And here Tom is once again refusing to believe things which show him to be wrong.
I have only been here 24 hours, but I looked at some older threads and I admit there does appear to be a pattern. Now this relates to the question of irrationality, which I raised in a separate thread. Is ignoring contrary evidence itself evidence of irrationality? Irrationality is maintaining contrary patterns of belief. So ignoring evidence does not necessarily entail irrationality. If you haven’t seen the evidence, you haven’t acquired a contrary belief.
OTOH, why is the person ignoring the evidence? If they felt it was easily refuted, they would refute it immediately. The fact that they don’t, suggests that they consciously or unconsciously accept the evidence. There is the famous story (possibly apocryphal) of the man who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope, for fear that it might confirm a theory he did not want to believe.
I shall persist a bit longer. My goal is to understand why FEers maintain their belief system, in the face of what appears to be massive contrary evidence. Note I haven’t considered any evidence that requires complex scientific instrumentation, or accepting the statements of the scientific establishment. Just people looking at their watches at airports, plotting reported flight times on flat paper, etc.
What makes it irrational is the selective way evidence is ignored.
Tom has said a few times recently "if the evidence of a round earth is so strong, why can't you provide any irrefutable proof?"
And the answer is if someone is willing to stretch credulity to breaking point you can refute any evidence.
I said in another thread that there's a reason why in a UK court a case must be proven beyond
reasonable doubt, it is impossible to prove anything absolutely outside of the limited language of mathematics.
So a ridiculous conversation which I imagined in another thread could go:
"I don't believe kangaroos exist"
"What? But every biologist recognises that kangaroos exist."
"That is just argument from authority, that doesn't prove anything."
"But...ok, I've seen a kangaroo!"
"Liar! You're part of the great kangaroo conspiracy. Or maybe you just think you have"
"What?! Ok, look. Here's a photo I took of a kangaroo."
"Looks fake to me, your Photoshop skills are quite impressive though."
"Fine...here's some film of one then from a nature documentary."
"Yeah, made by people who want to perpetuate the great kangaroo myth. Have you heard of CGI?"
"Right! Look. We're at a zoo, there's a kangaroo..."
"...Looks animatronic to me..."
Point being, if someone is determined enough to dispute or dismiss or call fake anything which shows them to be wrong about something then they'll never accept anything as definitive proof.
And that's what Tom does. It's what you have to do if you want to cling on to flat earth belief.
The story about Galileo is interesting, on the Wiki page about Rowbotham there is a similar story:
When finally pinned down to a challenge in Plymouth in 1864 by allegations that he wouldn't agree to a test, [Rowbotham] appeared on Plymouth Hoe at the appointed time, witnessed by Richard A. Proctor, a writer on astronomy, and proceeded to the beach where a telescope had been set up. His opponents had claimed that only the lantern of the Eddystone Lighthouse, some 14 miles out to sea, would be visible. In fact, only half the lantern was visible, yet Rowbotham claimed his opponents were wrong and that it proved the Earth was indeed flat
It's hard to reason with people like that. I do it because I don't think this nonsense should be left unchallenged.
Someone said to me that this is different from other conspiracy theories. You can believe that the moon landings were faked but in doing so you don't have to deny the very nature of reality itself as you have to if you're going to believe in a flat earth.
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