[confused]

It seems like the flat earth hypothesis kind of makes the implicit assumption that all of the world's scientists are either too stupid to to figure out the actual shape of the earth or they are intentionally keeping it a secret. I find both of these propositions extremely hard to believe. I'm curious to hear what you guys think, and why.

[Woody]

It seems like the flat earth hypothesis kind of makes the implicit assumption that all of the world's scientists are either too stupid to to figure out the actual shape of the earth or they are intentionally keeping it a secret. I find both of these propositions extremely hard to believe. I'm curious to hear what you guys think, and why.

I have made the similar argument before.  People in many different science fields IMO would have to run across evidence something is just not right. Geophyscist, seismologist, astronomers, volcanologist, oceanologist, meteorologist, etc.

At least some pilots and ship captains since distances would be wrong between certain places.

The generalized answer I have seen is that those people would not be involved and only a relatively small group of people need to know the truth.

[Lonesome Crow]

Because all of the scientists in the world are concerned with the shape of the earth. 

Very few would be, and, even then, they probably don't think about verifying the shape. They're told it's a sphere and they just go with it.

[JRowe]

Mistaken.
Science is based on standing on the shoulders of giants: they rely on what's come before. Historically, it would have been far easier to make mistakes, and now many of those errors are taken as fact.
The problem isn't incompetence, it's how competence is measured. Imagine a scientist puts forward a paper with math, and experiments, and detailed and verified predictions: if the first line was "The Earth is flat," no one would read any further no matter what was contained within.

[confused]

Because all of the scientists in the world are concerned with the shape of the earth. 

Very few would be, and, even then, they probably don't think about verifying the shape. They're told it's a sphere and they just go with it.

A lot are, yes. Geologists for example; a big part of geology is figuring out the history of the earth, why the continents are where they are, how the poles have shifted over time, the composition and shape of the layers of the earth, etc. Based on the pictures of the flat earth that I have seen, all of their calculations and models would be rendered HEINOUSLY freaking wrong. I'm not saying that it is impossible that they are wrong, but I am saying that they would have to be completely incompetent to fail to notice the magnitude of such an error.

[confused]

Mistaken.
Science is based on standing on the shoulders of giants: they rely on what's come before. Historically, it would have been far easier to make mistakes, and now many of those errors are taken as fact.
The problem isn't incompetence, it's how competence is measured. Imagine a scientist puts forward a paper with math, and experiments, and detailed and verified predictions: if the first line was "The Earth is flat," no one would read any further no matter what was contained within.

I don't think you've seriously considered the amount of error that would propagate through so many different calculations hinging on the assumption that the earth is round across virtually every field of physical science. Failing to notice the magnitude of such an error would display a total lack of competence.

[JRowe]

Mistaken.
Science is based on standing on the shoulders of giants: they rely on what's come before. Historically, it would have been far easier to make mistakes, and now many of those errors are taken as fact.
The problem isn't incompetence, it's how competence is measured. Imagine a scientist puts forward a paper with math, and experiments, and detailed and verified predictions: if the first line was "The Earth is flat," no one would read any further no matter what was contained within.

I don't think you've seriously considered the amount of error that would propagate through so many different calculations hinging on the assumption that the earth is round across virtually every field of physical science. Failing to notice the magnitude of such an error would display a total lack of competence.

You cannot simply assume RET is the only valid explanation for those calculations.
Would you care to be at all specific?

[confused]

Mistaken.
Science is based on standing on the shoulders of giants: they rely on what's come before. Historically, it would have been far easier to make mistakes, and now many of those errors are taken as fact.
The problem isn't incompetence, it's how competence is measured. Imagine a scientist puts forward a paper with math, and experiments, and detailed and verified predictions: if the first line was "The Earth is flat," no one would read any further no matter what was contained within.

I don't think you've seriously considered the amount of error that would propagate through so many different calculations hinging on the assumption that the earth is round across virtually every field of physical science. Failing to notice the magnitude of such an error would display a total lack of competence.

You cannot simply assume RET is the only valid explanation for those calculations.
Would you care to be at all specific?

OK, if the earth were flat it would fundamentally change the way that GPS is calculated (I know a lot of FE people don't believe in GPS, not sure where you stand), orbits, the shape and magnitude of the earth's magnetic field, the way that earthquake epicenters are triangulated,  the way that the continents have moved over time-- virtually any calculation involving a significant distance would be incorrect and that error would propagate through all calculations based on that erroneous assumption. Really though, the biggest thing that jumps out at me is that it would mean we have an irreparably flawed understanding of gravity.

[JRowe]

OK, if the earth were flat it would fundamentally change the way that GPS is calculated (I know a lot of FE people don't believe in GPS, not sure where you stand), orbits, the shape and magnitude of the earth's magnetic field, the way that earthquake epicenters are triangulated,  the way that the continents have moved over time-- virtually any calculation involving a significant distance would be incorrect and that error would propagate through all calculations based on that erroneous assumption. Really though, the biggest thing that jumps out at me is that it would mean we have an irreparably flawed understanding of gravity.

On long-distance errors, don't forget error bars. There will inevitably be quite a few involved in any large-scale measurements. Error propagating throughout measurements is explicitly planned for.
On orbits, magnetic fields, gravity... and many such similar issues, don't forget how science is done. Ultimately, all science is, is coming up with an explanation for an observation. It makes no claims as to exclusivity, it just seeks to work out an answer that explains other observations. A misunderstanding of, say, gravity is perfectly understandable if it was arrived at under the view that it was what formed the Earth and made it round. However, most of the applications were arrived at through observation, under the assumption of RET. That's an erroneous assumption, but it doesn't alter the brute fact of the observations.

[sandokhan]

I am saying that they would have to be completely incompetent to fail to notice the magnitude of such an error.

They simply haven't done their homework.

Here is the Faint Young Sun Paradox.

The complete demonstration that the age of the Sun cannot exceed some ten million years (that is, we find ourselves right at the beginning of the main-sequence lifetime of the Sun, when no fluctuations in luminosity could have taken place); over the past 25 years there have been several attempts made to try to explain the paradox, all such efforts have failed, see the six links below.


http://www.clim-past.net/7/203/2011/cp-7-203-2011.pdf (a classic work)

http://creation.com/young-sun-paradox#txtRef15 (takes a look at Toon and Wolf's work, it debunks their earlier work in 2010: http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2010/06/03/early-earth-haze-likely-provided-ultraviolet-shield-planet-says-new-cu )


“Paradox Solved” – no, hardly, as the estimates for the young Earth CO2 levels were considerably less as pointed out by a recent paper in GRL, and this paper is based upon climate models which are unable to replicate even the Holocene, RWP, MWP, LIA, 20th and 21st centuries.

A recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters finds that the ‘Faint young Sun problem’ has become “more severe” because to solve the problem using conventional greenhouse theory would require CO2 to comprise 0.4 bar or about 40% of the young Earth atmosphere, far greater than CO2 partial pressures today [0.014 bar or 28 times less] or those estimated for the young Earth [0.06 bar]. According to the authors, “Our results suggest that currently favored greenhouse [gas] solutions could be in conflict with constraints emerging for the middle and late Archean [young Earth].”

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL054381/abstract



http://www.clim-past.net/7/203/2011/cp-7-203-2011.html

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=19684&p=149581

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=19684&p=149581#p149562

http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/06dat4.htm

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7349/full/nature09961.html



(excerpts from two works signed Dr. Danny Faulkner and Dr. Jonathan Sarfati)

Supposedly the Sun has been a main-sequence star since its formation about 4.6 billion years ago. This time represents about half the assumed ten-billion-year main-sequence lifetime of the Sun, so the Sun should have used about half its energy store. This means that about half the hydrogen in the core of the Sun has been used up and replaced by helium. This change in chemical composition changes the structure of the core. The overall structure of the Sun would have to change as well, so that today, the Sun should be nearly 40% brighter than it was 4.6 billion years ago.

This obviously has consequences for the temperatures of the planets. It is generally believed that even small fluctuations in the Sun's luminosity would have devastating consequences on Earth's climate. A 40% change in solar luminosity should have produced dramatic climatic changes.

According to evolution, about four billion years ago when life supposedly first arose on Earth, the temperature had to have been close to what the temperature is today. But if that were the case, the subsequent increase in the Sun's luminosity would have made Earth far too hot for life today. One could naively suggest that Earth began cooler than it is today and has been slowly warming with time. But this is not an option because geologists note that Earth's rock record insists that Earth's average temperature has not varied much over the past four billion years, and biologists require a nearly constant average temperature for the development and evolution of life. This problem is called the early faint Sun paradox.

Evolution proposes that the early atmosphere contained a greater amount of greenhouse gases (such as methane) than today. This would have produced average temperatures close to those today, even with a much fainter Sun. As the Sun gradually increased in luminosity, Earth's atmosphere is supposed to have evolved along with it, so that the amount of greenhouse gases have slowly decreased to compensate for the increasing solar luminosity.

The precise tuning of this alleged co-evolution is nothing short of miraculous. The mechanism driving this would have to be a complex system of negative feedbacks working very gradually, though it is not at all clear how such feedbacks could occur. At any point, a slight positive feedback would have completely disrupted the system, with catastrophic consequences similar to those of Venus or Mars. For instance, the current makeup of Earth's atmosphere is in a non-equilibrium state that is maintained by the widespread diversity of life. There is no evolutionary imperative that this be the case: it is just the way it is. Thus the incredibly unlikely origin and evolution of life had to be accompanied by the evolution of Earth's atmosphere in concert with the Sun.

The implausibility of such a process has caused Lovelock to propose his Gaia hypothesis. According to this, the biosphere (consisting of Earth's oceans, atmosphere, crust, and all living things) constitutes a sort of super organism that has evolved. Life has developed in such a way that the atmosphere has been altered to protect it in the face of increasing solar luminosity. Lovelock's hypothesis has not been generally accepted, largely because of the spiritual implications. Indeed, it does seem to lead to a mystical sort of view.


If billions of years were true, the sun would have been much fainter in the past. However, there is no evidence that the sun was fainter at any time in the earth's history. Astronomers call this the faint young sun paradox.

Evolutionists and long-agers believe that life appeared on the earth about 3.8 billion years ago. But if that timescale were true, the sun would be 25% brighter today than it was back then. This implies that the earth would have been frozen at an average temperature of -3 C. However, most paleontologists believe that, if anything, the earth was warmer in the past. The only way around this is to make arbitrary and unrealistic assumptions of a far greater greenhouse effect at that time than exists today, with about 1,000 times more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is today.

The physical principles that cause the early faint Sun paradox are well established, so astrophysicists are confident that the effect is real. Consequently, evolutionists have a choice of two explanations as to how Earth has maintained nearly constant temperature in spite of a steadily increasing influx of energy. In the first alternative, one can believe that through undirected change, the atmosphere has evolved to counteract heating. At best this means that the atmosphere has evolved through a series of states of unstable equilibrium or even non-equilibrium. Individual living organisms do something akin to this, driven by complex instructions encoded into DNA. Death is a process in which the complex chemical reactions of life ceases and cells rapidly approach chemical equilibrium. Short of some guiding intelligence or design, a similar process for the atmosphere seems incredibly improbable. Any sort of symbioses or true feedback with the Sun is entirely out of the question. On the other hand, one can believe that some sort of life force has directed the atmosphere's evolution through this ordeal. Most find the teleological or spiritual implications of this unpalatable, though there is a trend in this direction in physics.

A much higher concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has been suggested to maintain a proper temperature. This is an inferrence supported by no geological evidence whatsoever. Studies of iron carbonates by Rye et al. conclusively show that Earth had at most 20 percent the required amount of CO2. We have evidence that Mars also had temperatures suitable for liquid in its distant past. It is unlikely that CO2 would custom-heat both planets.


Conditions on the very early earth that permit the appearance and early evolution of life seem to be achievable without invoking too many improbabilities. As the sun then became hotter, however, we have a problem; if the greenhouse atmosphere is maintained for too long, as the sun brightens, a runaway greenhouse effect may result from positive feedback, creating a Venus-like situation and rendering the earth uninhabitable. A compensating negative feedback is required.

Some geochemical feedback may be possible, but it appears unlikely to be sufficient. Living organisms, too, started converting carbon dioxide into oxygen and organic matter, substantially decreasing the greenhouse effect as soon as photosynthesis got going. There is, however, no obvious reason for this process to keep exactly in step with the sun's increasing luminosity. It may be that we have simply been lucky, but as an explanation that is not entirely satisfactory. If the tuning did need to be very precise, Faulkner would have a point in calling it 'miraculous'.


As a result of a fainter Sun, the temperature on ancient Earth should have been some 25 C lower than today. Such a low temperature should have kept large parts of Earth frozen until about one to two billion years ago. The case for Mars is even more extreme due to its greater distance from the Sun. Yet there is compelling geologic evidence suggesting that liquid water was abundant on both planets three to four billion years ago.

Earth's oldest rocks, which are found in northern Canada and in the southwestern part of Greenland, date back nearly four billion years to the early Archean eon. Within these ancient rock samples are rounded 'pebbles' that appear to be sedimentary, laid down in a liquid-water environment. Rocks as old as 3.2 billion years exhibit mud cracks, ripple marks, and microfossil algae. All of these pieces of evidence indicate that early Earth must have had an abundant supply of liquid water in the form of lakes or oceans.

This apparent contradiction, between the icehouse that one would expect based upon stellar evolution models and the geologic evidence for copious amounts of liquid water, has become known as the 'faint young sun paradox.'


See also: http://grazian-archive.com/quantavolution/vol_03/chaos_creation_03.htm (collapsing tests of time)

Electrical Sun: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm


DATING METHODS OF THE PAST:

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=30499.msg1640735#msg1640735


The Faint Young Sun Paradox remains to this day one of the most devastating proofs against the spherical earth hypothesis (not nearly enough time for the earth's formation/evolution).

[confused]

OK, if the earth were flat it would fundamentally change the way that GPS is calculated (I know a lot of FE people don't believe in GPS, not sure where you stand), orbits, the shape and magnitude of the earth's magnetic field, the way that earthquake epicenters are triangulated,  the way that the continents have moved over time-- virtually any calculation involving a significant distance would be incorrect and that error would propagate through all calculations based on that erroneous assumption. Really though, the biggest thing that jumps out at me is that it would mean we have an irreparably flawed understanding of gravity.

On long-distance errors, don't forget error bars. There will inevitably be quite a few involved in any large-scale measurements. Error propagating throughout measurements is explicitly planned for.
On orbits, magnetic fields, gravity... and many such similar issues, don't forget how science is done. Ultimately, all science is, is coming up with an explanation for an observation. It makes no claims as to exclusivity, it just seeks to work out an answer that explains other observations. A misunderstanding of, say, gravity is perfectly understandable if it was arrived at under the view that it was what formed the Earth and made it round. However, most of the applications were arrived at through observation, under the assumption of RET. That's an erroneous assumption, but it doesn't alter the brute fact of the observations.

Accounting for the curvature of the earth in long distance measurements is a form of error correction in the first place. If the earth were flat, the correction should not be necessary, no? Why would engineers and scientists add in this extraneous bit of math if it didn't work?

As for gravity, are you suggesting that the earth could be flat and our current understanding of gravity (in the context of classical mechanics, anyway) could be correct? These two propositions seem very, very much at odds with each other from where I'm standing.

[confused]

I am saying that they would have to be completely incompetent to fail to notice the magnitude of such an error.

They simply haven't done their homework.

...

The Faint Young Sun Paradox remains to this day one of the most devastating proofs against the spherical earth hypothesis (not nearly enough time for the earth's formation/evolution).

It is an interesting problem, but I don't understand the connection to flat earth.

[rabinoz]

I am saying that they would have to be completely incompetent to fail to notice the magnitude of such an error.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Lots of stuff nobody reads)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They simply haven't done their homework.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Lots more stuff nobody reads)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I do really think a bit of a short explanation, giving reference to where more might be found might get you further,
especially with I theory I have found no-one else supporting.

[CableDawg]

Mistaken.
Science is based on standing on the shoulders of giants: they rely on what's come before. Historically, it would have been far easier to make mistakes, and now many of those errors are taken as fact.
The problem isn't incompetence, it's how competence is measured. Imagine a scientist puts forward a paper with math, and experiments, and detailed and verified predictions: if the first line was "The Earth is flat," no one would read any further no matter what was contained within.

Yes, the scientists of today do stand on the shoulders of giants from the past.

Unfortunately, as with so many FE supporters, you simply choose to ignore the fact that scientists do, in fact, correct the errors made by those who came before them as each generation gains more knowledge.

Can it be held as truth that the FES equivalent, if there is one, of scientists correct the errors of those who came before them?

[CableDawg]

I am saying that they would have to be completely incompetent to fail to notice the magnitude of such an error.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Lots of stuff nobody reads)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They simply haven't done their homework.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Lots more stuff nobody reads)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I do really think a bit of a short explanation, giving reference to where more might be found might get you further,
especially with I theory I have found no-one else supporting.

Junker is always on people for making low content posts, presumably because they don't add anything to the discussion, why is the same not done for superfluous content which also adds nothing to the discussion?

[brainsandgravy]

You know who I think would probably notice? Geodetic Surveyors.
http://civilengineersforum.com/geodetic-surveying/

Those poor people. They did all that studying and training in school and don't even realize their entire professional field is a hoax. Think of all the money spent on their educations, all the fake text books they had to buy, and all the learning of bogus information they had to do. I wonder how many of them have come to terms yet with the flat earth reality?   

[Pongo]

It seems like the flat earth hypothesis kind of makes the implicit assumption that all of the world's scientists are either too stupid to to figure out the actual shape of the earth or they are intentionally keeping it a secret.

This is a false dichotomy. A scientist could simply be wrong but taking that fact as an axiom. When a scientist starts studying a cumulonimbus cloud she doesn't begin by reproving the entire length, girth, and depth of science; she takes what popular science has "proven" as an axiom. So, she's not "too stupid" to figure out the shape of the earth nor is she deceiving anyone. She is simply wrong.