging people to do their own research and their own experiments and reach their own conclusions but you are not interested in anyone documenting their experiments or conclusions on these forums?
No, they're welcome to document them if they'd like to, and so are you. I'd be interested to read about anyone's findings. But if you come here and demand that others do work for you, or act as if they were obliged to do so, it's only right to put you in your place. This is a discussion forum, not a freelance work site.

So what then is the point of these forums?
This is the home of the world-famous Flat Earth Society, a place for free thinkers and the intellectual exchange of ideas. This website hosts information and serves as an archive for Flat Earth Theory. It also offers an opportunity to discuss this with the Flat Earth community on our forums.

Zeteticists seem to take on the view that if you can see it with your own eyes then it is true and accepted.
I already explained to you this is not the case, so using this premise for further deliberations is a firm waste of everyone's time.

Pete points out that because the Sun and Moon look the same size in the sky then according to the zetetic method, it follows that they must physically be the same size
No - you said that. I told you you were wrong, and that coincidentally those two bodies happen to be of roughly the same size. If you can't form your argument without lying about what others said, perhaps this is not a good place for you?
« Last Edit: September 07, 2019, 05:26:42 PM by Pete Svarrior »
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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If we are not speculating then we must assume

dichotomy

Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #24 on: September 07, 2019, 05:43:46 PM »
I didn't ask you to do any work for me as you put it. You said you had done the Bedford Experiment yourself so I was simply asking you to explain how you did it and what equipment you used. So far you seem unwilling to tell us.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #25 on: September 07, 2019, 06:25:51 PM »
So far you seem unwilling to tell us.
I don't "seem" to be unwilling - I was very explicit in it, and I explained my reasoning. What do you hope to achieve by (poorly) restating that simple fact?
« Last Edit: September 07, 2019, 07:39:04 PM by Pete Svarrior »
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume

dichotomy

Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #26 on: September 07, 2019, 06:47:51 PM »
What is explicit about that comment Pete. Simply telling us you (like many others) have reproduced the Bedford Level Experiment is not exactly being explicit about anything.  Explicit means "stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt."  As you said

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I'd be interested to read about anyone's findings

Equally so I am interested to read about yours.  If asking FE believers about the findings of their experiments is not allowed then just say so and I will move on. 

« Last Edit: September 07, 2019, 06:49:56 PM by dichotomy »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #27 on: September 07, 2019, 07:39:19 PM »
What is explicit about that comment Pete. Simply telling us you (like many others) have reproduced the Bedford Level Experiment is not exactly being explicit about anything.
Did you even read the post I linked you to? It doesn't state I reproduced the Bedford Level Experiment.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume

dichotomy

Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #28 on: September 07, 2019, 07:58:57 PM »
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Your best bet is to conduct the experiment yourself (as I and many others have) and draw your own conclusions.

I was referring to this Pete.  I'm interested to read your findings from when you conducted the experiment.  Usually if you conduct experiments you draw conclusions from it.  So what were yours and how did you do it?

BTW I seem to have suddenly started referring to the Bedford experiment rather than the Bishop experiment in one or two posts. In which case please ignore references to Bedford as I meant Bishop.

The description of the Bishop experiment given in the Wiki page is detailed and contains lots of numbers, some of which are correct, others not. However as has been shown on many occasions you can make numbers provide whatever result you want them to. If conditions are right you can see a lot further than the distances quoted in the experiment owing to refractive properties of light.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2019, 11:53:58 AM by dichotomy »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #29 on: September 08, 2019, 04:03:40 PM »
I didn't even notice the Bedford/Bishop mix-up, and even replicated the mistake in my reply. We both meant the Bishop Experiment, it's all good.

I was referring to this Pete.  I'm interested to read your findings from when you conducted the experiment.  Usually if you conduct experiments you draw conclusions from it.  So what were yours and how did you do it?
I already told you I wouldn't be sharing this, and explained why. You're completely within your rights to dislike my reasoning, or even be suspicious of it (which I explicitly recommended), but asking repeatedly will not change my position.

However as has been shown on many occasions you can make numbers provide whatever result you want them to.
This is precisely why I recommend you do your own experiments and see the world for yourself. All of this back-and-forth rhetoric is just a useless exercise in seeing whether you can out-philosophise me. It won't get us anywhere that's actually useful. Get going with doing useful stuff instead.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume

dichotomy

Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #30 on: September 08, 2019, 07:06:48 PM »
I has never been my intention to 'out-philosophise' you or anyone else on here for that matter. And that is the first time I have ever used that word I think!  Listening to your YouTube interviews you sound like a perfectly decent guy and I agree entirely with you about the back and forth rhetoric. These verbal tennis matches never achieve anything.  I see these forums as a discussion portal not a competition.

So on that note lets move on and see what if anything comes from other members on this discussion.

Adrenoch

Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #31 on: September 09, 2019, 02:47:59 PM »
Writing up a scientific experiment in detail is part of the scientific method specifically so that others can do the experiments for themselves. When other people replicate your experiment (which they can do because you carefully documented everything about how you performed it), their results will either confirm yours or cast doubt, opening new avenues for investigation.

This argument goes both ways there are FE experiments which don't have an encyclopedia of documentation. There are also RE experiments which many RE proponents stand up and proudly say EARTH ROUND when many variables are undocumented.

Here's an example:
Look these shadows are a different length the earth is round! But shadow A was 90 degrees and 80% humidity with a high pollen count and shadow B was 80 degrees , 70% humidity and a low pollen count.  You're not comparing apples to apples here. You have not even made the slightest attempt to determine how refraction and chaotic atmospheric conditions are affecting the length of the shadows.

You're exactly right. In your example, the first experiment did one thing. The conclusion would be that maybe the Earth is round. Fortunately, the experimenters did a terrific job of documenting everything so others can replicate and falsify. One experiment can be strong evidence, but it's not enough to draw a conclusion.

Others repeat the test, and get different results. They explain why they think they might have gotten different results, like maybe pollen has an effect. Others create a new experiment that would take differing levels of pollen into account. They get the same readings regardless of the pollen count, which strongly suggests pollen isn't a factor. They write up that experiment and results. Maybe five different groups design pollen experiments in different ways. If they all agree that pollen doesn't seem to have an effect, that's fairly strong evidence.

It goes on and on as different researchers devise different experiments to account for all known factors, and even expose unknown factors. All that works starts to chip away at the the things that are inconsistent to reveal the things that are consistent. Mechanisms are proposed and methods to test those mechanisms are attempted.

Science isn't done with one experiment and a conclusion announced. You probably wouldn't believe the amount of work that goes on to reach a silly little consensus like how variables in the atmosphere bend light.

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Offline AATW

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #32 on: September 10, 2019, 09:43:23 AM »
Exactly this. The entire point of publishing your method and results is so other people can reproduce your experiment and check your work.
Pete's stance of not saying what he did because he wants other people to question things and test things for themselves is counter productive.
If he had compelling evidence of a flat earth and published it then it would make people want to investigate further. Otherwise we're back to the kid at school claiming he has a 20 foot high Christmas Tree in his house when all knowledge about most domestic dwellings tells you that he can't have.
Now, I guess it's possible that his parents are very wealthy and they do have a house big enough to have a big hall with ceilings high enough to make that possible. But if he refuses to let you see the tree or show any photos of it then the reaction is "he's lying or deluded" not "I must investigate this matter further".

And of course the matter is further compounded when people do their own experiments and the results are hand-waved away as Tom has done with Bobby's experiments and with the Turning Torso video - neither of those experiments are on the "open ocean"
The area Bobby did his test in is across a bay which has small waves.
The most over the last week (at the time of writing) are 2-4 feet:

https://magicseaweed.com/Solana-Beach-Surf-Report/294/Historic/

And Bobby's observation was from a height of 25 feet so waves can't have been blocking his view of anything. The Turning Torso video is from a narrow channel, not the open sea. You can see on the videos there are no waves to speak of. Only experiments which seem to back up a FE agenda are accepted, it's pretty disingenuous.

Progress in science had been made by people doing experiments, publishing their method and results and other people checking their work and correcting it if necessary. The idea of everyone building their own model of reality based on their own experiences and tests is why the FE world is such a mess of conflicting models.
I'll never understand the mindset of someone who does an experiment which seems to indicate a flat earth and thinks
"Holy shit, we've all been lied to, the earth is flat!" rather than
"Hmm, I must suck at doing experiments or not understand physics very well".
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"

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #33 on: September 10, 2019, 07:13:37 PM »
Both the Turning Torso Tower pictures and Bobby's photos had curvature which changed with every shot. Pretty poor effort if you guys think that a sinking effect which changes by the hour is proof of your ball world.

"No, no, no... That was the curvature of the earth +/- refraction"  ::)

Offline iamcpc

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #34 on: September 10, 2019, 08:12:45 PM »
Both the Turning Torso Tower pictures and Bobby's photos had curvature which changed with every shot. Pretty poor effort if you guys think that a sinking effect which changes by the hour is proof of your ball world.

"No, no, no... That was the curvature of the earth +/- refraction"  ::)


Tom,

There have been other experiments too. I forgot the link, but even Bobby acknowledged that flashing mirror experiment demonstrated that the idea that view distance predicts that the Earth is a sphere or oblate spheroid is, at the very least, in this example incorrect. The results were similar to your bishop experiment where they were able to see something, at sea level, from much further than what is predicted possible in the RE model.

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Offline AATW

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #35 on: September 10, 2019, 08:28:10 PM »
Both the Turning Torso Tower pictures and Bobby's photos had curvature which changed with every shot. Pretty poor effort if you guys think that a sinking effect which changes by the hour is proof of your ball world.

"No, no, no... That was the curvature of the earth +/- refraction"  ::)
Nope. In the Turning Torso observations the amount of the building hidden behind the curve of the earth increases as the observation distance does.



Exactly as you’d expect on a globe earth.
And it’s a narrow channel, not the open ocean. You can see there’s no significant waves. So what’s your excuse now?
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"

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #36 on: September 10, 2019, 09:01:57 PM »
Receding from curving light rays also results in greater curvature with distance.

Refer to the thread on that topic. Your hero Bobby Shafto shows that the amount hidden did not match the Globe Earth curvature. The amount offset from the calculated Globe Earth curvature changed with every shot.

This is a graphic the video author constructed:


And here is something I've made to offer a first suggestion as to elevation heights where each image appears to be "cut-off."

(updated to correct significant errors)


 If anything looks out of whack, please chime in.

~



The curvature of the earth is constantly changing.

You guys point us to what is demonstrably an illusion to claim that the earth is curved.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2019, 09:17:25 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline stack

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #37 on: September 10, 2019, 09:34:51 PM »
Receding from curving light rays also results in greater curvature with distance.

Refer to the thread on that topic. Your hero Bobby Shafto shows that the amount hidden did not match the Globe Earth curvature. The amount offset from the calculated Globe Earth curvature changed with every shot.

This is a graphic the video author constructed:


And here is something I've made to offer a first suggestion as to elevation heights where each image appears to be "cut-off."

(updated to correct significant errors)


 If anything looks out of whack, please chime in.

~



The curvature of the earth is constantly changing.

You guys point us to what is demonstrably an illusion to claim that the earth is curved.

Why did you cut half of the image off, specifically removing the Flat Earth Height Hidden table?



FE needs to explain why they are so far off, way more than GE. What's the illusion that is hiding all of that elevation on FE?

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #38 on: September 10, 2019, 09:49:45 PM »
The sinking doesn't match a Flat Earth? Our minds are blown, assuredly.

The matter is demonstrated to be an illusion. The mechanism which causes it is irrelevant. Since it is an illusion it cannot be used as evidence for a Globe Earth. Aristotile's sinking ship proof is inconsistent.  An inconsistent proof is not proof of a globe.

Offline iamcpc

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Re: Modern experiments
« Reply #39 on: September 10, 2019, 10:08:38 PM »

Why did you cut half of the image off, specifically removing the Flat Earth Height Hidden table?


It's a moot point. the RE predictions for observations made in a vacuum didn't match the observations we see. In addition the FE predictions for observations made in a vacuum didn't match the observations we see.

To me the take away is that you can't see a ship sinking over the ocean and promptly claim the shape of the earth is ___________. You must at least attempt to factor in chaotic atmospheric and optical variables which have been demonstrated, over and over again, to have a significant impact on what our human brains perceive.



The sinking doesn't match a Flat Earth? Our minds are blown, assuredly.

The matter is demonstrated to be an illusion. The mechanism which causes it is irrelevant. Since it is an illusion it cannot be used as evidence for a Globe Earth. Aristotile's sinking ship proof is inconsistent.  An inconsistent proof is not proof of a globe.

Another question I have is when the FE predictions are made what FE model or FE system is being used to calculate those predictions? Maybe there is a more accurate FE prediction system out there?