[jimster]

The idea of zetetic is everything must be by direct experience. Look out your window, does it look flat, and do you feel it move, that tells the tail.

In explaining star trails and any optical or radio observation that seems to mean the earth is round, FEs talk about an "atmolayer" that furnishes the necessary diffraction to make it look round by bending the waves in some as yet not known way.

Since no one has seen the atmolayer and it has not been measured or studied in any way, does this conflict with the zetetic philosophy? Can there be zetetic science about something that no one has ever seen?

[LoopTheory]

It is true that everything has to be based on what we can perceive yes but then we have to ask the philosophical question why do we perceive, is it possible to not perceive or to perceive more? If we can scope something out with technology that provides us an image of something are we not perceiving that image it generated and therefore perceiving the thing itself in some fashion?

[WellRoundedIndividual]

Sure, but there has been no evidence shown that an atmolayer or dome has been detected by any device. There is nothing inherently wrong with using a device to detect the presence of something.

[Bad Puppy]

Sure, but there has been no evidence shown that an atmolayer or dome has been detected by any device. There is nothing inherently wrong with using a device to detect the presence of something.

Exactly.  Radiation is just such a case.  And viruses.  Good luck seeing those without a device.

[AATW]

There is no coherent theory explaining why the atmolayer/atmoplane doesn't just leak over the sides.
There are a few halfhearted attempts here:

https://wiki.tfes.org/Atmolayer

One idea is a massive ice wall but we would surely have observed that - and if we can't then the whole idea of empirically observing something goes out the window.
There's some mumbo-jumbo about dark energy which, had RE proposed that, would be dismissed as "magic"
And then there's the Lip Hypothesis which has it's own page:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Atmolayer_Lip_Hypothesis
But I don't believe there is any empirical evidence that declining temperatures and pressures could contain a higher pressure. The flow is always from higher pressure to lower pressure.

The only hope I see is an infinite plane or a physical dome - I know both these theories are involved in some FE models but the first seems preposterous and can't be observed so no evidence could be provided for it, the second - what material could the dome be made of that it wouldn't break and what evidence is there for it even existing?

[LoopTheory]

What if you are both right, what if it is round if you view it from space, flat if you view it from earth, and round if you view it from the un-rotating non-gravitational core of the earth? I believe that the core of the earth doesn't just stop, it keeps going just like space does (this explains the electromagnet fields)