The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Theory => Topic started by: Spingo on December 05, 2018, 06:44:13 PM
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Being relatively new here and having spent quite some time looking through the flat earth wiki what I found slightly alarming was the lack of any real verifiable research data backing up the various claims made. Quite a few of the references were to works well over a hundred years old. The one area that really stood out, as far as I was concerned, was dthe one on the Cosmos. The reason being, to conduct any really meaningful research on the heavens requires some quite sophisticated equipment. The bottom line would be at least earth bound telescopes that could look at the heavens using different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. I was unable to find any links to any such flat earth telescope facility.
The question therefore is, where did the flat earth society get the data on which their wiki was based? In the case of the wiki on the cosmos, what astronomical reasearch facility(s) were used to obtain the data for those conclusions?
While I think it’s totally valid for flat earth believers such as Mr. Bishop to question main stream science, the reverse must also be true. While there are numerous sources for main stream science that can be interegated there are precious few if any for the underpinning details of flat earth belief.
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I try to reference what I can. For some of the Flat Earth cosmology in particular, those were basic logical tenets arrived at by our predecessor societies long before the internet existed, and some of the "why" questions are a bit hazy without a complete collection of the research. The research from the old Zetetic societies we do have is spotty. The movement still has not recovered from World War One and Two.
As a stroke of luck, at one point I did manage to find a good description of how the 32 mile sun figure was found by Lady Blount's group, by measuring parallel light rays over a 32 mile area beneath the sun, but later on when I went to find it a year later to put on the Wiki, the scan was lost to the internet, and appears as a 404.
In any case, this surviving work will be of interest:
Kings Dethroned
by Gerrard Hickson
PDF Link (https://vaultedearth.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/kings-dethroned-gerard-hickson.pdf)
"A history of the evolution of astronomy from the time of the Roman Empire up to the present day; showing it to be an amazing series of blunders founded upon an error made in the second century B.C."
This book was written at a time around the original movements, and gives background to the reasoning.
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I try to reference what I can. For some of the Flat Earth cosmology in particular, those were basic logical tenets arrived at by our predecessor societies long before the internet existed, and some of the "why" questions are a bit hazy without a complete collection of the research. The research from the old Zetetic societies we do have is spotty. The movement still has not recovered from World War One and Two.
As a stroke of luck, at one point I did manage to find a good description of how the 32 mile sun figure was found by Lady Blount's group, by measuring parallel light rays over a 32 mile area beneath the sun, but later on when I went to find it a year later to put on the Wiki, the scan was lost to the internet, and appears as a 404.
In any case, this surviving work will be of interest:
Kings Dethroned
by Gerrard Hickson
PDF Link (https://vaultedearth.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/kings-dethroned-gerard-hickson.pdf)
"A history of the evolution of astronomy from the time of the Roman Empire up to the present day; showing it to be an amazing series of blunders founded upon an error made in the second century B.C."
This book was written at a time around the original movements, and gives background to the reasoning.
Thanks for that very frank response, but you have to admit it’s not very convincing when set against what main stream astronomy has to offer with its thousands of astronomers and numerous high tech research facilities around the world.
If I understand you correctly FE astronomy has had no research input since before WW1. It’s hardly surprising that people find the info on your wiki pretty hard to swallow.
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The methods of astronomy described in the book Kings Dethroned are still in use today. It goes over the 93 million mile sun, the 240 thousand mile moon, et cetera, that are all still the methods used today. Nothing about those methods in astronomy have changes since 1920; and so those depictions are still valid. Feel free to have a look.
Per the state of the wiki, we work on one subject at a time. If you do not have any constructive or contributive input then I will find that there is nothing to discuss with you
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The methods of astronomy described in the book Kings Dethroned are still in use today. It goes over the 93 million mile sun, the 240 thousand mile moon, et cetera, that are all still the methods used today. Nothing about those methods in astronomy have changes since 1920; and so those depictions are still valid. Feel free to have a look.
Per the state of the wiki, we work on one subject at a time. If you do not have any constructive or contributive input then I will find that there is nothing to discuss with you
I can't find anything about the author, Gerrard Hickson. Literally, the only thing that did come in googling him other than the book itself (and Eric Dubay's reading of it) was this:
"MIT`S WACKY `NUT COLLECTION`: SCIENTIFIC IDEAS FROM THE FRINGE"
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-03-12-8903260258-story.html
I skimmed the PDF, but I didn't surface his actual calculated distance to the Sun or Moon. I'm guessing I missed it.
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This former astronomy major doesn't seem to have an issue with it:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Kings_Dethroned.html?id=xnu4AAAAIAAJ
This book is very thought-provoking! I couldn't put it down! Now I am looking everywhere for the promised sequel, "The Universe as it Is". As a former astronomy major, it seems so clear to me that the blunders that Mr. Hickson so ably describes have indeed been made the flawed foundation for a very grand and deadly edifice of error in the subject of astronomy. And yet the world laughs at 'crackpots' like Gerrard Hickson, and condemns his work to MIT's 'Library of Useless Research' because it dares to challenge the underpinnings of this whole imaginary astronomical philosophy. Highly recommended!
Another review by Forgotten Books:
https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/KingsDethroned_10031911
At the turn of the twentieth century, Gerrard Hickson stumbled upon a discovery which convinced him of something shocking. The giants of astronomy had miscalculated the distance of the sun from the Earth, it was closer than we ever thought. The popular estimate of approximately ninety-three million miles appeared to be a mistake, as inconceivable as it seemed.
Hickson pored through the methods that his predecessors had used to calculate the distance and the accounts of their work, searching for the means to disprove his theory but instead he found a mistake in Dr. Hailey’s diurnal method. Invented by Hailey in the nineteenth century and used as a basis for many other calculations about our solar system.
We can only imagine that Hickson must have gritted his teeth when he set himself the challenge of proving Dr. Hailey’s error. Kings Dethroned is the result of his research, and through his retracing of the steps of astronomers from the Roman Empire all the way up to the present day, we can see an accurate representation of the planets and our sun.
Gerrard Hickson, unlike his predecessors, took his findings to the general public and published this book for the consumption of all. Having been rejected or ignored by experts and scientific societies across the western world, he chose to trust in the public. He felt that the truth and his discovery were the wealth of the whole human species and in this modern age it does the reader only good to contemplate the necessity of constant and honest scientific enquiry.
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This former astronomy major doesn't seem to have an issue with it:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Kings_Dethroned.html?id=xnu4AAAAIAAJ
This book is very thought-provoking! I couldn't put it down! Now I am looking everywhere for the promised sequel, "The Universe as it Is". As a former astronomy major, it seems so clear to me that the blunders that Mr. Hickson so ably describes have indeed been made the flawed foundation for a very grand and deadly edifice of error in the subject of astronomy. And yet the world laughs at 'crackpots' like Gerrard Hickson, and condemns his work to MIT's 'Library of Useless Research' because it dares to challenge the underpinnings of this whole imaginary astronomical philosophy. Highly recommended!
Another review by Forgotten Books:
https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/KingsDethroned_10031911
At the turn of the twentieth century, Gerrard Hickson stumbled upon a discovery which convinced him of something shocking. The giants of astronomy had miscalculated the distance of the sun from the Earth, it was closer than we ever thought. The popular estimate of approximately ninety-three million miles appeared to be a mistake, as inconceivable as it seemed.
Hickson pored through the methods that his predecessors had used to calculate the distance and the accounts of their work, searching for the means to disprove his theory but instead he found a mistake in Dr. Hailey’s diurnal method. Invented by Hailey in the nineteenth century and used as a basis for many other calculations about our solar system.
We can only imagine that Hickson must have gritted his teeth when he set himself the challenge of proving Dr. Hailey’s error. Kings Dethroned is the result of his research, and through his retracing of the steps of astronomers from the Roman Empire all the way up to the present day, we can see an accurate representation of the planets and our sun.
Gerrard Hickson, unlike his predecessors, took his findings to the general public and published this book for the consumption of all. Having been rejected or ignored by experts and scientific societies across the western world, he chose to trust in the public. He felt that the truth and his discovery were the wealth of the whole human species and in this modern age it does the reader only good to contemplate the necessity of constant and honest scientific enquiry.
Perhaps my post came out wrong. I was just stating that I can't really find anything about the guy and the one thing I did, was capping on him. Not proof of anything. Like I wrote, I skimmed the book. I will read it more thoroughly. But off the top of your head, do you know what Hickson calculated as the true distance to the sun and moon? I didn't stumble upon that data.
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The methods of astronomy described in the book Kings Dethroned are still in use today. It goes over the 93 million mile sun, the 240 thousand mile moon, et cetera, that are all still the methods used today. Nothing about those methods in astronomy have changes since 1920; and so those depictions are still valid. Feel free to have a look.
Per the state of the wiki, we work on one subject at a time. If you do not have any constructive or contributive input then I will find that there is nothing to discuss with you
Again many thanks for the reference;
https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66 (https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66)
It’s difficult to know where to start as the whole content of the book can not really be taken seriously. I skimmed through it in disbelief. Though it does explain where yourself and other flat earth believers get not only their astronomical information from but their whole approach when dealing with scientific facts. Not wishing to appeal to authority, but in all honesty we have on the one hand the whole of modern science and on the other a badly written book by an obscure nobody written soon after the First World War. On the balance of probability who is more likely to be correct?
For example if pp 70-73 are read where he deals with the speed of light dismissing Einstein and a good deal of physics with a wave ofhis hand saying ‘so much for Einstein’s second law’
The book is no more than a pseudo scientific hatchet job using a series of baseless dismissals.
Can you honestly say that the speed and indeed the nature of of light has not been verified by experimentation time and time again? He did no experiments, conducted no science, instead all he did was write a series of chapters debunking the parts of science he didn’t like.
I’m really astonished how a whole belief system can be built on such dubious foundations. One would have to work really hard to swallow the contents of that book.
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Per the state of the wiki, we work on one subject at a time. If you do not have any constructive or contributive input then I will find that there is nothing to discuss with you
Come on Tom... That's not exactly in line with the self-proclaimed 'free thinking' ethos of what TFES is all about is it. Spingo is freely expressing his opinion. Just because he doesn't happen to share your opinion that's no reason to shut the door on what he says.
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The ever present elephant really does render this discussion null and void. We know from both experimentation and observation both from orbiting satellites and ground based telescopes exactly how far away the sun, moon and the other planets are from the earth. John’s position is based on the dual pillars of an obscure 1920s book and a conspiracy.
What I find so hard to belive is disputing some of the distances to say the moon for example, is just pointless when it can be proved by a pretty basic experiment that anyone with a mind to could carry out. Go look it up! If the FE society really had an inquiring mind there is a classic Zetetic experiment that could be carried out. Why don’t you do it John? You could publish the results here.
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So I went back through it. All I could find was on page 90, that Mars is 15000 miles away:
"Mars must take their proper place among fairy tales, for if the distance to that planet is measured by two simultaneous obser vations, as I have advised for the measurement of the sun, it will be found to be never more than 15,000 miles from the observer, and too small altogether to be inhabited ; too small even for Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. . . ."
I can only assume he puts the sun at a greater distance, though I can't find it.
And as for the distance to the moon, apparently unknown, p 26:
"By that almost inconceivable blunder real and imaginary angles came into conflict on two different planes, so the triangulation was entirely lost ; and as a consequence the distance of the moon is no more known to-day than it was at the time of the flood."
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That puts Mars 5 times further away than the FET assumed distance of the Sun... no wonder we are experiencing climate change!
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The methods of astronomy described in the book Kings Dethroned are still in use today. It goes over the 93 million mile sun, the 240 thousand mile moon, et cetera, that are all still the methods used today. Nothing about those methods in astronomy have changes since 1920; and so those depictions are still valid. Feel free to have a look.
Not true. Methods have evolved and the precision of the measuring devices has greatly improved since 1920. For example. the distance to the moon is directly measured with laser ranging and RADAR was used to measure the distance to Venus for the sun distance calculations.
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The distance to the sun and moon are still based in the classic methods. Nothing has changed. When we look to see how the distance to the sun and moon were computed we find the methods described in the book.
The Venus radar tests and lunar laser ranging tests were funded by NASA, and we have discussed them before.
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The distance to the sun and moon are still based in the classic methods. Nothing has changed. When we look to see how the distance to the sun and moon were computed we find the methods described in the book.
The Venus radar tests and lunar laser ranging tests were funded by NASA, and we have discussed them before.
And these distances are?
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The distance to the sun and moon are still based in the classic methods. Nothing has changed. When we look to see how the distance to the sun and moon were computed we find the methods described in the book.
The Venus radar tests and lunar laser ranging tests were funded by NASA, and we have discussed them before.
This paper you cited was funded by NASA as well. Are there some things that are ok from NASA and some things that aren’t?
Lets see what Dr. David H. Brooks of George Mason University has to say about this:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170803091936.htm
The Sun's surface, the photosphere, has a temperature of around 6000 degrees, but the outer atmosphere, the corona -- best seen from Earth during total solar eclipses -- is several hundred times hotter. How the corona is heated to millions of degrees is one of the most significant unsolved problems in astrophysics.
"Why the Sun's corona is so hot is a long-standing puzzle. It's as if a flame were coming out of an ice cube. It doesn't make any sense!"
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The distance to the sun and moon are still based in the classic methods. Nothing has changed. When we look to see how the distance to the sun and moon were computed we find the methods described in the book.
The Venus radar tests and lunar laser ranging tests were funded by NASA, and we have discussed them before.
You cannot justify dismissing something simply because NASA funded JPL for the first confirmed radar return from Venus. Read SP-4218 To See the Unseen - Chapter Two - Fickle Venus. (https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4218/ch2.htm)
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This former astronomy major doesn't seem to have an issue with it:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Kings_Dethroned.html?id=xnu4AAAAIAAJ
This book is very thought-provoking! I couldn't put it down! Now I am looking everywhere for the promised sequel, "The Universe as it Is". As a former astronomy major, it seems so clear to me that the blunders that Mr. Hickson so ably describes have indeed been made the flawed foundation for a very grand and deadly edifice of error in the subject of astronomy. And yet the world laughs at 'crackpots' like Gerrard Hickson, and condemns his work to MIT's 'Library of Useless Research' because it dares to challenge the underpinnings of this whole imaginary astronomical philosophy. Highly recommended!
Another review by Forgotten Books:
https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/KingsDethroned_10031911
At the turn of the twentieth century, Gerrard Hickson stumbled upon a discovery which convinced him of something shocking. The giants of astronomy had miscalculated the distance of the sun from the Earth, it was closer than we ever thought. The popular estimate of approximately ninety-three million miles appeared to be a mistake, as inconceivable as it seemed.
Hickson pored through the methods that his predecessors had used to calculate the distance and the accounts of their work, searching for the means to disprove his theory but instead he found a mistake in Dr. Hailey’s diurnal method. Invented by Hailey in the nineteenth century and used as a basis for many other calculations about our solar system.
We can only imagine that Hickson must have gritted his teeth when he set himself the challenge of proving Dr. Hailey’s error. Kings Dethroned is the result of his research, and through his retracing of the steps of astronomers from the Roman Empire all the way up to the present day, we can see an accurate representation of the planets and our sun.
Gerrard Hickson, unlike his predecessors, took his findings to the general public and published this book for the consumption of all. Having been rejected or ignored by experts and scientific societies across the western world, he chose to trust in the public. He felt that the truth and his discovery were the wealth of the whole human species and in this modern age it does the reader only good to contemplate the necessity of constant and honest scientific enquiry.
It seems strange to be relying on almost 100 year old "science"! Perhaps it would be advantageous to have a look at how far Astronomy and Physics have come in the last 96 years?? Now that we know about black holes, the cosmic background radiation, red shift, gravitational wave events (caused by Neutron star collisions) and we have new optical telescopes which make use of interferometry and can improve resolution by combining images from separate telescopes. Or are we approaching another Middle Ages? Where virtually no new knowledge is gained by mankind for 500 years!!!
I'm so glad the cardiologist that operated on my heart, the motor mechanic that services my car, and the pilot of the Boeing 787 I flew in a month ago did not get their qualifications in the early 1920's, and then refuse to learn anything new !!
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Can't help but agree with that. I admire the flat earth believers for their commitment to what they believe in and obviously everyone has the right to their own opinions and beliefs. That is what makes the world er….. go round. However as you say things have changed and moved on so dramatically in just the last century.
If the Earth was really flat then I can't help thinking we would have figured that out by now across a slightly wider spread of people in the world!
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This former astronomy major doesn't seem to have an issue with it:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Kings_Dethroned.html?id=xnu4AAAAIAAJ
This book is very thought-provoking! I couldn't put it down! Now I am looking everywhere for the promised sequel, "The Universe as it Is". As a former astronomy major, it seems so clear to me that the blunders that Mr. Hickson so ably describes have indeed been made the flawed foundation for a very grand and deadly edifice of error in the subject of astronomy. And yet the world laughs at 'crackpots' like Gerrard Hickson, and condemns his work to MIT's 'Library of Useless Research' because it dares to challenge the underpinnings of this whole imaginary astronomical philosophy. Highly recommended!
Another review by Forgotten Books:
https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/KingsDethroned_10031911
At the turn of the twentieth century, Gerrard Hickson stumbled upon a discovery which convinced him of something shocking. The giants of astronomy had miscalculated the distance of the sun from the Earth, it was closer than we ever thought. The popular estimate of approximately ninety-three million miles appeared to be a mistake, as inconceivable as it seemed.
Hickson pored through the methods that his predecessors had used to calculate the distance and the accounts of their work, searching for the means to disprove his theory but instead he found a mistake in Dr. Hailey’s diurnal method. Invented by Hailey in the nineteenth century and used as a basis for many other calculations about our solar system.
We can only imagine that Hickson must have gritted his teeth when he set himself the challenge of proving Dr. Hailey’s error. Kings Dethroned is the result of his research, and through his retracing of the steps of astronomers from the Roman Empire all the way up to the present day, we can see an accurate representation of the planets and our sun.
Gerrard Hickson, unlike his predecessors, took his findings to the general public and published this book for the consumption of all. Having been rejected or ignored by experts and scientific societies across the western world, he chose to trust in the public. He felt that the truth and his discovery were the wealth of the whole human species and in this modern age it does the reader only good to contemplate the necessity of constant and honest scientific enquiry.
It seems strange to be relying on almost 100 year old "science"! Perhaps it would be advantageous to have a look at how far Astronomy and Physics have come in the last 96 years?? Now that we know about black holes, the cosmic background radiation, red shift, gravitational wave events (caused by Neutron star collisions) and we have new optical telescopes which make use of interferometry and can improve resolution by combining images from separate telescopes. Or are we approaching another Middle Ages? Where virtually no new knowledge is gained by mankind for 500 years!!!
I'm so glad the cardiologist that operated on my heart, the motor mechanic that services my car, and the pilot of the Boeing 787 I flew in a month ago did not get their qualifications in the early 1920's, and then refuse to learn anything new !!
There sits the rub.....quietly steaming away in the corner beside the elephant. It’s not just a question of accepting 100 year old science, as it’s not even science! From the research I’ve carried out on the very scant resources the the flat earth community refer to as ‘gospel’ none of them have been written by what could be described as working scientist.
The book in question that John linked to is just a series of groundless rebuttals. The speed of light for example. Did the aurthor carry out his own experiments? No. Did he publish scientific papers with his own findings? No. He just rubbished the work of scientists and that was that.
The real problem here regarding Flat Earth Theory is that it really should be considered a belief system akin to a religion rather than something that is underpinned by science. If that were the case I would say it’s a pretty legitimate position to take, as people should be free to believe in what ever takes their fancy. I think John has every right in believing all the things that go along with Flat Earth doctrine.
What I take issue with is when John and others try to justify their beliefs using pseudo scientific arguments while claiming both conspiracy and the world of science is wrong in much of what it believes, all based on their couple of slim 100 year old non scientific volumes. Claiming space travel is fake really holds no water, with hardly a week going by without some major launch or space probe landing on a passing asteroid. The Chinese are sending a rover to the dark side of the moon tomorrow, the Americans landed a new rover on Mars just the other week, while the ISS zooms by overhead with monotonous regularity! That’s not even mentioning the 100s of satellites in all sorts of orbits for all sorts of uses. For this there is no debate. All the believers can do is pick over the footage looking for the slightest slip of the tongue or video artefact to use as ‘proof’ to support their case.
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What I take issue with is that a small group of undoubtedly less than 4000 members in total seem to have this belief that they have discovered something that the rest of the world apparently hasn't. I acknowledge that the FES has over 4000 members currently listed but I'm sure not an insignificant few of those are RE believers who have simply joined to voice their side of things. By comparison a single small town has a population of appreciably more people.
It seems that FES has been in existence for at least 6 years so you would have thought by now that if they had a serious case to put on the table their views would be much more widely known about by now.
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The methods of astronomy described in the book Kings Dethroned are still in use today. It goes over the 93 million mile sun, the 240 thousand mile moon, et cetera, that are all still the methods used today. Nothing about those methods in astronomy have changes since 1920; and so those depictions are still valid. Feel free to have a look.
Per the state of the wiki, we work on one subject at a time. If you do not have any constructive or contributive input then I will find that there is nothing to discuss with you
Again many thanks for the reference;
https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66 (https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66)
It’s difficult to know where to start as the whole content of the book can not really be taken seriously. I skimmed through it in disbelief. Though it does explain where yourself and other flat earth believers get not only their astronomical information from but their whole approach when dealing with scientific facts. Not wishing to appeal to authority, but in all honesty we have on the one hand the whole of modern science and on the other a badly written book by an obscure nobody written soon after the First World War. On the balance of probability who is more likely to be correct?
For example if pp 70-73 are read where he deals with the speed of light dismissing Einstein and a good deal of physics with a wave ofhis hand saying ‘so much for Einstein’s second law’
The book is no more than a pseudo scientific hatchet job using a series of baseless dismissals.
Can you honestly say that the speed and indeed the nature of of light has not been verified by experimentation time and time again? He did no experiments, conducted no science, instead all he did was write a series of chapters debunking the parts of science he didn’t like.
I’m really astonished how a whole belief system can be built on such dubious foundations. One would have to work really hard to swallow the contents of that book.
It isn't a baseless dismissal, it is a dismissal based upon a series of arguments and you haven't refuted any of the arguments: you're the one making the baseless dismissal. One doesn't necessarily need to conduct any experiments to dismiss Einstein's theories; one only needs to demonstrate logical contradictions or fallacies behind the theories.
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The methods of astronomy described in the book Kings Dethroned are still in use today. It goes over the 93 million mile sun, the 240 thousand mile moon, et cetera, that are all still the methods used today. Nothing about those methods in astronomy have changes since 1920; and so those depictions are still valid. Feel free to have a look.
Per the state of the wiki, we work on one subject at a time. If you do not have any constructive or contributive input then I will find that there is nothing to discuss with you
Again many thanks for the reference;
https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66 (https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66)
It’s difficult to know where to start as the whole content of the book can not really be taken seriously. I skimmed through it in disbelief. Though it does explain where yourself and other flat earth believers get not only their astronomical information from but their whole approach when dealing with scientific facts. Not wishing to appeal to authority, but in all honesty we have on the one hand the whole of modern science and on the other a badly written book by an obscure nobody written soon after the First World War. On the balance of probability who is more likely to be correct?
For example if pp 70-73 are read where he deals with the speed of light dismissing Einstein and a good deal of physics with a wave ofhis hand saying ‘so much for Einstein’s second law’
The book is no more than a pseudo scientific hatchet job using a series of baseless dismissals.
Can you honestly say that the speed and indeed the nature of of light has not been verified by experimentation time and time again? He did no experiments, conducted no science, instead all he did was write a series of chapters debunking the parts of science he didn’t like.
I’m really astonished how a whole belief system can be built on such dubious foundations. One would have to work really hard to swallow the contents of that book.
It isn't a baseless dismissal, it is a dismissal based upon a series of arguments and you haven't refuted any of the arguments: you're the one making the baseless dismissal. One doesn't necessarily need to conduct any experiments to dismiss Einstein's theories; one only needs to demonstrate logical contradictions or fallacies behind the theories.
Classic.
If you wish to use logic fine.
Let’s stand back a fair distance and examine the situation as though we are new to it and have no vested interest.
The Situation
A man in the early 1920, Gerard Hickson, neither scientist or astronomer wrote a book, dismissing the work of every notable astronomer to have lived along with the work of many notable men of science including Albert Einstein.
Almost 100 years later members of the FE society use this one book as a cornerstone of their beliefs.
Before and since then, possibly thousands of books and scientific papers have been written, many by Nobel prizewinners, whose findings contradict Mr. Gerard Hickson. There is an extensive network of ground based observatories around the planet that observe the heavens on a constant basis. Every observation ever done from these facilities disagree at a fundemental level with Hickson and his book. If interviewed every living astronomer would also disagree with Hickson. Walk into any astronomy class in any university in the world and what we would find being taught is very different from Hickson and his book.
Evidence
In the 1960s a direct measurement was made of the distance to Venus using radar. This measurement confirmed earlier distances which were made using observations. The known distance to Venus along with transit observations and measurements also confirmed the earlier Earth Sun distances.
Away from professionals to everyday people. In 2011 thousands of people all over the world took part in measuring the distance to the moon during a lunar eclipse using the “Shadow Transit Method” and the “Lunar Parallax Method”. None of the calculations done that evening agreed with Mr. Hickson.
The situation is no astronomer either in the past or present agree with Mr Hickson and his book. Is it likely That Hickson is right? Never mind the Chinese lander speeding toward the moon at this moment and the host of other satellites all in various orbits around different planets, moons and asteroids.
You brought logic into it. On the grounds of probability how likely is it for a single lone wolf like Hickson to be right given the overwhelming evidence against?
If this were a court of law, who would you put your money on being right, assuming all vested interests were laid to one side?
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One doesn't necessarily need to conduct any experiments to dismiss Einstein's theories; one only needs to demonstrate logical contradictions or fallacies behind the theories.
But one would need to dismiss the 100 years worth of experiments showing that Einstein's theories aren't as contradictory or fallacious as some want to think.
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One doesn't necessarily need to conduct any experiments to dismiss Einstein's theories; one only needs to demonstrate logical contradictions or fallacies behind the theories.
See. The trouble with this sort of reasoning is FE are quite happy to use the consequences of Special Relativity to explain why UA doesn't accelerate the earth past the speed of light:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Universal_Acceleration#Accelerating_to_the_Speed_of_Light
It is frustrating that you guys cherry pick bits of science which back up your theories but dismiss bits which don't.
And yes of course your need to conduct experiments to test theories. Quantum theory is batshit crazy. Look up the double slit experiment. It makes zero logical sense in terms of what we experience in every day life, but in the quantum world is pretty crazy and the result of that experiment proves that.
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The methods of astronomy described in the book Kings Dethroned are still in use today. It goes over the 93 million mile sun, the 240 thousand mile moon, et cetera, that are all still the methods used today. Nothing about those methods in astronomy have changes since 1920; and so those depictions are still valid. Feel free to have a look.
Per the state of the wiki, we work on one subject at a time. If you do not have any constructive or contributive input then I will find that there is nothing to discuss with you
Again many thanks for the reference;
https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66 (https://archive.org/details/kingsdethronedhi00hickrich/page/66)
It’s difficult to know where to start as the whole content of the book can not really be taken seriously. I skimmed through it in disbelief. Though it does explain where yourself and other flat earth believers get not only their astronomical information from but their whole approach when dealing with scientific facts. Not wishing to appeal to authority, but in all honesty we have on the one hand the whole of modern science and on the other a badly written book by an obscure nobody written soon after the First World War. On the balance of probability who is more likely to be correct?
For example if pp 70-73 are read where he deals with the speed of light dismissing Einstein and a good deal of physics with a wave ofhis hand saying ‘so much for Einstein’s second law’
The book is no more than a pseudo scientific hatchet job using a series of baseless dismissals.
Can you honestly say that the speed and indeed the nature of of light has not been verified by experimentation time and time again? He did no experiments, conducted no science, instead all he did was write a series of chapters debunking the parts of science he didn’t like.
I’m really astonished how a whole belief system can be built on such dubious foundations. One would have to work really hard to swallow the contents of that book.
It isn't a baseless dismissal, it is a dismissal based upon a series of arguments and you haven't refuted any of the arguments: you're the one making the baseless dismissal. One doesn't necessarily need to conduct any experiments to dismiss Einstein's theories; one only needs to demonstrate logical contradictions or fallacies behind the theories.
One other thing we need to clear up George. The onus is very much on you and other flat earth thinkers like John to refute the whole of present day science. Let’s remember the consensus of opinion is very much opposed to any of Hickson’s claims. He is a lone voice with no credible scientists or anyone of note willing to agree with him or back him.
What’s to refute? You need to try and prove what’s he says is true, not by sniping at main stream science, which makes the world go around, but by attempting to prove Hickson right. By the way good luck with that.
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There’s seemingly nothing wrong with Hickson’s argument about the Earth-Sun distance via the parallax of Mars. There are serious problems with the way the measurement was done. I find it frankly astounding that modern-day methods would somehow miraculously agree with the older, super-flawed math and reasoning. And though I see in several places around the web that “Hickson has been thoroughly refuted”, I can find no record of that refutation. I would very much like to see that. I am no flat-earther, but I’m open-minded enough to want to see someone have to defend these old methods. And saying, “Well, we’ve got expensive gear that tells us we were always right” doesn’t do it for me. Show how Hickson was wrong.