1921

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Are the American police out of control?

« on: June 08, 2020, 12:02:00 PM »

Tumeni, you are not even American, and are trying to criticize America by criticizing clips of police shoving or hitting people with zero other information about the events which led up to that.

You are claiming that police officers essentially had a fit of psychosis and are randomly assaulting innocent babies of the public who are only incidentally involved in a violent riot/protest. Absurd.

A pretty illogical argument, TBH. I can't see that you have provided sufficient evidence for these fits of psychosis

Why do you have to be American to have a view about whether an incident is acceptable or not?
I don't care what events led up to the 75 year old being shoved over are, he wasn't charging at the policeman, he wasn't doing anything illegal, he was just standing there - shuffling towards them slowly maybe but clearly not a danger.
I'm sure they were yelling at him to get out of the way but he clearly wasn't young or particularly nimble. I'm sure they're dealing with difficult situations right now but that is their job. Shoving him to the ground like that was not OK.
It isn't a criticism of America to say that wasn't ok, it's a criticism of that policeman who callously shoved an old man to the ground and then just walked off. Sorry but that is not acceptable. And no, it's not a "fit of psychosis", it's violent bullying by a person who is in a position of power and doesn't seem to have the temperament for it. There does seem to be a problem with this sort of thing, these are not one off incidents. For balance, some of the police responses to the protests have been quite heart warming.
So while I'm not sure the police are collectively out of control, some individuals are and should be removed.

1922

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 08, 2020, 10:07:13 AM »

Must say, Tumeni, I don't often agree with Pete but he does have a point here.
Your diagram does indeed show the geometry of the situation and is agnostic of the way light behaves.
But you are using that diagram to demonstrate the impossibility of the image on a FE. That is only valid if light travels in straight lines.
If it does then yeah, you shouldn't see the horizon intersecting the boat. Why don't you see more sea beyond it?
If light behaves differently though then that changes the argument (I'm not saying light does behave differently, just if).

I think FE has a general problem with a horizon just a few miles away if you're on a beach looking out to sea at the shoreline. Why can't you see further?
As this thread is about Occam's razor I'd suggest the simplest explanation for a sharp horizon line is that you're looking at the edge of the earth.
In RE, you are of course. The sea curves away from you, the horizon is effectively the edge made by that curvature.

In FE either the light bends or there is some perspective effect but then I'd suggest that invoking those no longer makes it the simplest explanation for the observation.

1923

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 08, 2020, 08:26:27 AM »

This is sir Bernard Lovell explaining why none of the dishes at Jodrell Bank are capable of tracking a space mission  Listen as he explains what they actually do - they gather data and deduce velocities and accelerations from phase shift in signals , doppler shift .

That's a strange sentence. You start by making a claim that Jodrell Bank weren't capable of tracking the missions and then you go on to explain exactly how they did.
I don't know what a balloon satellite is or how you'd make one follow the path which the Apollo missions took. But Lovell also explains in that video about the delay in getting the signal back because of the distances involved. That wouldn't happen with a balloon satellite which, by definition, must be in the atmosphere and therefore relatively close.

1924

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 07, 2020, 08:49:01 AM »

It's from 2016 . Listen to what they say from the beginning . Head of jodrell bank O'Brien was 5 year old at the time . Comedian O'brien says "you found this" - "yes it's one of our prize plums" so quickly stifles debate on where it came from

And this article has an interview from one of the engineers who did the tracking

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-49001181

Your arguments are a mixture of claims about remembered statements you provide no source for, arguments from incredulity and flat out denial.

The one source you did provide does confirm that they were tracking craft going to the moon.

No, it wasn’t easy in the 60s, they threw a LOT of money at it. As public interest waned they no longer had the budget to do it - the last 2 Apollo missions were cancelled because of that.

Rocket technology hasn’t failed to advance but budgets have been significantly cut since the space race.

1925

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 06, 2020, 10:07:12 PM »

You obviously weren't around at the times of the Apollo missions .Jodrell bank were not tracking Apollo 11. Nasa alone tracked their craft using their Aussie tracking facility

Well, you're right, I wasn't born. But I don't see how that's relevant. They were tracking Apollo 11, according to their own website:

https://www.jodrellbank.net/20-july-1969-lovell-telescope-tracked-eagle-lander-onto-surface-moon/

From the initial operation of the Lovell Telescope, the telescope had become entwined with the “Space Race”, tracking spacecraft operated by both the Russians and Americans beginning with the world’s first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 in October 1957. In July 1969, the Jodrell Bank Observatory team team, led by the observatory Director Sir Bernard Lovell, used telescopes at the Cheshire site including the Lovell Telescope and the 50ft telescope (now the 42ft telescope) to simultaneously monitor signals from the Apollo 11 Eagle lander and the Russian unmanned module Luna 15 spacecraft both on lunar missions.

Signals intercepted (see below) by the 50ft telescope showed the signals received when Neil Armstrong took manual control of the Eagle lander as well as the moment when the Eagle lander module touched down on the surface of the moon.

If you can find the quote from Patrick Moore then I'll have a look, but a vague memory if you saying he said a thing is not very satisfactory.
I'm not sure what your source adds, it speaks about Jodrell tracking numerous craft which were headed to the moon in the space race.

I've seen a quote from head of nasa radio transmission at that time , can't recall his name , who admitted that it was possible that all Apollo radio transmission data could have been faked .

OK, then provide the source. Just saying "I saw a quote from someone who said a thing" doesn't really help the discussion.

1926

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 05, 2020, 05:51:24 PM »

Oh well, Donald. Back to the drawing board...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52937153

1927

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 05, 2020, 04:11:24 PM »

Now you are bringing in complexities and arguments which are not even demonstrated, arguing from your personal expectations and reasoning as your source, which makes for a somewhat less empirical and more tenuous argument.

My empirical observations of the world around me suggest that where I see a sharp line at the end of an object then either
1) That is the end of that object or
2) The angle of the surface of the object has changed in such a way that I can no longer see it.

The only other possibility is that visibility is poor in such a way that at some point I can no longer see the object, but in that case I observe a fading away into the distance, not a sharp edge.

And my other observation of the world is that when object B is partially obscured by object A then object A is in front of object B. So when I see a car go over a hill I witness it disappearing over the edge of the hill bottom first. When I see something like the Turning Torso video the simplest explanation is that part of the building is behind the water somehow.

You believe that Juipiter has a somewhat sharpish edge despite being a gaseous planet, right?

Yes, because although it's gaseous it is has a defined edge. if you were up close to it maybe the edge would be less well defined as with the edge of a tennis ball. From a distance though it appears as a well defined edge.

You believe that a quarter isn't visible from one mile away, right?

With the naked eye, correct. And if I have clear line of sight to it then with optical magnification I should be able to see it again. If I zoom into a horizon I don't see more sea beyond it, the sharp line remains which leads me back to one of the two possibilities I outlined above.

1928

Flat Earth Community / Re: Did Rowbotham use Conspiracy Theories?

« on: June 05, 2020, 01:33:45 PM »

Whilst it's certainly true that governments lie, it's not true that everything they say is a lie and I don't think you believe it is.
You selectively choose to disbelieve NASA because it suits your wider world view.

I think that you and many other RE here would be the people in the second panel of the illustration I posted with their hands down.

A strange assertion given that I've just said that "it's not true that everything they say is a lie"
I don't believe you'd be in that panel either, unless you believe that everything the government says is a lie.
Which would be a strange stance given that you seem to endlessly defend Trump (despite the fact that he is one of the presidents with the worst record of lying - but even he doesn't always lie)

1929

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 05, 2020, 09:40:22 AM »

I'm thinking that with everything I know of science and the current limits of technology and what I've personally witnessed and experienced, that rockets capable of reaching orbit seems very possible.

That's nice. But how is this any different than the legions of people who believe that magics are possible, based on endless and substantial old stories of magics and mysticisms being performed?

Right. So yeah, you're basically right. A lot of people believe in psychics. There are people who go and see shows where these people use cold reading techniques to mislead their audience. And some people come out of those shows saying "there's no way he/she could have known..."
Read a bit about the techniques they people use and it's not as impressive as it looks - read about Barnum statements, for example.
So yeah, no dispute that people believe some pretty "out there" things without much basis - maybe because they want to feel comforted that dead relatives can still communicate.
But there's a difference between that and what space agencies (not just NASA) are doing.
Psychics don't perform well in proper scientific tests. James Randi famously offered a million bucks to anyone who could display genuine paranormal abilities under proper scientific conditions. Shouldn't be too hard if these people really have the powers they claim.
So far he still has his money.

The whole way the NASA part of the Occams Razor page is written is not about which makes the fewest assumptions, it's just an argument from incredulity. And it doesn't even bear up to much scrutiny

What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch

From scratch? What does that mean? Rockets were invented in ancient China, developed in more modern times and in the Second World War the Germans were using V2 rockets. The first photo from space was taken in 1946 using an adapted V2 rocket - 12 years before NASA were even formed. Rocket technology is not some amazing new thing that NASA developed from scratch, the US took a lot of the scientists who had been working in Germany in the War were taken to the US to continue and develop their work further.

You're claiming that NASA have access to a form of technology which the rest of us do not. Patently not true, have you heard of fireworks? Those are simple rockets. Of course we don't have access to the type of rockets NASA spend millions on any more than I have access to a Formula One racing car - but I do have a car on my drive and I know cars exist. I don't have access to the kind of fighter jets the US military have but I can go on a commercial airline. If NASA were claiming to be able to teleport people to the ISS then yeah, I might have cause to doubt them, but that is not their claim.

Also...you can go and see rocket launches. They're not private. Annoyingly I missed the SpaceX one - I'm in the UK but it did pass over here and a friend saw it go over. People in the US were no doubt watching the launch. I've seen a Shuttle launch. You might not be able to go on a Space Shuttle but you can certainly go and watch one launch - well, not any more but the rocket launches going on now.

So what's the simplest explanation? That the launch I saw secretly landed somewhere with no witnesses, the astronauts spent a week somewhere in hiding and then they somehow managed to launch again without anyone noticing (rocket launches can be seen from a long way) and managed to fly and come to land at the time and place NASA said it would. And that was going on for decades with Shuttle launches with no whistleblowers, no witnesses to any of this skullduggery.

And the US aren't the only country with a space programme, many do now.
When it comes to the moon landing you know that Jodrell Bank in the UK were tracking the Apollo craft all the way to the surface?
China have a probe which took good enough quality photos to see the Apollow landing sites. This is not just a unilateral claim, other countries have "checked their workings", so to speak.

1930

Flat Earth Community / Re: Did Rowbotham use Conspiracy Theories?

« on: June 05, 2020, 08:48:02 AM »

Whilst it's certainly true that governments lie, it's not true that everything they say is a lie and I don't think you believe it is.
You selectively choose to disbelieve NASA because it suits your wider world view.
It's not like NASA are claiming to have technologies that no-one else does. Quite a few countries have space programmes and now with SpaceX private enterprises are getting in on the act.

1931

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Occams razor according to Flat Earth

« on: June 05, 2020, 07:34:55 AM »

How is seeing a flat earth not the simplest explanation for its flatness?

Because seeing a sharp horizon line a few miles away is not what you'd see on a flat earth
On a globe earth a sharp horizon line is expected because of the way the land curves away from you.
On a flat earth why is the horizon a sharp line just a few miles away?:



Why can you not see further? If the earth was flat then you wouldn't see a sharp line, it would surely be more of a fading out as on a foggy day



A sharp line is observed when you're looking at the edge of something.

1932

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 04, 2020, 07:31:24 AM »

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-supporters-might-demand-that-he-serve-more-than-two-terms-as-president/ar-AACXSMW

Poor Donald. He really doesn't want to break the law, but the people might just DEMAND that he does.

Old article.  But yeah, his supporters would love it despite the absolute disregard for the constitution.

They could make an amendment to the constitution. By definition amendments can be...well, amended.

Apart from the second. You can't change that one because reasons.

1933

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 03, 2020, 03:58:15 PM »

Trump's history of racism laid out in this Twitter thread

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1267902480794488835

1934

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Flat Earth at the Beach

« on: June 03, 2020, 11:44:16 AM »

- If you go to a lake or other landlocked body of water on a calm day, rather than an open ocean, you will often see further than should be possible, invalidating the 'sinking ship' proof.

Yes. Because refraction is a thing. But it doesn't invalidate that proof. FE often straw mans RE with this sort of argument:
"Hey, but you said that things sink over the curve of the earth, but look! This observation doesn't match with a calculator even if I account for standard refraction". OK. So maybe the conditions were different from standard refraction that day then, it is not a controversial idea that refraction can vary - you've provided timelapse videos demonstrating that exact thing.
But look at something like the Turning Torso video and you quite clearly see that
1) Parts of the building are obscured by the curve of the earth and
2) The amount of the building which is obscured increases with distance.

You can argue whether 100ft is hidden when it "should" have been 130ft, or whatever - but it cannot be denied that parts of the building are hidden. What are they hidden by on a FE? I have never seen a FE Turning Torso video which shows the entire building at all the distances. Why not?

- Watching the Sun move leads us to the direct conclusion that the Sun moves. It does not lead us to the direct conclusion that the Earth is moving.

Right. If I grew up on a remote island with no access to technology or contact with other civilisation then without knowing anything else I'd probably conclude that the sun is moving. But if the earth is rotating then you understand that we'd see the exact same thing as if the sun was going around us? So which is it? That observation alone is not enough to distinguish between those two possibilities.
Ancient civilisations who believed in a FE surely thought that the sun goes up around the sky during the day and then sinks under the earth at night. That's what it looks like and without being aware of distant lands which are still in sunlight that's what the observations would lead you to believe - day is day everywhere and night is night everywhere.

The RE model explains why we observe consistent angular speed and size throughout the day, it explains the path of the sun across the sky in different locations - including polar regions with the 24 hour sun in the extreme north in their summer and the extreme south in theirs.
FE has to invent concepts like EA and some magnification effect to explain some of these things - this is surely at odds with your philosophy of making as few assumptions as possible and trusting your eyes. And with the monopole model the southern 24 sun has no explanation so it is simply denied. Or you invoke the bi-polar model but I've no idea how the sun is supposed to move in that model to match observations.
You also have to have some unexplained mechanism for how the sun actually keeps shining, given how small it is - what is powering it? And there has to be some unexplained mechanism to keep it going in a circle - which will require a force - and some mechanism which causes the diameter of the sun's orbit to keep changing throughout the year to explain seasons. Again, something the RE model explains quite simply with the axis of rotation being tilted.

I wont go into your assertion about the moon in details suffice to say we have observed tidal locking with moons orbiting other planets.

1935

Flat Earth Community / Re: why can’t the people in south see Polaris

« on: June 03, 2020, 10:29:29 AM »

Occam's Razor states that the simplest solution is the most likely, and RE is the simplest solution for these observations.

Actually, FE provides the simplest solutions.

Does it though? I mean, "simplest" is subjective but a distant Polaris sitting (roughly) above the North Pole of a globe earth explains why the observed angle to Polaris matches our Latitude (simple geometry). It explains why Polaris maintains a consistent angular size and magnitude (no significant change in distance) and it explains why we can't see it from the southern hemisphere (shape of the earth means no line of sight).

On a FE you have to invoke separate and unexplained mechanisms to account for all of these things.

Your Occam's Razor page is written in a way which invokes a lot of argument from incredulity. I'd suggest it wouldn't be difficult to write it in a different way to make the FE explanation sound like the silly one. Just one example:

You talk about your eyes "constantly being deceived", I presume you mean because we observe a flat horizon, but that is what you'd expect to see on a globe this size. There are other ways of telling the earth is a ball. You use things like EA and "magnification at sunset" to explain why observations don't match what you'd expect on a FE. "Sure, the sun is much further away at sunset but it looks the same angular size, because...". Isn't that you trying to explain why your eyes are deceived in FE?

1936

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 03, 2020, 08:41:43 AM »

It's always funny to see Trump pretend to give a shit about God or religion. I don't personally hold it against him because I don't care about it either, but I can't imagine the level of contortion needed for Christians to convince themselves that he's one of them.

I don't understand this either and I know some Christians who are apologists for him. [I also know plenty who, like me, are horrified that he is the POTUS]

He called The Bible his favourite book and then couldn't name a single verse when he was asked which was his favourite - he hid that under "it's personal", but the real answer, of course, is that he never reads the thing.
The thing which makes so called evangelical Christians wave their little Stars and Stripes is his stance on abortion, that's about it. Which, like most of his views, shows zero empathy for anyone.

I can't think of any other view he espouses which fits in with a Christian world view. Christians don't expect other Christians to be perfect - pretty much the entire point is that we're not and not able to be. But he famously said he doesn't feel the need to ask forgiveness and I see no evidence of any "fruit" in his life. He shows no compassion for people, he routinely displays racist, misogynistic and bigoted views. If those were in his past and there was evidence of turnaround then I'd have no issue with that, but he continues to have those attitudes.

I don't understand why a lot of Christians in the US see him as "their guy".
I'm not saying Clinton was "their guy" either, increasingly in elections (in the UK too) it's about picking the least bad option. But was that really Trump?

Increasingly it's hard to tell the difference between satire and reality when it comes to stories around Trump
Tear gassing peaceful protesters to clear his path so he could go to a church for a photo op and wave a Bible around.
You couldn't make it up...

1937

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 02, 2020, 10:40:21 AM »

Trump does seem to have a knack for finding the wrongest possible response to every situation

https://newsthump.com/2020/06/02/donald-trump-vows-to-end-riots-over-killing-of-unarmed-black-man-by-having-military-to-shoot-at-unarmed-black-men/

(A spoof article, obviously, but not a million miles away from the rhetoric coming out of the White House right now)

1938

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Latitude and longitude - please enlighten me

« on: June 01, 2020, 11:21:48 AM »

FE position .This change of angle to Polaris, as we move N or S , allows calculation by geometric method of the approximate distance to the star and its approximate height above the geographic N pole. No assumptions just scientific observation.

Right, but the thing I don't understand about FE is that the observations show that for each degree of latitude the angle to Polaris drops by a degree AND degrees of latitude are equidistant. On a FE if light travels in a straight line then that would not be the case, it's simple geometry:



So is your belief that degrees of latitude are not equidistant? Or is it that light is bending? Or something else?

1939

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 29, 2020, 02:51:11 PM »

Bosses always fire people who don't do what they are told to do.

That is the way of the world and has been for millenia.

It's the way for bad bosses, maybe. A decent boss will be listening to dissenting voices, not surrounding themselves with only people who agree with them and refusing to listen to anyone who disagrees.
Not saying that Trump is the only person history to do this, but it's not a desirable trait.

1940

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 29, 2020, 10:23:13 AM »

One of my issues with Trump is that he wants to be able to say and do whatever he wants without consequence or scrutiny.

You mean like you here on this forum?

No.

I mean, I don't have the power to. But I've never reported a post because someone posted something I didn't agree with.
What I say on here should be subject to the rules of this forum and can be scrutinised and replied to by anyone else here.
That's how places like this work.

So no, I don't think that but Trump demonstrably does. Even if you like him and the things he says, you surely think he should be subject to scrutiny and fact-checking. Any leader should. But Trump doesn't think that, you can tell that by his reaction when he's asked difficult questions or by the way he sacks people who challenge him. Can you not see how dangerous that is?