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Offline Iceman

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Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« on: August 13, 2020, 05:13:05 PM »
*I am a glacial geologist who specializes in reconstruction of past glacial processes. I will not claim to be an expert in geologic knowledge beyond that. Looking to better understand the principles of FE theory as part of ongoing scientific questioning. I have many questions about FE, but many are partially addressed in the FAQ and or the wiki, so I want to address some of the shortcomings of FET, namely its avoidance of explanations of geologic phenomena. Thanks in advance for any clarifications you can provide on any of the queries below. I appreciate it!

1.     Is there an estimate of the age of the earth in flat earth hypotheses? I have not seen any. This is more a point of curiosity for me, but it would hold implications for evaluating other aspects of the theory against potential bodies empirical evidence.

2.     How are earthquakes and volcanoes explained within a flat earth paradigm? Again, more curiosity than anything, but these are major phenomena that require explanation in any worldview.

3.     Though I am admittedly skeptical of the FE model’s ability to account for changes in day/night and seasons, larger scale climate variations are not discussed within a FE framework. A very basic but fundamental question to ask would be what is the cause(s) of past ice ages and interglacials in the recent geologic past (either the last interglacial to glacial maximum from 115 000 – 25 000 years ago, or the last deglaciation from 20 000 – 12 000 years ago, or even the Medieval Warm Period and/or Little Ice Age conditions that exhibited major climate changes over large parts of the earth?

4.     Antarctica. (this will be a longer one, fair warning.) Glaciers and ice sheets are intensely complicated features, but they can be effectively simplified as large masses of frozen water that move/flow due to the influence of gravity. I will grant that they could move under the influence of any force that exhibits a downward acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 (i.e. UA explanation offered in the FE wiki), given our inability to differentiate those two possibilities within a closed reference frame. The problem lies in glacier mechanics and mass balance, but we don’t need to go into detail; simply put, glaciers flow ‘downhill’ melting or calving into the sea at their downstream end. For a glacier/ice sheet to survive over millennia, mass must be added in the upflow regions in the form of precipitation.

a.     If Antarctica is just a wall of ice (and mountains?) that rims the earth, as depicted in the more common FE maps and theories, where are they flowing from? That is, where is ice being added to the wall of ice to counteract the melting and calving observed along the margins of Antarctica?

b.     If mass is being added upflow, that would mean it is being added closer to the edge of the disk. The downward acceleration that drives glacier motion (either gravity or UA, as discussed above), would also cause the ice sheet to flow not only towards the inner part of the disk, where it meets the oceans, but also towards to outer parts of the disk (the mechanism here is the same for all large ice sheets and ice caps, Greenland ice sheet would be the best analogue). If this is true, then ice would eventually flow either off the edge of the earth (which is likely no happening, because this would cause rapid acceleration of the ice flow velocity, initiating broad ice streams that would effectively ‘steal’ ice from the catchment areas flowing towards the oceans within the disk (google ice stream piracy, or check out a paper by Matthew Bennett, 2003: ice streams as the arteries of an ice sheet).

c.     Many people have been to Antarctica, including several personal friends of mine (these are limited to cruises and research missions that visited the margins of the continent). I have seen videos and hundreds of photos of the different stages of the trip. I have personally been offered a position to visit the continent as part of a graduate field course, but I was unable to make it work because of financial and time constraints. Many other people have flown to (and in some cases, skied to) the south pole. There is a permanent research station at the south pole, and many past travelers have documents their experience in detail. There is a 24-hour live stream offered by the US Antarctic program https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm – you can check sunrise and set times and compare them to predictions made by round earth (though, technically, there’s just 6 months of daylight followed by 6 months of darkness, but the angle of the sun in the sky/glow beneath the spring and fall will be informative in developing/evaluating theories). You can even apply to be a volunteer and work on different research bases in Antarctica! 😊

d.     How do the transantarctic Mountains and the nearly 100 documented volcanoes fit within the icewall paradigm of flat earth (this assumes the monopole version that appears to be more commonly promoted as opposed to the dipole version which was advocated following increased Antarctic exploration in the early 1900’s, according to the FE wiki). In the round earth paradigm, these mountains form a significant topographic divide which helps promote the divergence of flow at the interior of the ice sheet outward in both directions to the east Antarctic and west Antarctic ice sheets.

e.     How does liquid water get to the base of the Antarctic ice sheet? And why does it flow towards the oceans? If the ice was simply a wall that holds the oceans in place, as promoted by FE, any documented water should be flowing from the oceans, beneath the ice, towards the interior of the ice sheet/outwards towards the edge of the disk, however far that may be. This flow should be controlled by differences in hydraulic head (think pressure) from sea level to the base of the Antarctic ice sheet, which is in many areas 800 - 1500 m below sea level, even along its margins. If the ice was holding the oceans on the surface of the disk, there would be a head differential promoting water flow outward toward the disk margins, rather than from the ice into the oceans.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2020, 07:59:10 PM »
I'm going to make a post. Not write a book. Therefore I'll take your first question. Someone else can take the next if they choose.

Age of the earth.

Welp, there are the religious flat earthers and they are going to tell you the earth is under 10,000 years old.

Then there is the rest of us and we get divided into two camps. Those who subscribe to an infinite earth with the earth travelling infinitely upwards, and being of infinite dimensions. Basically the flat earth bisects the universe in two. Everything below the earth is down and everything above it is up. I hate this theory, but its there. And so the infinite gang are going to tell you the earth has always existed and will always exist.

Finally, the camp I fall into doesn't care. It just doesn't matter. A 200 year old earth, a 30 billion year old earth, I fail to see how it changes earth's shape or my life one jot.

What I will add is that I doubt the earth is 4.6 billion years old. Carbon dating is absolutely s*** when extrapolated out that far. I think of Lord Kelvin. He predicted the age of the earth based on how hot the core is. (you probably know this, but for the uninitiated) ... So he worked out how hot earth must of been to be molten, how hot the core is now, and how long that would take to cool et voila ... age of the earth ... between 20 and 100 million years old. Kelvin of course knew nothing of radioactive substances in the earth, and this threw his calcs out by an order of magnitude. He was actually at the science meeting when newer research was published many decades later. But he was so old, he slept through the entire presentation.

I suspect the current estimates will be revised again as new science emerges. It would be churlish to say we now know everything and can accurately gauge the age and it will never be improved upon. That has never been the case in human history.

But ultimately, earth's age isn't important to earth's shape.

However ...
1.     Is there an estimate of the age of the earth in flat earth hypotheses?
That was the question and I didn't prattle on about Kelvin for nothing. Please see number 3 at the link below.
http://www2.me.rochester.edu/courses/ME201/webexamp/kelvin.pdf

Turns out Round Earthers are only interested in how old a flat earth is anyway. Maybe Kelvin knew something you don't.  ;)
« Last Edit: August 13, 2020, 08:04:06 PM by Toddler Thork »
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Offline Iceman

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2020, 08:29:29 PM »
Hi Toddler Thork, thanks for your input on the age of the earth question. I appreciate the perspective. Like I said I was only asking because an answer would hold implications for what types of empirical geoscience evidence could be used in developing or evaluating FE theories, you're absolutely right that its age holds no direct bearing on its shape. Apologies if my original post gave that impression. Two small points, our view of earth age is derived from radiometric dating of heavier elements with long  half-lives, like Uranium, which give a much longer time range to look back than the 45-50000 years of radiocarbon. And thanks for the link to the Kelvin story. He is a great example of coming to the wrong conclusion, but for all the right reasons.

Thanks for sharing and helping me get a better understanding of view points!

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2020, 09:07:04 AM »
I'm of the opinion that it is rather unlikely for a theory to be entirely correct if it is not experimentally determined and verified. Most of what you mentioned lists as in the realm of a pseudoscience for me. 

Here is a page: https://wiki.tfes.org/Astronomy_is_a_Pseudoscience

Imagine that, but tailored for the subject of geology and historical geology. None or few of those processes have been directly verified with direct experimentation. They are theorized to occur based on indirect or observational evidence.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2020, 09:39:06 AM »
Thanks for stopping by. In the future, I'd suggest that you stick to one subject per thread (ideally staggering them in time somewhat). It's much easier to keep the discussion organised that way, and it enables you to provide a more descriptive thread title than just "Questions".

Nonetheless, I'll take a nibble at part of your Antarctica questions.

a.     If Antarctica is just a wall of ice (and mountains?) that rims the earth, as depicted in the more common FE maps and theories, where are they flowing from? That is, where is ice being added to the wall of ice to counteract the melting and calving observed along the margins of Antarctica?

b.     If mass is being added upflow, that would mean it is being added closer to the edge of the disk. The downward acceleration that drives glacier motion (either gravity or UA, as discussed above), would also cause the ice sheet to flow not only towards the inner part of the disk, where it meets the oceans, but also towards to outer parts of the disk (the mechanism here is the same for all large ice sheets and ice caps, Greenland ice sheet would be the best analogue). If this is true, then ice would eventually flow either off the edge of the earth (which is likely no happening, because this would cause rapid acceleration of the ice flow velocity, initiating broad ice streams that would effectively ‘steal’ ice from the catchment areas flowing towards the oceans within the disk (google ice stream piracy, or check out a paper by Matthew Bennett, 2003: ice streams as the arteries of an ice sheet).

It sounds to me like you're imagining the Ice Wall to exist fairly close to a cliff-edge of sorts - the "end" or "edge" of the Earth. It is a common assumption, and one that many newcomers find very intuitive, but I'm not convinced that it's correct. Our stance on what lies beyond Antarctica is, quite simply: we don't know. Nobody has ventured significantly past the Ice Wall, or at least they never came back to tell the tale.

Your reasoning seems to point towards there not being such an edge, or at least such an edge not being directly adjacent to Antarctica. But even if this is an educated guess, it's still a guess. We might never be able to explore what truly is "out there".
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

Offline edby

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2020, 10:00:19 AM »
Nobody has ventured significantly past the Ice Wall, or at least they never came back to tell the tale.
OK I’ll bite. The wiki identifies the Ice Wall as “discovered by Sir James Clark Ross, a British Naval Officer and polar explorer who was among the first to venture to Antarctica”. So that would be the Ross ice shelf. If you are asserting that nobody has ventured significantly past the Ross ice shelf and lived, then that is demonstrably false. There was Scott’s Discovery expedition of 1901-4, then the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910-13.

There is now a road linking McMurdo station just off the Ross shelf, and the South Pole. Last year at the Royal Geographic Society I met Felicity Aston who travelled that road alone to the South Pole. Clearly she came back to ‘tell the tale’.

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2020, 10:55:05 AM »
If you are asserting that nobody has ventured significantly past the Ross ice shelf and lived
I am not. Please keep your trolling out of this thread - OP has some good questions, and your derailment won't be tolerated here.
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

Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2020, 05:40:13 PM »
2.     How are earthquakes and volcanoes explained within a flat earth paradigm? Again, more curiosity than anything, but these are major phenomena that require explanation in any worldview.

That's here: https://wiki.tfes.org/Formation_of_Mountains_and_Volcanoes, I discovered that when discussing about tectonic plates here: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=16109.0. Hopefully I can summarize that in FET propositions like "South America and Africa fit like a jigsaw puzzle" is just a falsity and that yes, below the ground something is going on that creates Volcanoes but we really don't know what and how. I invite you to see the interesting discussion that played out there!


Quote from: Pete Svarrior
these waves of smug RE'ers are temporary. Every now and then they flood us for a year or two in response to some media attention, and eventually they peter out. In my view, it's a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

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Offline Iceman

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2020, 05:08:40 PM »
Hi Tom,

Thanks for adding to the discussion. I can understand that view point, especially given the extreme difficulty we have in reaching the base of glaciers to make observations. I do however take some exception to your labeling as 'pseudoscience' because nothing is being observed.

There are hundreds of studies that have provided observations from the base of glaciers. Boulton and Hindmarsh tunneled into the base of an Icelandic glacier. An alpine glacier in France has been tunneled into and developed into an electric generating plant. The beds of dozens of glaciers in Alaska, Iceland, Norway, Sweden have been instrumented to evaluate stress directions, porewater pressure variations, measure displacement under the movement of the overriding glacier. Boreholes have been drilled through Antarctic ice streams to analyze the nature and chemistry of the ice and sediments/bedrock/water beneath it. Our understanding of glacial processes is firmly rooted in observations, and greatly enhanced by more recent developments in geophysical techniques such as seismic, ice penetrating radar, high-resgravity surveys, electrical sensitivity, and satellite monitoring of surface ice flow velocities.

I posed my questions in this forum to try to gain an understanding of how geologic phenomena are understood within a flat earth framework, your dismissal of glaciology as mere pseudoscience is somewhat problematic.

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Offline Iceman

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2020, 05:20:15 PM »
Hi Pete, thanks for your reply. And in any future forum posts I will try to take your advice. I'm brand new here and just looking to get a better view of how geologic processes/features are explained in FET.

Thanks for your input on Antarctica/ice wall question. I guess I pictured the other side of the ice wall as the 'edge' of the disk mostly because that's just how it's kinda simplified in the maps and models I've seen. Probably best it's not viewed that way because we would have lost all/most our water millions of years ago in that configuration.

Even a continuation of the flat earth surface beyond the ice wall poses issues though, as the issues of hydraulic head differentials from ocean to the other side of the ice wall dont work unless there is a significant change in ice elevation/ elevation of underlying bedrock away from the ocean contact. And if there is room beyond the wall, glacier would flow equally/partially in that direction, and thereby be unaccounted for in our understanding of water balance/sea level rise and fall for 'our'part of the earth.

Thanks for adding perspective to that question though. The above response isnt meant to be just contrarian, just some thoughts on the fly of some possible implications of that kind of physical configuration.

Thanks though, lots for me to think about

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Offline Iceman

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #10 on: August 15, 2020, 05:29:56 PM »
Hi Bikini,

Thanks for posting that link. Apologies for not noticing that while reading through things prior to posting my original questions here.

I dont want to get into arguments over what's right or wrong about the views, just better understand them... so I'll just ask for further elaboration - is there an estimate of the thickness of the planetary disk?

The explanations given for volcanoes and earthquakes (upon a cursory read) are very similar to the RE view. The obvious difference is that theres no core in the flat earth frame work... so where is the heat generated from, and what kinds of thicknesses of crust/mantle etc are we dealing with? How do the hotspots discussed in that article move, i.e. the way the Hawaiian islands formed in a RE view is that there is a stationary hotspot beneath the crust due to mantle convection. The pacific tectonic plate is migrating westward overtop of the hot spot, so a chain of islands developed gradually, with the oldest island occurring in the west, where volcanism is now mostly dormant, and the youngest in the east, with very active modern volcanic because it still overlies the hotspot.

Thanks for any additional clarification you can provide, its appreciated.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #11 on: August 16, 2020, 04:25:00 AM »
Hi Tom,

Thanks for adding to the discussion. I can understand that view point, especially given the extreme difficulty we have in reaching the base of glaciers to make observations. I do however take some exception to your labeling as 'pseudoscience' because nothing is being observed.

There are hundreds of studies that have provided observations from the base of glaciers. Boulton and Hindmarsh tunneled into the base of an Icelandic glacier. An alpine glacier in France has been tunneled into and developed into an electric generating plant. The beds of dozens of glaciers in Alaska, Iceland, Norway, Sweden have been instrumented to evaluate stress directions, porewater pressure variations, measure displacement under the movement of the overriding glacier. Boreholes have been drilled through Antarctic ice streams to analyze the nature and chemistry of the ice and sediments/bedrock/water beneath it. Our understanding of glacial processes is firmly rooted in observations, and greatly enhanced by more recent developments in geophysical techniques such as seismic, ice penetrating radar, high-resgravity surveys, electrical sensitivity, and satellite monitoring of surface ice flow velocities.

I posed my questions in this forum to try to gain an understanding of how geologic phenomena are understood within a flat earth framework, your dismissal of glaciology as mere pseudoscience is somewhat problematic.

I didn't suggest that nothing was being observed to make it a pseudoscience. It is a pseudoscience because it is relying on observation. Not an insult, just reality. The Scientific Method uses experimentation to verify a hypothesis. The Scientific Method does not say to observe and interpret.

Again, see: https://wiki.tfes.org/Astronomy_is_a_Pseudoscience

Observation and interpretation = Pseudosceince

In some fields, like astronomy and geology, direct experimentation on processes is impractical. And so it is necessary to observe and interpret.

That doesn't mean that you are disallowed to talk about your pseudoscience. Rather, you should embrace it, and educate others that this field is not as strong as something like Chemistry and the rest of science where experimentation is possible.

If you can't experiment on your subject with controls and dependent and independent variables to get direct answers, then you risk something like this happening to you:

    “ From 400 BC, with Aristotle, and until the mid-19th century (1830–1850 AD), many scientists have claimed that some organisms can be generated spontaneously from non-living matter, citing larvae as an example and the flies that are generated on decomposing meat. Aristotle had observed the correlation between the rotting of meat, the appearing of larvae on it and the developing of flies. Upon his repeated observations, he found a correlation that developed in a theory (the theory of spontaneous generation). This theory proved wrong (the ‘rotting meat error’ in our story) because it grew out of correlations ‘statistically’ (very) significant but those correlations were wrong ones. Yet, for a long time the theory was constantly applied as ‘scientific’ understanding since Aristotelian logic applied well to it. ” —Giovanni Comandé, The Rotting Meat Error: From Galileo to Aristotle in Data Mining?

It was finally resolved with the experiment where a piece of meat was put into a sealed jar alongside a piece of meat in an open jar. Flies appeared on the meat in the unsealed jar, but not the sealed jar.

Observation and interpretation gave one answer, but an actual experiment gave another. This problem was a recurring theme in science and took a scientific revolution founded on the Scientific Method to get most of science out of its dark eras. Astronomy and Geology are among the few unable to be advanced by the power of direct experiment because experiment is impractical in those fields. So they ignore history, fail to educate on this important subject, and pretend that Astronomy and Geology should sit right alongside Chemistry.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2020, 04:46:15 AM by Tom Bishop »

Offline jimster

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #12 on: August 16, 2020, 04:42:36 AM »
Mr Bishop,

When one performs an experiment. does one "observe" the results? If not, what does an experiment produce, except "observations"? Does one "interpret" the results? Or do the results (presumably unobserved, per your rules) just sit there drawing no conclusions, lest the be doing psuedoscience? Seems to me experiments differ from observation/interpretation only by the implication that an experiment is set up by the actions of the person doing the experiment, whereas what you are calling "psuedoscience" is just an accidental or natural situation that one observes and draws conclusions.

Clearly in some things, it is practical to set up controlled conditions to get information about the phenomenon, for others it is not practical. Per your definition, things like astronomy are forever pseudoscience. Although you say this is not an insult, it sure seems like you are invalidating the study of things from the distant past, or things that are just plain distant, i.e. astronomy. You are defining a word, pseudoscience, to invalidate science you find problematic to your preferred worldview. But not an insult, thanks for that.

I think you are a "psuedogenius". Not an insult, just a particular kind of genius.

I think Sean Carroll has a good definition of science. It is the activity of observing the world arounbd us a coming up with a coherent idea of how it all works together. Using that definition, experiments are one tool, and observing and interpreting of things can't be set up as experiments is completely legitimate.

My definition of pseudoscience is making up a theory that does not match with observed facts. For instance, at any point in the northern hemisphere, the latitude is equal to the angle above the horizon of the north star. No flat earth geometry can produce this result. That makes flat earth a pseudoscience. RE has a globe map that matches distance and bearing accurately everywhere, matching observed reality. FE maps do not match, that makes them pseudoscience.

If you want to communicate, you must use the words as others understand their meaning, and everyone who is not FE (almost everyone) uses something like my definitions. What you want to do is define a new system to invalidate conclusions contrary to what you want to prove.
I am really curious about so many FE things, like how at sunset in Denver, people in St Louis see the dome as dark with stars, while people in Salt Lake City see the same dome as light blue. FE scientists don't know or won't tell me.

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Offline Iceman

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #13 on: August 16, 2020, 12:16:52 PM »
Hi Tom, you did indeed suggest that people weren't making any observations to support theories of geologic processes

"None or few of those processes have been directly verified with direct experimentation. They are theorized to occur based on indirect or observational evidence."

But it's more important now to address your assertion that it's not science anyways.

The first point I would make is that every geologic phenomena is a natural experiment and we seek to clearly define the existing conditions, observe the magnitude and nature of changes/events as they occur and then fully describe the final conditions following and event. And we have got quite good at this: whether its mapping and instrumenting the forefield of a glacier prior to a surge, setting up pressure and temperature sensors during build up of tornadoes, or seismometers and thermal sensors prior to volcanic eruptions.

Second, countless controlled lab experiments and field experiments are being conducted every single day. Whether its re-melting igneous rocks to verify the melting points of their constituent minerals, performing ring shear tests on subglacial till to understand how sediments respond to subglacial stresses, measuring groundwater flow through porous media... the list is staggeringly long, and continues to grow.

Yes it is difficult to access some environments, but the earth gives us plenty of opportunities, and we make use of them.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #14 on: August 16, 2020, 08:13:03 PM »
The first point I would make is that every geologic phenomena is a natural experiment and we seek to clearly define the existing conditions, observe the magnitude and nature of changes/events as they occur and then fully describe the final conditions following and event.

A natural experiment might really be multiple experiments though. If you have no control over the variables, and can't experiment directly on your subject matter, it is difficult to say exactly what is happening.

Typical description of an experiment:

https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/archived/research/guides/methods/experiments.htm

Quote
What is an experiment?

An experiment is a deliberate attempt to manipulate a situation, in order to test a hypothesis that a particular cause creates a particular effect, in other words that varying the input will affect the output.

"A procedure adopted on the chance of its succeeding, for testing a hypothesis etc., or to demonstrate a known fact." Oxford Dictionary of English

"In the scientific method, an experiment ...is a set of actions and observations, performed in the context of solving a particular problem or question, to support or falsify a hypothesis or research concerning phenomena." Wikipedia

The experiment is the cornerstone of the scientific, positivist approach to knowledge, and the basic method of the natural sciences. Much of what we know about the natural world we know through experiments.

The following are its key characteristics:

- It is a structured and manipulated process, a deliberate imposition of a treatment.
- It has a number of independent variables, as causes or inputs, and one dependent variable, or effect or output, with the goal being to see how changing the former affects the latter.
- It needs to control other variables which might cause the observable changes in the dependent variable, so that you can isolate all possible reasons why the selected variable might behave that particular way.
- It usually tests a hypothesis, derived from a particular theory.
- "Basically, an experimental design requires several factors: a setting where the real world can be simulated, one or more independent variables that can be varied, and resultant effects on dependent variables which can be observed." - Jacob, F. and Ehret, M. (2006) "Self-protection vs opportunity seeking in business buying behavior: an experimental study", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 21 No. 2

The experiment is a particularly useful method to explain change, to look at cause and effect, or to deduce a hypotheses from a theory. An important proviso is the ability to isolate the independent, or causal, variable from other causes of the particularly effect you are examining.

In a biological experiment, we can vary the effect of the light (the independent variable) on a plant, and so show how light affects plant growth. It is possible to grow the plant in laboratory conditions, from which other factors can be excluded.

https://www.dummies.com/education/science/environmental-science/types-of-environmental-science-experiments/

Quote
Natural experiments: Natural experiments are basically just observations of things that have already happened or that already exist. In these experiments, the scientist records what he or she observes without changing the various factors. This type of experiment is very common in environmental science when scientists collect information about an ecosystem or the environment.

The Social Origins of Modern Science

Quote
Why is experiment so essential to empirical science? Mere observation is a passive affair. It means but “wait and see” and often depends on chance. Experiment, on the other hand, is an active method of investigation. The experimenter does not wait until events begin, as it were, to speak for themselves; he systematically asks questions. Moreover, he uses artificial means of producing conditions such that clear answers are likely to be obtained. Such preparations are indispensable in most cases. Natural events are usually compounds of numerous effects produced by different causes, and these can hardly be separately investigated until most of them are eliminated by artificial means. There is, therefore, in all empirical sciences a distinct trend toward experimentation. Sciences in which experiment is not feasible are handicapped. They try to solve their problems by referring to other sciences in which experiments can be performed.

Climate Change:

The Lived Experience of Climate Change: Knowledge, Science and Public Action

Quote
There are some who continue to deny global warming as a long—term trend, arguing from a statistical perspective that the time frames are too short to establish a definite pattern and that recent evidence is just part of natural variation. There are others who might find evidence of global warming but argue that it’s impossible to separate out with full confidence the proportional impacts of natural (for example, changes in sunspot activity) and anthropogenic sources. The IPCC reports, meanwhile, state with increasing confidence the overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is occurring and that it is most likely due to human activity. While the inference is greater than it once was, Leroi’s (2014: 129—130) general comments about data that are gained from study of the ‘natural world’ still hold. They are ‘incomplete, results are tentative and inferential gaps yawn at every turn’. This is why the IPCC qualifies its findings in terms of level of uncertainty, degree of confidence in validity and likelihood (see Chap. 6, Box 6.1).

All of this brings to mind Leroi’s citation of one of his colleagues that natural experiments are not experiments at all, because the only variables that should differ between control and treatment are those manipulated by the experimenter. But when you rely on nature to do your manipulations you can never be sure what she’s meddled with (Ibid: 128—130).

Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Statistical Procedures

Quote
It should be emphasized that correlational information does not allow a researcher to draw conclusions with regard to cause and effect.

~

In the discussion of the experimental method it was emphasized that natural experiments only provide correlational information. In other words, a significant result in a natural experiment only indicates that a significant statistical relationship/association is obtained between the independent variable and the dependent variable, and it does not indicate that scores of subjects on the dependent variable are caused by the independent variable.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2020, 03:19:05 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Iceman

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2020, 10:07:43 PM »
Hi Tom, thanks again for continued input on this discussion.

I feel, however, that you're cherry-picking definitions of certain things, while ignoring some of the points I'm trying to understand. You've quoted oxford's definition of an experiment, but not their definition of science. You've focused on experimentation as the root of all science, while ignoring the examples I've given of laboratory experiments that provide the confirmation of the theories that were developed based on detailed field observations with controlled environment.

Thanks for your input, and I respect your right to believe what you feel is right, but I dont think it will be particularly productive for either of us to continue the discussion of the merits of geologic studies as a science any further.

On the other hand, if you (or anyone else) has any additional perspectives to offer on how geologic processes are explained within flat earth models, I'll be happy to read them.

Thanks again to the contributors so far.
Iceman

Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2020, 03:12:42 PM »
Hi Bikini,

Thanks for posting that link. Apologies for not noticing that while reading through things prior to posting my original questions here.

I dont want to get into arguments over what's right or wrong about the views, just better understand them... so I'll just ask for further elaboration - is there an estimate of the thickness of the planetary disk?

The explanations given for volcanoes and earthquakes (upon a cursory read) are very similar to the RE view. The obvious difference is that theres no core in the flat earth frame work... so where is the heat generated from, and what kinds of thicknesses of crust/mantle etc are we dealing with? How do the hotspots discussed in that article move, i.e. the way the Hawaiian islands formed in a RE view is that there is a stationary hotspot beneath the crust due to mantle convection. The pacific tectonic plate is migrating westward overtop of the hot spot, so a chain of islands developed gradually, with the oldest island occurring in the west, where volcanism is now mostly dormant, and the youngest in the east, with very active modern volcanic because it still overlies the hotspot.

Thanks for any additional clarification you can provide, its appreciated.

Let me premise that I'm a cognitive RE, I.e. I actually do see the frontal curvature of Earth when I look at the sharply cut horizon on the sea and I actually perceive the rotation of stars above us at night (if I stare long enough). So I'm probably very bad at FET.

IMO what you ask is still unknown in any FET. The source of the incredible underground forces is a mystery and contributions would be greatly appreciated in the wiki.
Quote from: Pete Svarrior
these waves of smug RE'ers are temporary. Every now and then they flood us for a year or two in response to some media attention, and eventually they peter out. In my view, it's a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #17 on: August 17, 2020, 07:19:46 PM »
Hi Bikini,

I didnt mean to imply anything in my response to your post with the link to the wiki. Was only trying to reaffirm that I'm requesting clarification from anyone who views the earth as a flat surface as to the nature of geologic processes in such a model. Despite some lingering uncertainties, the processes that govern the phenomena listed in my original questions are well accounted for within a round earth framework, as is currently taught in schools.

 You might be right that the answers to my original questions are still unknowns within FET. I would completely agree with you that if anyone with a firmer background in flat earth mechanics can provide background as to how these processes can operate within FET,  the contribution would be welcomed,  as these issues are not seemingly addressed in videos or provided literature from this or other flat earth websites.


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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #18 on: August 21, 2020, 09:20:15 PM »
*I am a glacial geologist who specializes in reconstruction of past glacial processes. I will not claim to be an expert in geologic knowledge beyond that. Looking to better understand the principles of FE theory as part of ongoing scientific questioning. I have many questions about FE, but many are partially addressed in the FAQ and or the wiki, so I want to address some of the shortcomings of FET, namely its avoidance of explanations of geologic phenomena. Thanks in advance for any clarifications you can provide on any of the queries below. I appreciate it!

1.     Is there an estimate of the age of the earth in flat earth hypotheses? I have not seen any. This is more a point of curiosity for me, but it would hold implications for evaluating other aspects of the theory against potential bodies empirical evidence.
     Is guess around a few million years old.  The rate of decay or drying up of the earth liquids would be a good place to start.

2.     How are earthquakes and volcanoes explained within a flat earth paradigm? Again, more curiosity than anything, but these are major phenomena that require explanation in any worldview.
         I'm not a typical FE'er, I have my own views on the FE
So please don't replace my views with those of others...  IMO, the volcanoes and earthquakes are caused by many of the features we see on a RE.

3.     Though I am admittedly skeptical of the FE model’s ability to account for changes in day/night and seasons, larger scale climate variations are not discussed within a FE framework. A very basic but fundamental question to ask would be what is the cause(s) of past ice ages and interglacials in the recent geologic past (either the last interglacial to glacial maximum from 115 000 – 25 000 years ago, or the last deglaciation from 20 000 – 12 000 years ago, or even the Medieval Warm Period and/or Little Ice Age conditions that exhibited major climate changes over large parts of the earth?
       I think the earth spins and wobbles every year, and maybe every 500 or 5000 years to account for all the big Temp differences we observe
4.     Antarctica. (this will be a longer one, fair warning.) Glaciers and ice sheets are intensely complicated features, but they can be effectively simplified as large masses of frozen water that move/flow due to the influence of gravity. I will grant that they could move under the influence of any force that exhibits a downward acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 (i.e. UA explanation offered in the FE wiki), given our inability to differentiate those two possibilities within a closed reference frame. The problem lies in glacier mechanics and mass balance, but we don’t need to go into detail; simply put, glaciers flow ‘downhill’ melting or calving into the sea at their downstream end. For a glacier/ice sheet to survive over millennia, mass must be added in the upflow regions in the form of precipitation.

a.     If Antarctica is just a wall of ice (and mountains?) that rims the earth, as depicted in the more common FE maps and theories, where are they flowing from? That is, where is ice being added to the wall of ice to counteract the melting and calving observed along the margins of Antarctica?
      I don't know if any ice has been added to the ice wall beyond its initial creation, except for its inner edges

b.     If mass is being added upflow, that would mean it is being added closer to the edge of the disk. The downward acceleration that drives glacier motion (either gravity or UA, as discussed above), would also cause the ice sheet to flow not only towards the inner part of the disk, where it meets the oceans, but also towards to outer parts of the disk (the mechanism here is the same for all large ice sheets and ice caps, Greenland ice sheet would be the best analogue). If this is true, then ice would eventually flow either off the edge of the earth (which is likely no happening, because this would cause rapid acceleration of the ice flow velocity, initiating broad ice streams that would effectively ‘steal’ ice from the catchment areas flowing towards the oceans within the disk (google ice stream piracy, or check out a paper by Matthew Bennett, 2003: ice streams as the arteries of an ice sheet).
    okay, I think the earth is concave in shape.   Obviously around the mountains regions up north, but then maybe it rises again beyond the known limits if the attic.  this would prevent all the ice going off the edge.  But interestingly, I do believe the earth is a small galaxy that create it's own planets so debri does flow away from the edge (but maybe not from so far inside)

c.     Many people have been to Antarctica, including several personal friends of mine (these are limited to cruises and research missions that visited the margins of the continent). I have seen videos and hundreds of photos of the different stages of the trip. I have personally been offered a position to visit the continent as part of a graduate field course, but I was unable to make it work because of financial and time constraints. Many other people have flown to (and in some cases, skied to) the south pole. There is a permanent research station at the south pole, and many past travelers have documents their experience in detail. There is a 24-hour live stream offered by the US Antarctic program https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm – you can check sunrise and set times and compare them to predictions made by round earth (though, technically, there’s just 6 months of daylight followed by 6 months of darkness, but the angle of the sun in the sky/glow beneath the spring and fall will be informative in developing/evaluating theories). You can even apply to be a volunteer and work on different research bases in Antarctica! 😊

d.     How do the transantarctic Mountains and the nearly 100 documented volcanoes fit within the icewall paradigm of flat earth (this assumes the monopole version that appears to be more commonly promoted as opposed to the dipole version which was advocated following increased Antarctic exploration in the early 1900’s, according to the FE wiki). In the round earth paradigm, these mountains form a significant topographic divide which helps promote the divergence of flow at the interior of the ice sheet outward in both directions to the east Antarctic and west Antarctic ice sheets.
     You might have to guess what the ice wall looks like bc I'm not sure who's seen it or recorded it beyond 90' longitude

e.     How does liquid water get to the base of the Antarctic ice sheet? And why does it flow towards the oceans? If the ice was simply a wall that holds the oceans in place, as promoted by FE, any documented water should be flowing from the oceans, beneath the ice, towards the interior of the ice sheet/outwards towards the edge of the disk, however far that may be. This flow should be controlled by differences in hydraulic head (think pressure) from sea level to the base of the Antarctic ice sheet, which is in many areas 800 - 1500 m below sea level, even along its margins. If the ice was holding the oceans on the surface of the disk, there would be a head differential promoting water flow outward toward the disk margins, rather than from the ice into the oceans.
From the surface Earth looks flat.  From space Earth looks round.  Now what?

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Offline Iceman

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Re: Questions from a glacier guy - not on FAQ or the wiki
« Reply #19 on: August 21, 2020, 09:28:01 PM »
Hey Tron,

Thanks for weighing in and adding to the discussing! Interesting points, appreciate you taking the time to chime in!

Cheers