The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Theory => Topic started by: BrownRobin on February 11, 2018, 06:14:02 PM
-
Hi,
You have likely already read the attached articles, however, it gave me a high level understanding and some insight on the Psychology or Thinking of a Flat Earther.
In taking a quote from the attached article called "Flat Earth: What Fuels the Internet's Strangest Conspiracy Theory?" (By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor): "flat-Earth conspiracy theorists may be chasing many of the same needs as believers in other conspiracies: social belonging, the need for meaning and control, and feelings of safety in an uncertain world."
In the second article entitled "Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?" (By Natalie Wolchover and Live Science Staff): Karen Douglas, a psychologist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom who studies the psychology of conspiracy theories quotes that : "all conspiracy theories share a basic thrust: They present an alternative theory about an important issue or event, and construct an (often) vague explanation for why someone is covering up that "true" version of events. One of the major points of appeal is that they explain a big event but often without going into details," she said. "A lot of the power lies in the fact that they are vague."
-----------------------------------
For all of you Round / Spherical Earthers out there like myself, you likely won't be able to change the mind of a Flat Earther no matter how much evidence you try to present or how much you want to debate. Psychology helps us to understand in a way that Conspiracy Mindsets can be about the need for social belonging, the need for attention, and/or the need for control and certainty in world that may not make too much sense (to them).
Regards.
https://www.livescience.com/61655-flat-earth-conspiracy-theory.html
https://www.livescience.com/24310-flat-earth-belief.html
-
It is amusing that you accuse us of dogmatism while simultaneously espousing a blind belief in authorities, unconcerned that you have no direct knowledge of the matter for yourself.
-
It is amusing that you accuse us of dogmatism while simultaneously espousing a blind belief in authorities, unconcerned that you have no direct knowledge of the matter for yourself.
Psychology helps us to understand in a way that Conspiracy Mindsets (Flat Earthers) can be about the need for social belonging, the need for attention, and/or the need for control and certainty in world that may not make too much sense (to them).
-
It is amusing that you accuse us of dogmatism while simultaneously espousing a blind belief in authorities, unconcerned that you have no direct knowledge of the matter for yourself.
I invite you to share, in summary, the 'direct knowledge' you have.
-
It is amusing that you accuse us of dogmatism while simultaneously espousing a blind belief in authorities, unconcerned that you have no direct knowledge of the matter for yourself.
Psychology helps us to understand in a way that Conspiracy Mindsets (Flat Earthers) can be about the need for social belonging, the need for attention, and/or the need for control and certainty in world that may not make too much sense (to them).
We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.
So who is the closed minded thinker here?
-
It is amusing that you accuse us of dogmatism while simultaneously espousing a blind belief in authorities, unconcerned that you have no direct knowledge of the matter for yourself.
Psychology helps us to understand in a way that Conspiracy Mindsets (Flat Earthers) can be about the need for social belonging, the need for attention, and/or the need for control and certainty in world that may not make too much sense (to them).
We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.
So who is the closed minded thinker here?
You likely won't be able to change the mind of a Flat Earther no matter how much evidence you try to present or how much you want to debate
-
You likely won't be able to change the mind of a Flat Earther no matter how much evidence you try to present or how much you want to debate
If you simply intend on repeating an erroneous claim you included in your opening message then I don't see why this thread needs to exist. This is the Flat Earth Debate section and if you would like to once again confirm you have no intention on debating anyone, I'll gladly move it to a more appropriate forum. I always have a special love for people who come to this website with the full belief that they are correct, everyone else is incorrect, and therefore they have no need whatsoever to even bother reading the other party's arguments on the subject.
-
I think that the Flat Earthers can be separated into two types:
1. Those who wholeheartedly believe in it, have made up hypotheses for it, and generally suffer from too much confirmation bias to convince. Science is extremely complex, and many of these people do not understand that even a PhD in physics only understands an extremely small fraction of current science. Many of their clever rebuttals are trivially shown (and have been shown long ago) to be fallacious. Their knee-jerk reaction is to attempt to disprove modern science without a full understanding of it. Take, for example, Tom Bishop's assertion that if you hold your hand so it's at a higher angle ("above" from your perspective) than a distant lamppost, the lamppost looks upward to see your hand... that's false, and obviously so. Or his various machinations about Doppler shifting from the stars (like randomly looking up the term bathychromic shift without understanding that these apply to molecular spectra). That's not to say Tom's a bad person. He's actually one of the better people here, because he engages constructively in debate, and a lot of wrong stuff he says not out of bad faith, but of ignorance. He's just heavily affected by these psychological biases, specifically the backfire effect and confirmation bias. Or you can take a look at Pete Svarrior's nitpicking at arguments while denying the obvious truth through circumlocution and technicalities. That's called muddying the waters. These are the people who are heavily affected by the psychological biases you talk about; they perform mental gymnastics because in their minds, they cannot possibly be wrong. But you should remember that they could say the same about us, because from their perspective, they think they know the "true science" and that we're being dogmatic. Of course, this is not true (precisely because of all of the scientific verifications that they're ignorant of as a result of almost no physics education), but it's an understandable thought. These are the people who, short of throwing them out of an airlock with a space suit of their own making, and then interviewing them afterward, will never believe in a round Earth. This is because they've gone so deep that their minds have closed to learning science (they question before they understand what they're actually questioning), and without a reasonable degree of scientific knowledge, one cannot ascertain the validity of FE or RE as currently presented.
2. These are the people sitting on the fence, usually because they don't understand the entire debate and from a layman's point of view, a lot of what FE says makes sense. While those who usually respond to the various threads in FE debate are mostly part of the first class, I spend time rebutting them not to convince the people who are actually debating. It's not untrue that in debates, both sides usually think they won. But for someone sitting on the fence, reading the various debate threads may at least convince them to second-guess the fallacious explanations of those without expertise in the relevant parts of science, and take a skeptical eye toward hypotheses/explanations that are widely panned by scientists worldwide. The main point here is that science requires domain-specific expert knowledge to critique; for example, you cannot critique Special Relativity without understanding all of the experiments that went into making this rather unpleasant theory. Of course, the flatness of the Earth is a rather irrelevant debate to today's society, as Flat Earth believers will never work on space exploration, long-range navigation systems, and space-based telecommunications by virtue of their complete wrongness on several levels of science. But hopefully people on the fence of Flat Earth, and then convinced of the rigors of scientific study (even if it's impossible for them to understand), can apply this elsewhere. Maybe the next time they see a conspiracy claim (vaccines cause autism, chemtrails, global warming hoax) that's not as clear-cut (I mean they're pretty clear-cut, but nothing compared to the flatness of the Earth), they'll think twice about "doing your own research" (from poorly-made YouTube videos chock full of technobabble or fallacious reasoning from obvious non-experts) and then choose to actually inquire through reputable sources (and rely on them for scientific reasoning, while still leaving the standard logical deduction to themselves.
TL;DR: you shouldn't heed any of the meta- arguments of Tom Bishop, Pete Svarrior, etc. They're irredeemably mistaken on their belief that science is simply a fallacious appeal to authority. This is because they aren't aware of and don't understand all of the evidence that was collected to back up current scientific understanding. This is a result of a lack of a true understanding of the basics of science.
-
I think that the Flat Earthers can be separated into two types:
1. Those who wholeheartedly believe in it, have made up hypotheses for it, and generally suffer from too much confirmation bias to convince. Science is extremely complex, and many of these people do not understand that even a PhD in physics only understands an extremely small fraction of current science. Many of their clever rebuttals are trivially shown (and have been shown long ago) to be fallacious. Their knee-jerk reaction is to attempt to disprove modern science without a full understanding of it. Take, for example, Tom Bishop's assertion that if you hold your hand so it's at a higher angle ("above" from your perspective) than a distant lamppost, the lamppost looks upward to see your hand... that's false, and obviously so. Or his various machinations about Doppler shifting from the stars (like randomly looking up the term bathychromic shift without understanding that these apply to molecular spectra). That's not to say Tom's a bad person. He's actually one of the better people here, because he engages constructively in debate, and a lot of wrong stuff he says not out of bad faith, but of ignorance. He's just heavily affected by these psychological biases, specifically the backfire effect and confirmation bias. Or you can take a look at Pete Svarrior's nitpicking at arguments while denying the obvious truth through circumlocution and technicalities. That's called muddying the waters. These are the people who are heavily affected by the psychological biases you talk about; they perform mental gymnastics because in their minds, they cannot possibly be wrong. But you should remember that they could say the same about us, because from their perspective, they think they know the "true science" and that we're being dogmatic. Of course, this is not true (precisely because of all of the scientific verifications that they're ignorant of as a result of almost no physics education), but it's an understandable thought. These are the people who, short of throwing them out of an airlock with a space suit of their own making, and then interviewing them afterward, will never believe in a round Earth. This is because they've gone so deep that their minds have closed to learning science (they question before they understand what they're actually questioning), and without a reasonable degree of scientific knowledge, one cannot ascertain the validity of FE or RE as currently presented.
2. These are the people sitting on the fence, usually because they don't understand the entire debate and from a layman's point of view, a lot of what FE says makes sense. While those who usually respond to the various threads in FE debate are mostly part of the first class, I spend time rebutting them not to convince the people who are actually debating. It's not untrue that in debates, both sides usually think they won. But for someone sitting on the fence, reading the various debate threads may at least convince them to second-guess the fallacious explanations of those without expertise in the relevant parts of science, and take a skeptical eye toward hypotheses/explanations that are widely panned by scientists worldwide. The main point here is that science requires domain-specific expert knowledge to critique; for example, you cannot critique Special Relativity without understanding all of the experiments that went into making this rather unpleasant theory. Of course, the flatness of the Earth is a rather irrelevant debate to today's society, as Flat Earth believers will never work on space exploration, long-range navigation systems, and space-based telecommunications by virtue of their complete wrongness on several levels of science. But hopefully people on the fence of Flat Earth, and then convinced of the rigors of scientific study (even if it's impossible for them to understand), can apply this elsewhere. Maybe the next time they see a conspiracy claim (vaccines cause autism, chemtrails, global warming hoax) that's not as clear-cut (I mean they're pretty clear-cut, but nothing compared to the flatness of the Earth), they'll think twice about "doing your own research" (from poorly-made YouTube videos chock full of technobabble or fallacious reasoning from obvious non-experts) and then choose to actually inquire through reputable sources (and rely on them for scientific reasoning, while still leaving the standard logical deduction to themselves.
TL;DR: you shouldn't heed any of the meta- arguments of Tom Bishop, Pete Svarrior, etc. They're irredeemably mistaken on their belief that science is simply a fallacious appeal to authority. This is because they aren't aware of and don't understand all of the evidence that was collected to back up current scientific understanding. This is a result of a lack of a true understanding of the basics of science.
Couldn't have said it any better.
-
Couldn't have said it any better.
If you aren't going to add anything to the thread, then please refrain from posting. "Me too" posts are considered low-content in the upper fora.
-
I think that the Flat Earthers can be separated into two types:
1. Those who....standing. This is a result of a lack of a true understanding of the basics of science.
I wonder if I could be said to disagree with you. Where will you place the flat earther who just trolls? The one who knows the earth isn't flat but will argue continuously that it is? The one who knows he has no point but will throw up statements taken out of context, will quote mine to confirm bais or will out-right lie? There is a fellow on the other site who says he knows space flight is real, he knows pictures taken from space are real but he still believes in a flat earth because he believes in the holographic projection universe theory.
The statement Pete put on the home page of this site about seeing things on TV smacks to me like the statement of a con man trying to maintain his con after he has been busted. Quote mining Steve Woz to make it seem like he also doubts the launch of the falcon heavy.
I think there are only 2 types of flat earthers.
1. The one who doesn't know enough, thinks he knows enough, elevates his opinions to fact and backs up his thinking with misunderstanding simple facts including religious writings.
2. The troll, the conman, the snake-oil salesman.
-
There is a category of people who sincerely believe the earth is flat but I would sub-divide them into two camps:
1) People who have a bit of education but for whatever reason have come to the flat earth belief - never quite sure how they got there but it seems to be wrapped up in the conspiracy theory mindset. They use pseudo-science and just plain wrong assertions to back up their views - JohnAdams' citation of Tom's infamous "lamp looking up at your hand" is a perfect example. Just crazy, demonstrably wrong stuff and when it's proven to be wrong they just either mutter about perspective or leave the thread. It's telling that my thread about long shadows has received no flat earth response, and my repeated suggestions that they do some observations and triangulation to demonstrate the proximity of the moon or sun has never been responded to either. So maybe at some level they do know they are misguided but cognitive dissonance just won't let them admit it to themselves. People like Tom whose identity is so wrapped up in the Flat Earth Movement are particularly prone to this.
2) People who are just very ignorant of science. This is often people who believe in a flat earth for religious reasons - they take some Scripture literally which in my view shouldn't be interpreted that way. They tend not to engage with the scientific argument.
Those people are very entrenched in their views, for different reasons. Confirmation bias is at play here too - that plays out in the fact that the Bishop Experiment is proudly on their Wiki as experimental proof of a Flat Earth but videos of tall buildings occluded by the sea are dismissed by "waves". So why aren't waves a problem in the Bishop Experiment then, which he claims to be able to reproduce any time he likes.
It is an interesting psychology. I would suggest reading "Black Box Thinking" by Matthew Syed which goes into this in some detail - he relates stories of how when DNA evidence first started exonerating convicted rapists the lawyers who had prosecuted those people would do all KINDS of ridiculous mental contortions to explain how the DNA of the other person got there. Anything rather than admit they might have been a part of wrongly convicting someone. It's worth noting we are all prone to this sort of thing, it's just good to be mindful of it and question our beliefs in things to make sure we are thinking logically and not just believing things (or refusing to) because of preconceived ideas.
-
I think that the Flat Earthers can be separated into two types:
1. Those who....standing. This is a result of a lack of a true understanding of the basics of science.
I wonder if I could be said to disagree with you. Where will you place the flat earther who just trolls? The one who knows the earth isn't flat but will argue continuously that it is? The one who knows he has no point but will throw up statements taken out of context, will quote mine to confirm bais or will out-right lie? There is a fellow on the other site who says he knows space flight is real, he knows pictures taken from space are real but he still believes in a flat earth because he believes in the holographic projection universe theory.
The statement Pete put on the home page of this site about seeing things on TV smacks to me like the statement of a con man trying to maintain his con after he has been busted. Quote mining Steve Woz to make it seem like he also doubts the launch of the falcon heavy.
I think there are only 2 types of flat earthers.
1. The one who doesn't know enough, thinks he knows enough, elevates his opinions to fact and backs up his thinking with misunderstanding simple facts including religious writings.
2. The troll, the conman, the snake-oil salesman.
I think that the above is partially true HOWEVER, as my original thread starter suggests or postulates, it also warrants an understanding into some of the Psychology and Mindset of a Conspiracy Theorist.
Digging deeper into the why's and how's of human thinking Mindset, and taking the conversation thread deeper, I am postulating that some of it has to do with the following:
1. The fear of the unknown and trying to make sense of it. Quite simply, being told that the Earth is likely a very small and "insignificant" spec in the overall grandness of the Universe; this could tend to be very hard for some folks to accept. What purpose in life does then being a tiny and insignificant spec bring to me?
2. A distrust in anything that the government says or does, no matter the evidence. Sometimes, to the point of seeming ludicrous. Perhaps something happened in the persons life that triggered this OR perhaps their life didn't end up the way that they wanted.
3. A need for social belonging or feeling the need to belong by becomming part of a common group that allows them to also vocalize or propogate distrust in NASA / the government / Space X /etc..etc..
Regards.
-
I have a friend who told me that he thought that a lot of people who appear to believe in TFE and argue for TFE on this website are just getting a laugh by pretending to believe in it. This doesn't seem too unreasonable, because I know a lot of people who if they had any knowledge that a fourth-grader couldn't tell you, would do that a lot. There are serious debaters on this site, like Tom or Junker, but others may just be faking it. My personal belief is that most believers in TFE start out just doing it for a laugh, but as they get more and more involved in playing around they learn more about the science involved and then switch from it being a laugh to an absolute truth of life.
-
It is amusing that you accuse us of dogmatism while simultaneously espousing a blind belief in authorities, unconcerned that you have no direct knowledge of the matter for yourself.
Psychology helps us to understand in a way that Conspiracy Mindsets (Flat Earthers) can be about the need for social belonging, the need for attention, and/or the need for control and certainty in world that may not make too much sense (to them).
We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.
So who is the closed minded thinker here?
You are, Tom. You have repeatedly been shown to be wrong, but you won't dare to veer away from the stupid stuff Rowbotham wrote. (moonlight makes things colder...smh) You accuse others of appealing to authority without ever acknowledging the fact that Rowbotham et al are your authority. It is essentially a religion for you since you seem to take it on blind faith. (and youtube videos)
-
You are, Tom. You have repeatedly been shown to be wrong, but you won't dare to veer away from the stupid stuff Rowbotham wrote. (moonlight makes things colder...smh) You accuse others of appealing to authority without ever acknowledging the fact that Rowbotham et al are your authority. It is essentially a religion for you since you seem to take it on blind faith. (and youtube videos)
Always find it interesting how Tom demands evidence for round earth claims.
Not in itself an unreasonable thing to do, but compare and contrast with him taking Rowbotham at his word about pretty much everything even though Rowbotham's "proofs" are basically him saying "this is what I saw".
Which is exactly what Tom claims in the Bishop Experiment. Quite why he gets an experiment named after him when it's basically him looking at something remains a mystery, but anyway...
He claims that from 20 inches above the sea level he can look across a bay 23 miles across and can see people on the beach.
But elsewhere when you show video of tall buildings occluded by the sea he claims it's waves.
So is he claiming that there isn't a single wave over 20 inches high in 23 miles of ocean?
I'll be generous and say he is mistaken rather than lying but it's telling that there is no photographs or video of his claims, he gives only very basic details of how he conducted the experiment. No photographs of diagrams of the way the equipment was set up. It's just him saying "this is what I saw". I can see why he rates Rowbotham so highly if that is the level of proof he thinks is acceptable.
Tom is completely closed minded to any other possibility, his identity is too wrapped up in the idea that the earth is flat. Nothing will ever convince him, when he is shown to be wrong he just ignores it.
-
Another article (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psych-unseen/201702/flat-earthers-belief-skepticism-and-denialism).
I wrote this awhile ago about denialism and flat Earth belief, in a thread about burden of proof:
The whole belief is built on denialism. There is no need for completeness: The flat Earth model has no prediction or explanation for why constellations (e.g. Orion) visible in either hemisphere during its summer. There is no need for consistency: The flat Earth skepticism known as zeteticism makes no provision for asserting conjecture (e.g. celestial gravitation) or conspiracy theories without personally observing the evidence. There is no need for correctness: The flat Earth believers we meet here have no care whatsoever for accuracy or rigor.
How high is the the sun above the Earth? Eratosthenes shows a height of 3000 miles. How big is the Earth? Eratosthenes showed a circumference of 25000 miles. It does not matter that these come from the same experiment; you get one or the other, but not both, but our resident zetetics have referenced both. It does not matter that repeated trials of the Bedford Level Experiment showed curvature of the Earth. It does not matter that triangulation makes calculating distances and heights trivial. It does not matter that airlines monitor fuel consumption carefully and know their engine efficiency to precision. It definitely doesn't matter that Tom Bishop said he would accept a spherical map of the Earth built from airline data as proof of a round Earth, then two such proofs were presented, and he was reduced to claiming that no one knows the distance between New York and Paris in avoidance of the truth.
These things don't matter because it's not about proof; but it's not just about faith without proof. There is no proof that God exists, but people believe all the same; there isn't exactly proof that God doesn't exist, either. There is an ages-old debate about who has burden of proof in that argument. Regarding the shape of the Earth; it is observed, measured, catalogued, and demonstrated seventeen ways from Sunday that the Earth is a motherfuckin' globe. So much so that most people don't give it much thought, it's just common knowledge, in the same way that 'car engines work using gasoline' is common knowledge, but few people are mechanics who know how it actually works. 'The Earth is a globe' is common knowledge but not a lot of people understand gravity, general relativity, optics, and geodesy, just to name a couple of relevant subjects. All the evidence is there, proof of the Earth's spherical shape, so believing in flat Earth means denying that evidence.
I give the above rant a B+, didn't go into enough depth about evaluating evidence i.e. rigor.
If we're going to try and categorize believers, I'd look at those who embrace it as a religious belief (http://reddit.com/r/theworldisflat), and those who think of themselves as skeptics.
-
Another article (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psych-unseen/201702/flat-earthers-belief-skepticism-and-denialism).
I wrote this awhile ago about denialism and flat Earth belief, in a thread about burden of proof:
The whole belief is built on denialism. There is no need for completeness: The flat Earth model has no prediction or explanation for why constellations (e.g. Orion) visible in either hemisphere during its summer. There is no need for consistency: The flat Earth skepticism known as zeteticism makes no provision for asserting conjecture (e.g. celestial gravitation) or conspiracy theories without personally observing the evidence. There is no need for correctness: The flat Earth believers we meet here have no care whatsoever for accuracy or rigor.
How high is the the sun above the Earth? Eratosthenes shows a height of 3000 miles. How big is the Earth? Eratosthenes showed a circumference of 25000 miles. It does not matter that these come from the same experiment; you get one or the other, but not both, but our resident zetetics have referenced both. It does not matter that repeated trials of the Bedford Level Experiment showed curvature of the Earth. It does not matter that triangulation makes calculating distances and heights trivial. It does not matter that airlines monitor fuel consumption carefully and know their engine efficiency to precision. It definitely doesn't matter that Tom Bishop said he would accept a spherical map of the Earth built from airline data as proof of a round Earth, then two such proofs were presented, and he was reduced to claiming that no one knows the distance between New York and Paris in avoidance of the truth.
These things don't matter because it's not about proof; but it's not just about faith without proof. There is no proof that God exists, but people believe all the same; there isn't exactly proof that God doesn't exist, either. There is an ages-old debate about who has burden of proof in that argument. Regarding the shape of the Earth; it is observed, measured, catalogued, and demonstrated seventeen ways from Sunday that the Earth is a motherfuckin' globe. So much so that most people don't give it much thought, it's just common knowledge, in the same way that 'car engines work using gasoline' is common knowledge, but few people are mechanics who know how it actually works. 'The Earth is a globe' is common knowledge but not a lot of people understand gravity, general relativity, optics, and geodesy, just to name a couple of relevant subjects. All the evidence is there, proof of the Earth's spherical shape, so believing in flat Earth means denying that evidence.
I give the above rant a B+, didn't go into enough depth about evaluating evidence i.e. rigor.
If we're going to try and categorize believers, I'd look at those who embrace it as a religious belief (http://reddit.com/r/theworldisflat), and those who think of themselves as skeptics.
I would add to the above that I might also categorize believers as those that are looking for purpose and perspective in life.
Again, this particular thread is getting into the Psychology or Mindset and so I would think that this could have something to do with it.
Regards.
-
It is amusing that you accuse us of dogmatism while simultaneously espousing a blind belief in authorities, unconcerned that you have no direct knowledge of the matter for yourself.
Psychology helps us to understand in a way that Conspiracy Mindsets (Flat Earthers) can be about the need for social belonging, the need for attention, and/or the need for control and certainty in world that may not make too much sense (to them).
We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.
So who is the closed minded thinker here?
You likely won't be able to change the mind of a Flat Earther no matter how much evidence you try to present or how much you want to debate
What makes you think that our models or arguments don't evolve from time to time? Do you think that Samuel Birley Rowbotham believed in the Universal Accelerator?
Things do change over time. Occasionally there will be something that needs to be rethought about. Most of the arguments posted here on a daily basis just aren't good enough or clear cut enough to compel change, however.
For the most part RET proponents rely on theories and axioms that are incredibly rationalized, and are unjustifiable at their foundations. You are fighting with swords made of jello, and this is what prevents you from making conclusive arguments.
-
For the most part RET proponents rely on theories and axioms that are incredibly rationalized, and are unjustifiable at their foundations. You are fighting with swords made of jello, and this is what prevents you from making conclusive arguments.
Just for clarification, Tom;
Classic physics = Sword made of jello?
-
For the most part RET proponents rely on theories and axioms that are incredibly rationalized, and are unjustifiable at their foundations. You are fighting with swords made of jello, and this is what prevents you from making conclusive arguments.
Just for clarification, Tom;
Classic physics = Sword made of jello?
Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.
-
For the most part RET proponents rely on theories and axioms that are incredibly rationalized, and are unjustifiable at their foundations. You are fighting with swords made of jello, and this is what prevents you from making conclusive arguments.
Just for clarification, Tom;
Classic physics = Sword made of jello?
Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.
And yet you are comfortable wielding these same swords to explain FE phenomenon? Geometry to describe the path and position of celestial bodies, physics to explain the Atmolayer Lip, etc?
-
We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.
So who is the closed minded thinker here?
There is a single word in the passage above that gave me pause. It is the word truth. It wasn't set in quotes; it wasn't stated that that FEers question "supposed truths" or "accepted truths" or anything of the sort. Truth is, quite literally, true. It has, by dictionary definition, "the quality or state of being true". If a thing is true, then it cannot be questioned, it is simply true. If it is believed to be true, or supposed to be true, it is open to question, but if it has attained the status of truth, it is no longer open to question.
This caused me to wonder if that wasn't a Freudian slip - an indication that Tom subconsciously knows full well that what he is questioning is, indeed, true, believable, correct, testable - however one may wish to define it - yet continues the futile battle because his belief system forces him to do so. It seems to me that such a situation would force one into an ongoing internal battle between one's intellect and one's belief system, (one's ability to rationalize and one's need to believe) a very difficult situation which would result in a great deal of inner turmoil.
I refer to it as a Freudian slip given my assumption that Tom would never knowingly acknowledge that the things he was questioning were, indeed, true.
-
Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.
At a fundamental level, and one potentially more easily understood by the lay classes, we have technology. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge, or science applied. Technology is what has given us automobiles, trains, airplanes, medical tools, eyeglasses, telescopes, cell phones, televisions, radios and even IPods. All technology is based on the science that went before, its discoveries creating the knowledge which allowed the creation of the products that technology has afforded us.
If the science were flawed, the products of technology would be similarly flawed. They're not. Hence the science upon which they're based is assumed to be sound. It's that simple.
-
We seek to question truth and our authories. You seem content with the idea that they are beyond questioning.
So who is the closed minded thinker here?
There is a single word in the passage above that gave me pause. It is the word truth. It wasn't set in quotes; it wasn't stated that that FEers question "supposed truths" or "accepted truths" or anything of the sort. Truth is, quite literally, true. It has, by dictionary definition, "the quality or state of being true". If a thing is true, then it cannot be questioned, it is simply true. If it is believed to be true, or supposed to be true, it is open to question, but if it has attained the status of truth, it is no longer open to question.
This caused me to wonder if that wasn't a Freudian slip - an indication that Tom subconsciously knows full well that what he is questioning is, indeed, true, believable, correct, testable - however one may wish to define it - yet continues the futile battle because his belief system forces him to do so. It seems to me that such a situation would force one into an ongoing internal battle between one's intellect and one's belief system, (one's ability to rationalize and one's need to believe) a very difficult situation which would result in a great deal of inner turmoil.
I refer to it as a Freudian slip given my assumption that Tom would never knowingly acknowledge that the things he was questioning were, indeed, true.
I caught Tom's Freudian slip also.
When you are debating a Flat Earther like Tom, you have to realize that a big part of Tom's identity and (perhaps) livelihood depends upon propogating and selling the Flat Earth society / society beliefs. Debating Tom and trying to convince him to believe in a Round Earth is as likely as Tom being able to convince a Round Earther that the geometrically square and rectangular shaped ISS orbiting Earth is debris from space or that the moon landing was a hoax. It just isn't going to happen, no matter how much evidence is put forth... photos and videos will never be accepted because they will be deemed as CGI or being fake.
As Scroogie has stated above, "Technology is what has given us automobiles, trains, airplanes, medical tools, eyeglasses, telescopes, cell phones, televisions, radios and even IPods. All technology is based on the science that went before, its discoveries creating the knowledge which allowed the creation of the products that technology has afforded us. If the science were flawed, the products of technology would be similarly flawed".
I never would have thought that in 2018 there would still be people that believe that the Earth is flat.
-
What makes you think that our models or arguments don't evolve from time to time? Do you think that Samuel Birley Rowbotham believed in the Universal Accelerator?
No idea. He believed the moon was translucent so who knows what other crazy stuff he believed. He was wrong about pretty much everything.
While we're here, UA is a rationalization. It's a fudge you use to replace gravity - which is ridiculous it's Physics 101 to measure gravitational force with the Cavendish experiment
Things do change over time. Occasionally there will be something that needs to be rethought about. Most of the arguments posted here on a daily basis just aren't good enough or clear cut enough to compel change, however.
That's just not true though. You just don't understand the arguments, or maybe you pretend not to. My thread about long shadows was ignored by you and all the other flat earthers:
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8672.0
This proves that the sun is not where you think it is at sunset. And it is proof as others have acknowledged. You not understanding the proof doesn't mean it isn't sound. It doesn't necessarily prove a globe earth by the way, but it does prove that the sun is not where your current model claims it to be at sunset.
If you think you can design an experiment which casts long shadows with an object on the ground and a light source which isn't physically close to the ground then I'd like to see it. You can shout perspective all you like. Shadow angle depends on the PHYSICAL relationship between object and light source, not perspective. And if you believe light travels in straight lines then it doesn't matter how far the light source is away, the angle remains the same so the shadow length remains the same.
So this is an example of an argument which, if you were as open minded as you pretend, should change your model because the current one demonstrably doesn't work. Your two options to fix that are:
1) The sun being in a different physical place to where your current model supposes
2) Light bending in some way so it appears to be.
Those really are your only two options. But you pick the thirds which is "Laa, laa, laa can't hear you".
Nothing is preventing us making conclusive arguments, you are simply not understanding them. Or you're pretending not to.
Your psychology is a mix of:
Dunning-Kruger - you think you understand things which you really don't
Cognitive Dissonance - your identity is so wrapped up in the flat earth movement you cannot admit to yourself you are mistaken about anything
Confirmation Bias - you cling on to any scrap of evidence which you think shows you may be correct and ignore the tsunami of evidence and proof which shows you are not.
-
I think that the Flat Earthers can be separated into two types:
1. Those who wholeheartedly believe in it, have made up hypotheses for it, and generally suffer from too much confirmation bias to convince. Science is extremely complex, and many of these people do not understand that even a PhD in physics only understands an extremely small fraction of current science. Many of their clever rebuttals are trivially shown (and have been shown long ago) to be fallacious. Their knee-jerk reaction is to attempt to disprove modern science without a full understanding of it. Take, for example, Tom Bishop's assertion that if you hold your hand so it's at a higher angle ("above" from your perspective) than a distant lamppost, the lamppost looks upward to see your hand... that's false, and obviously so. Or his various machinations about Doppler shifting from the stars (like randomly looking up the term bathychromic shift without understanding that these apply to molecular spectra). That's not to say Tom's a bad person. He's actually one of the better people here, because he engages constructively in debate, and a lot of wrong stuff he says not out of bad faith, but of ignorance. He's just heavily affected by these psychological biases, specifically the backfire effect and confirmation bias. Or you can take a look at Pete Svarrior's nitpicking at arguments while denying the obvious truth through circumlocution and technicalities. That's called muddying the waters. These are the people who are heavily affected by the psychological biases you talk about; they perform mental gymnastics because in their minds, they cannot possibly be wrong. But you should remember that they could say the same about us, because from their perspective, they think they know the "true science" and that we're being dogmatic. Of course, this is not true (precisely because of all of the scientific verifications that they're ignorant of as a result of almost no physics education), but it's an understandable thought. These are the people who, short of throwing them out of an airlock with a space suit of their own making, and then interviewing them afterward, will never believe in a round Earth. This is because they've gone so deep that their minds have closed to learning science (they question before they understand what they're actually questioning), and without a reasonable degree of scientific knowledge, one cannot ascertain the validity of FE or RE as currently presented.
2. These are the people sitting on the fence, usually because they don't understand the entire debate and from a layman's point of view, a lot of what FE says makes sense. While those who usually respond to the various threads in FE debate are mostly part of the first class, I spend time rebutting them not to convince the people who are actually debating. It's not untrue that in debates, both sides usually think they won. But for someone sitting on the fence, reading the various debate threads may at least convince them to second-guess the fallacious explanations of those without expertise in the relevant parts of science, and take a skeptical eye toward hypotheses/explanations that are widely panned by scientists worldwide. The main point here is that science requires domain-specific expert knowledge to critique; for example, you cannot critique Special Relativity without understanding all of the experiments that went into making this rather unpleasant theory. Of course, the flatness of the Earth is a rather irrelevant debate to today's society, as Flat Earth believers will never work on space exploration, long-range navigation systems, and space-based telecommunications by virtue of their complete wrongness on several levels of science. But hopefully people on the fence of Flat Earth, and then convinced of the rigors of scientific study (even if it's impossible for them to understand), can apply this elsewhere. Maybe the next time they see a conspiracy claim (vaccines cause autism, chemtrails, global warming hoax) that's not as clear-cut (I mean they're pretty clear-cut, but nothing compared to the flatness of the Earth), they'll think twice about "doing your own research" (from poorly-made YouTube videos chock full of technobabble or fallacious reasoning from obvious non-experts) and then choose to actually inquire through reputable sources (and rely on them for scientific reasoning, while still leaving the standard logical deduction to themselves.
TL;DR: you shouldn't heed any of the meta- arguments of Tom Bishop, Pete Svarrior, etc. They're irredeemably mistaken on their belief that science is simply a fallacious appeal to authority. This is because they aren't aware of and don't understand all of the evidence that was collected to back up current scientific understanding. This is a result of a lack of a true understanding of the basics of science.
Couldn't have said it any better.
Allow me to be of assistance:
Allow me to bloviate for just a bit...Actually, I have nothing meaningful to write and just appreciate the opportunity to pontificate from the luxury of my basement.
There.
I think I paraphrased that quite accurately.
-
Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.
At a fundamental level, and one potentially more easily understood by the lay classes, we have technology. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge, or science applied. Technology is what has given us automobiles, trains, airplanes, medical tools, eyeglasses, telescopes, cell phones, televisions, radios and even IPods. All technology is based on the science that went before, its discoveries creating the knowledge which allowed the creation of the products that technology has afforded us.
If the science were flawed, the products of technology would be similarly flawed. They're not. Hence the science upon which they're based is assumed to be sound. It's that simple.
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
-
Allow me to be of assistance:
Allow me to bloviate for just a bit...Actually, I have nothing meaningful to write and just appreciate the opportunity to pontificate from the luxury of my basement.
There.
I think I paraphrased that quite accurately.
Really not adding anything to the thread with this. Please refrain from low-content posting in the upper fora.
-
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
GPS has to take relativistic time dilation into account for example, the fact it does so and that GPS works gives confidence in Relativity as a theory.
-
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers
-
Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.
well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright):
At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.
-
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity."
~ Abraham Lincoln
I can find only a single source for this quote. That being a FES flier from some time ago where it's stated they 'famously' said this. Yet I can't find a single other source attributing this quote to them. Doesn't seem a particularly famous quote to me in that case, and certainly casts doubt on it ever having been uttered.
-
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers
"The science of today is the technology of tomorrow." - Edward Teller
-
So, Tom threw out a fabricated line probably written by a flat Earth believer, not being skeptical enough to double check his sources. The point of the fake quote is to emphasize 'threw out all science' like they actually ignored every last piece of prior knowledge, or to imply the false belief that if they did, it would disprove all prior knowledge. But, they didn't, and it wouldn't, and they didn't actually say it in the first place.
Tom's next move will be illuminating - will he quibble with us about how real the quote is? The meaning of the quote, fake or not? Accept that it was a mistake?
I predict obstinance
-
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers
"The science of today is the technology of tomorrow." - Edward Teller
Probably not the best person to quote from in this forum, but that every piece of technology we have has its basis in science is a fact. I cannot begin to understand why you have this need to separate different lines of "research" in regards to choosing one above the other. Empiricsm certainly is important, but not valid as a stand alone tool. You cant have one without the other.
-
So, Tom threw out a fabricated line probably written by a flat Earth believer, not being skeptical enough to double check his sources. The point of the fake quote is to emphasize 'threw out all science' like they actually ignored every last piece of prior knowledge, or to imply the false belief that if they did, it would disprove all prior knowledge. But, they didn't, and it wouldn't, and they didn't actually say it in the first place.
Tom's next move will be illuminating - will he quibble with us about how real the quote is? The meaning of the quote, fake or not? Accept that it was a mistake?
I don't think I've ever seen Tom admit a mistake about anything. He really is dishonest in his posting and debating style. He takes one probably made up quote and uses that to refute the entire concept that a lot of technology is based on science and the fact that technology works affirms that underlying science.
The first thing the Wright brothers did was research the science of aeronautics
https://wright.nasa.gov/overview.htm
(I know, a link from NASA so must be fake - I really can't be arsed getting into that argument)
And yes, of course the actual invention came from a lot of trial and error and flying various "kites" but it wasn't complete blind trial and error, it started with an understanding of lift.
All modern aircraft design starts with understanding the science of lift and drag.
-
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
"Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." -- The Wright Brothers
Yes, but when saying that they didn't mean "We stopped believing in gravity and most scientific facts", they mean "We tried ideas that were thought to be impossible because others got the science wrong". They still paid attention to gravity.
-
Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.
well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright):
At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.
It looks like you have already done my work for me. Not only did you find a non-flat earth source for that quote, you did further research showing that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science.
Good research. Maybe you are arguing on the wrong side.
-
Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.
well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright):
At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.
It looks like you have already done my work for me. Not only did you find a non-flat earth source for that quote, you did further research showing that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science.
Good research. Maybe you are arguing on the wrong side.
Yeah, googling that quote proves there is literally no proof they ever said that. A few flat earth and creationist links. Try hard, Bishop. You would never accept this scant evidence from a REer.
-
This is adding to my "Tom Bishop is a troll who doesn't really believe any of this nonsense" thesis.
Which is another category in the FE Mindset, although I guess technically they are not really flat earthers at all, just pretending to be for the lolz.
-
Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.
well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright):
At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.
It looks like you have already done my work for me. Not only did you find a non-flat earth source for that quote, you did further research showing that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science.
Good research. Maybe you are arguing on the wrong side.
Yeah, googling that quote proves there is literally no proof they ever said that. A few flat earth and creationist links. Try hard, Bishop. You would never accept this scant evidence from a REer.
Xeno showed that the quote is in a book and that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science and focused on experience. What more needs to be said?
-
Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.
A "house of cards" that you have demonstrated that you do not understand. You've asserted that the spinning of the Earth would cause a feather at the equator to not fall straight down (wrong, even physics predicts that it'll just fall a bit more slowly). You've asserted some pretty laughable stuff about "perspective." You've demonstrated a lack of understanding of atomic spectra. You don't even understand most of the theory, let alone all of the experiments that were done to validate and derive the theory. Do you think anyone likes special relativity over the simple Galilean motion? Then why is special relativity a thing? It's because of experiments that went against the simple Galilean motion at high speeds.
You don't have nearly enough physics education/knowledge to critique the experiments/theory of physics. I don't, either, but that's why I cite other sources.
This is probably the fifth time I'm suggesting this, but I'll do it again. Tom, download some AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2 practice questions from the Internet and just try them for yourself like you were actually taking the AP test. You don't have to publish the results, but I want you to realize that your physics knowledge is extremely misguided. You don't understand simple physics at a fundamental level.
Also, there's no need to quibble on the Wright Brothers' quote; while I'm fairly sure that Tom has misrepresented the provenance of the quote, it doesn't matter. Did Lockheed build the F-22 Raptor by tossing out all of the previous science? Seems expensive to hire those engineers. What about the Minuteman III ICBM? What about any of the jets that you fly on today? Do you realize how many engineers, many of whom studied only conventional science and engineering in university, worked on these things?
-
Looks most like option 2, but I definitely nailed the ghost #4 prediction
Tom if you knew what good research was, you might become a real skeptic.
So, let's look at ability to evaluate evidence: Tom refers to a book about market research as a 'not-flat Earth source for that quote.' It certainly isn't related to flat Earth at all; it also isn't a source for the quote. It doesn't cite the quote, doesn't say where it comes from, when it was said; it gives no ability for a reader to look up what their primary source was. It's equally usable as the flat Earth newsletter: Not at all. But Tom is like "it's a book" and accepts it as good evidence.
oh yeah - it's also not obvious that Tom actually even checked if such a book exists. he just took my word for it
He then describes the extended quote as showing the Wrights 'really did throw out the science.' He doesn't point to which part of the quote he thinks supports this interpretation, and I don't want to assume, but I don't see it. To me the quote suggests there was a lot of incorrect speculation masquerading as aerodynamic science, people trying to look smart and come up with stuff that sounded good in theory but didn't work in practice, and that 'those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics' were doing fundamental experiments, because no one had before. It doesn't support any interpretation that says they threw out capital-s Science or "the science" as a whole.
-
Everyone doubting the authenticity of the quote attributed to the Wright Brothers'...
Kindly pony up some paperwork or handwritten calculations concerning "lift," "drag," "gravity," etc. while they were in the midst of the building the plane...
-
Here. (https://www.google.com/search?biw=1536&bih=758&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=QG-EWovpNISMggfarZmYDA&q=wright+brothers+notes&oq=wright+brothers+notes&gs_l=psy-ab.3...0.0.0.74542.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1..64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.ta03_UC1jPQ)
Transcribed here (http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/Wright_articles.html).
From a presentation (http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/library/Aeronautical.html):
However, there is another way of flying which requires no artificial motor, and many workers believe that success will first come by this road. I refer to the soaring flight, by which the machine is permanently sustained in the air by the same means that are employed by soaring birds. They spread their wings to the wind, and sail by the hour, with no perceptible exertion beyond that required to balance and steer themselves. What sustains them is not definitely known, though it is almost certain that it is a rising current of air. But whether it be a rising current or something else, it is as well able to support a flying machine as a bird, if man once learns the art of utilizing it. In gliding experiments it has long been known that the rate of vertical descent is very much retarded and the duration of the flight greatly prolonged if a strong wind blows up the face of the hill parallel to its surface. Our machine, when gliding in still air, has a rate of vertical descent of nearly 6 feet per second, while in a wind blowing 26 miles per hour up a steep hill we made glides in which the rate of descent was less than 2 feet per second. And during the larger part of this time, while the machine remained exactly in the rising current, there was no descent at all, but even a slight rise. If the operator had had sufficient skill to keep himself from passing beyond the rising current, he would have been sustained indefinitely at a higher point than that from which he started. The illustration shows one of these very slow glides at a time when the machine was practically at a standstill. The failure to advance more rapidly caused the photographer some trouble in aiming, as you will perceive. In looking at this picture you will readily understand that the excietment of gliding experiments does not entirely cease with the breaking up of camp. In the photographic dark room at home we pass moments of as thrilling interest as any in the field, when the image begins to appear on the plate and it is yet an open quesion whether we have a picture of a flying machine or merely a patch of open sky. These slow glides in rising currents probably hold out greater hope of extensive practice than any other method within man's reach, but they have the disadvantage of requiring rather strong winds or very large supporting surfaces. However, when gliding operators have attained greater skill, they can, with comparative safety, maintain themselves in the air for hours at a time in this way, and thus by constant practice so increase their knowledge and skill that they can rise into the higher air and search out the currents which enable the soaring birds to transport themselves to any desired point by first rising in a circle to a great height and then sailing off at a descending angle. The last illustration shows the machine, alone, flying in a wind of 35 miles per hour on the face of a steep hill 100 feet high. It will be seen that the machine not only pulls upward, but also pulls forward in the direction from which the wind blows, thus overcoming both gravity and the speed of the wind. We tried the same experiment with a man on it, but found danger that the forward pull would become so strong that the men holding the ropes would be dragged from their insecure foothold on the slope of the hill. So this form of experimenting was discontinued after four or five minutes' trial.
In looking over our experiments of the past two years, with models and full-size machines, the following points stand out with clearness:
1. That the lifting power of a large machine, held stationary in a wind at a small distance from the earth, is much less than the Lilienthal table and our own laboratory experiments would lead us to expect. When the machine is moved through the air, as in gliding, the discrepancy seems much less marked.
2. That the ratio of drift to lift in well-shaped surfaces is less at angles of incidence of 5° to 12° than at an angle of 3°.
3. That in arched surfaces the center of pressure at 90° is near the center of the surface, but moves slowly forward as the angle becomes less, till a critical angle, varying with the shape and depth of the curve, is reached, after which it moves rapidly toward the rear till the angle of no lift is found.
4. That with similar conditions large surfaces may be controlled with not much greater difficulty than small ones, if the control is effected by manipulation of the surfaces themselves, rather than by a movement of the body of the operator.
5. That the head resistances of the framing can be brought to a point much below that usually estimated as necessary.
6. That tails, both vertical and horizontal, may with safety be eliminated in gliding and other flying experiments.
7. That a horizontal position of the operator's body may be assumed without excessive danger, and thus the head resstance reduced to about one-fifth that of the upright position.
8. That a pair of superposed or tandem surfaces has less lift in proportion to drift than either surface separately, even after making allowance for weight and head resistance of the connections.
-
Everyone doubting the authenticity of the quote attributed to the Wright Brothers'...
Kindly pony up some paperwork or handwritten calculations concerning "lift," "drag," "gravity," etc. while they were in the midst of the building the plane...
This doesn't seem at all related, but this should help as well when added to xeno's post. Make sure to note the citing of sources for further reading if you wish to find the original paperwork they had. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=following
In particular I'd like to call attention to the last paragraph of page 2:
"In simple terms, flight will be possible whenever there is enough lift to overcome the weight and enough thrust to overcome the drag. When the Wright brothers first became interested in the possibility of flight, they studied the previous experiments and experimenters. In particular, Otto Lilienthal of Germany had experimented with gliders and had developed tables for the lift achieved for many different airfoils. He used the well-established
formulas for lift and drag [McFarland, 575-576]
[Formulas listed along with explanation of what each part means]
These are the two equations that the Wrights used, and they are the formulas that caused them the most trouble. While surface area and velocity were easy to calculate, the other components of these formulas were the major stumbling blocks to flight. Let us follow Wilbur and Orville's attempts to make sense of these formulas."
-
He then describes the extended quote as showing the Wrights 'really did throw out the science.' He doesn't point to which part of the quote he thinks supports this interpretation, and I don't want to assume, but I don't see it. To me the quote suggests there was a lot of incorrect speculation masquerading as aerodynamic science, people trying to look smart and come up with stuff that sounded good in theory but didn't work in practice, and that 'those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics' were doing fundamental experiments, because no one had before. It doesn't support any interpretation that says they threw out capital-s Science or "the science" as a whole.
What you just described sure sounds like throwing out the science to me.
-
Please elaborate.
-
Please elaborate.
Read your original quote:
"Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested."
Is says to pay little attention to the supposed science and to focus on experience, that is, things which have been empirically validated.
It definitely does not say to rely on the science when inventing.
-
And from the paper you provided, I found the following quote:
"In the winter of 1901-02, the Wrights began to rethink all that they had been through."
It seems there is some modern foundational basis to the idea the Wright Brothers' being a source of the quote provided by Tom.
-
Okay...?
You brought the Wright brothers up in the first place in response to this:
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
It has to be mindful of the science behind it though.
Planes get off the ground because the science if gravity and lift and drag are well understood and planes are built accordingly.
No-one builds planes based on UA or "Celestial Gravitation".
The fact that airplanes and other technology demonstrably work gives confidence in the underlying science.
...
You seem to be saying that the speculation that came before is 'the science,' and because the Wrights didn't rely on it, airplanes were not invented using the scientific method.
The presentation Wilbur Wright gave makes it obvious he was mindful of the science of lift and drag, of gravity and center of mass. You're also conflating the scientific method, which requires an experiment i.e. empirical knowledge, with bad assumptions. That's dishonest, and incorrect in this case. The previous writers who hadn't built planes were not 'the science.' This whole time you've been arguing from bad definitions, or a false premise.
Even though this whole scientific method discussion is nominally off topic, I think it's displaying many relevant elements of the flat Earth mindset...
I'm getting tired of Tom's shenanigans so I'm quitting the thread. peace y'all
-
And from the paper you provided, I found the following quote:
"In the winter of 1901-02, the Wrights began to rethink all that they had been through."
It seems there is some modern foundational basis to the idea the Wright Brothers' being a source of the quote provided by Tom.
That's ... not how sourcing a quote works. Of course it's plausible that they said it; it's plausible that anyone could say almost anything. If it's not found in writing, or in a recording, the best evidence is at least one but hopefully more contemporary writings giving it a consistent time and place for context. That the Wright brothers changed their approach is not evidence they said the thing. Thank you for at least trying to do some research though.
-
Appropriately enough, that's a made-up quote. Neither of the Wright brothers is documented saying such a thing outside of Creationist or flat Earth literature.
well, I did find a book about market research that has it. 'as the wright brothers famously said...' But, maybe not so famously. It's probably a paraphrasing of something like this (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright):
At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.
It looks like you have already done my work for me. Not only did you find a non-flat earth source for that quote, you did further research showing that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science.
Good research. Maybe you are arguing on the wrong side.
Yeah, googling that quote proves there is literally no proof they ever said that. A few flat earth and creationist links. Try hard, Bishop. You would never accept this scant evidence from a REer.
Xeno showed that the quote is in a book and that the Wright Brothers really did throw out the science and focused on experience. What more needs to be said?
A) the quote is not in the link Xeno posted. B) it is in a marketing book. That is only proof that the authors, like you, have heard it somewhere. It doesn't make it true. Also, considering that is the only non-FE or creationist link, I think you are on VERY shaky ground. It is more likely that the author is a FEer or creationist and read the quote on some website.
All that being said, it is pretty irrelevant as a quote. There wouldn't have been much aeronautical science to fall back on back then. lol You think Boeing just goes out and builds a plane without extensive modeling??
-
Yes. It goes further than physics, however. Astronomy, Geometry, Physics, many more fields; the foundation of which is all built on a house of cards at a fundamental level.
At a fundamental level, and one potentially more easily understood by the lay classes, we have technology. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge, or science applied. Technology is what has given us automobiles, trains, airplanes, medical tools, eyeglasses, telescopes, cell phones, televisions, radios and even IPods. All technology is based on the science that went before, its discoveries creating the knowledge which allowed the creation of the products that technology has afforded us.
If the science were flawed, the products of technology would be similarly flawed. They're not. Hence the science upon which they're based is assumed to be sound. It's that simple.
Technology isn't invented based on the Scientific Method. It is actually invented with a more emperical process closer to to the Zetetic process.
Technology was invented? That's news to me. What the "Scientific Method" has to do with technology escapes me as technology isn't a science. It's technology, a distinct and separate entity in the field of human endeavour.
-
And from the paper you provided, I found the following quote:
"In the winter of 1901-02, the Wrights began to rethink all that they had been through."
It seems there is some modern foundational basis to the idea the Wright Brothers' being a source of the quote provided by Tom.
That's ... not how sourcing a quote works. Of course it's plausible that they said it; it's plausible that anyone could say almost anything. If it's not found in writing, or in a recording, the best evidence is at least one but hopefully more contemporary writings giving it a consistent time and place for context. That the Wright brothers changed their approach is not evidence they said the thing. Thank you for at least trying to do some research though.
Who wrote anything claiming that I sourced the quote?
You are currently exercising considerable nerve and pompousness even feigning to lecture me on quote sourcing; however,
The first step I would execute in establishing whether or not the quote is appropriately attributed would be to find some written reference indicating predilection or characteristics the person might have even been a possible source of the quotation in question...
See, I would have no trouble believing Winston Churchill stated, "If I was married to you madam, I would drink it!" in response to Nancy Astor's line, "If I were married to you I would poison your drink!" (even though I know Churchill did not originate the line), for it strikes as being in character considering all the other background research I have examined about the man.
Similar to finding someone here offering a post that might attribute a substantive/knowledgeable/intelligent quote to you.
I would really need to perform some in-depth research to adequately source that quote.
-
It seems brilliant how Mr. Bishop has distracted all the people in the thread from talking about what may have been a problem for Tom to address to talking about the origins of a quote.
That was in the past, now we have GPS, air flight and lots of other technology that relies upon science. Someone even said the the Wright Brothers did indeed calculate the effect of gravity, centre of mass, etc (This may be wrong, I read someone post this).
The conclusion is that we know that the science we are doing is correct, because the practical outcomes work as expected. Science may or may not be built on a house of cards, but it works and that is all that matters.
-
Hi,
You have likely already read the attached articles, however, it gave me a high level understanding and some insight on the Psychology or Thinking of a Flat Earther.
In taking a quote from the attached article called "Flat Earth: What Fuels the Internet's Strangest Conspiracy Theory?" (By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor): "flat-Earth conspiracy theorists may be chasing many of the same needs as believers in other conspiracies: social belonging, the need for meaning and control, and feelings of safety in an uncertain world."
In the second article entitled "Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?" (By Natalie Wolchover and Live Science Staff): Karen Douglas, a psychologist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom who studies the psychology of conspiracy theories quotes that : "all conspiracy theories share a basic thrust: They present an alternative theory about an important issue or event, and construct an (often) vague explanation for why someone is covering up that "true" version of events. One of the major points of appeal is that they explain a big event but often without going into details," she said. "A lot of the power lies in the fact that they are vague."
-----------------------------------
For all of you Round / Spherical Earthers out there like myself, you likely won't be able to change the mind of a Flat Earther no matter how much evidence you try to present or how much you want to debate. Psychology helps us to understand in a way that Conspiracy Mindsets can be about the need for social belonging, the need for attention, and/or the need for control and certainty in world that may not make too much sense (to them).
Regards.
https://www.livescience.com/61655-flat-earth-conspiracy-theory.html
https://www.livescience.com/24310-flat-earth-belief.html
What does psychology have to do with the Van Allen Belt. What does the opinion of a psychologist have to do with facts, or even arguments that cannot be proven by FE'ers because no one will discuss them with the ones asking the questions and all evidence is locked up? Moreover FE'ers are not backed by trillions of dollars, the MSM, the military, the education system ad nausea and its vast wealth of rewards and punishments for those who comply and dissent.
Moreover, it is professionally disingenuous for a shrink or doctor to perform a diagnosis on someone (much less a large group of people) in which no polls have been conducted (legitimate or otherwise) and no willing human beings (FE'ers) have volunteered for, and subsequently there is no empirical evidence to support such (heretofore) narcissistic tactics (i.e. projecting) by these armchair theorists... and that is exactly what they are doing... theorizing and probably getting a fat check for doing so. Ya think?
-
What does psychology have to do with the Van Allen Belt. What does the opinion of a psychologist have to do with facts, or even arguments that cannot be proven by FE'ers because no one will discuss them with the ones asking the questions and all evidence is locked up? Moreover FE'ers are not backed by trillions of dollars, the MSM, the military, the education system ad nausea and its vast wealth of rewards and punishments for those who comply and dissent.
Moreover, it is professionally disingenuous for a shrink or doctor to perform a diagnosis on someone (much less a large group of people) in which no polls have been conducted (legitimate or otherwise) and no willing human beings (FE'ers) have volunteered for, and subsequently there is no empirical evidence to support such (heretofore) narcissistic tactics (i.e. projecting) by these armchair theorists... and that is exactly what they are doing... theorizing and probably getting a fat check for doing so. Ya think?
Here's a hint. Nobody discusses this stuff (apart from the REs on this forum) because it's a waste of time. There's nothing more to debate. The evidence is overwhelming, and the only reason why you don't think so is because you don't understand the evidence, and have fundamental misunderstandings of basic science. When you have people who haven't even built a simple induction motor or navigation system, and don't even understand Newton's 3 laws telling 99% of scientists that they're all wrong because of X (a word salad of fundamentally wrong nonsense), I think it's not unreasonable to diagnose them with a bit of a mental problem; that being said, I think that natural cognitive biases are responsible, not mental illness.
-
What does psychology have to do with the Van Allen Belt. What does the opinion of a psychologist have to do with facts, or even arguments that cannot be proven by FE'ers because no one will discuss them with the ones asking the questions and all evidence is locked up? Moreover FE'ers are not backed by trillions of dollars, the MSM, the military, the education system ad nausea and its vast wealth of rewards and punishments for those who comply and dissent.
Moreover, it is professionally disingenuous for a shrink or doctor to perform a diagnosis on someone (much less a large group of people) in which no polls have been conducted (legitimate or otherwise) and no willing human beings (FE'ers) have volunteered for, and subsequently there is no empirical evidence to support such (heretofore) narcissistic tactics (i.e. projecting) by these armchair theorists... and that is exactly what they are doing... theorizing and probably getting a fat check for doing so. Ya think?
Here's a hint. Nobody discusses this stuff (apart from the REs on this forum) because it's a waste of time. There's nothing more to debate. The evidence is overwhelming, and the only reason why you don't think so is because you don't understand the evidence, and have fundamental misunderstandings of basic science. When you have people who haven't even built a simple induction motor or navigation system, and don't even understand Newton's 3 laws telling 99% of scientists that they're all wrong because of X (a word salad of fundamentally wrong nonsense), I think it's not unreasonable to diagnose them with a bit of a mental problem; that being said, I think that natural cognitive biases are responsible, not mental illness.
You are persistent, aren't you? Perhaps we should all call it a night, yes? I appreciate your zeal, but is it not permissible for people to discuss things on their own forums on the internet without self-appointed champions of the realm trolling and adding nothing more than ad hominems and strawman arguments?
I am interested in both sides of the debate... not being lectured by a cheeky person with no show of regard for free discourse.
-
Why don't you read some of the threads in the past?
There's the thread where Tom Bishop denies the continuous representation of space often used in classical physics.
There's the thread where Tom Bishop claims pi = 4 with a fallacious geometric proof, not understanding the difference between limiting areas and perimeters.
There's the thread where a bunch of FEers got trashed on their various hypotheses (chemical reactions, electricity) for how the Sun burns (at least Tom Bishop admits that he doesn't know, which places him in the top 1% of Flat Earthers in terms of good-faith debate). The FEers clearly didn't understand basic chemistry and physics; one even claimed that the Sun burns hydrogen with oxygen.
There's the thread including a diagram with a complicated sin/cos/tan/asin/acos/atan formula (necessitating precise numerical calculation) when any decent high school student could've written it with square roots.
There's the wiki pages, which are often filled with mathematical fallacy. Leading mathematicians would claim the same. This is not a personal assertion.
Part of the reason why you think a lot of arguments are strawman arguments is because you don't understand the idea of reductio ad absurdum or you don't understand the unbroken logical chains/trees that lead to the conclusions. This comes from a lack of understanding of physics most often.
So, is it really an ad hominem? No. It's an indication of the argument quality. Lacking knowledge on elementary mathematics or physics is a perfectly valid reason to discount their machinations asserting that 99% of scientists are wrong.
-
"There's the thread where Tom Bishop denies the continuous representation of space often used in classical physics.
There's the thread where Tom Bishop claims pi = 4 with a fallacious geometric proof, not understanding the difference between limiting areas and perimeters."
Continuous representation of space? Unless I am misunderstanding the point, space is not continuous, it is quantized.
I believe the originator of the pi=4 is this fellow http://milesmathis.com/pi2.html
Might find better info there. Your kneejerk reaction will be "b.s" but this guy has a lot of interesting out of the box thinking.
-
That deals with the Manhattan metric. Of course, if you measure circumference via the Manhattan metric it comes out to 4x the diameter. Usually we measure distance on the Euclidean metric which stays constant in Euclidean space, irrespective of the choice of a coordinate system. Euclidean distance is what is commonly referred to as distance. Claiming pi=4 is mathematically incorrect no matter how you spin it, as the circumference is commonly understood to be the length of string you need to make a circle with diameter d.
I've said probably three times now: space is quantized on a very miniscule level. Mathematics tells us that we can approximate it with continuous math, and gives upper bounds on the error, which is unobservably small. Quibbling on this does not invalidate the use of continuous tools of mathematics like the integral.
-
"Claiming pi=4 is mathematically incorrect no matter how you spin it"
If only that pun was intentional :P
"I show that in all kinematic situations, π is 4. For all those going ballistic over my title, I repeat and stress that this paper applies to kinematic situations, not to static or geometric situations. I am analyzing the equivalent of an orbit, which is caused by motion and includes the time variable. In that situation, π becomes 4"
BTW I wasn't really arguing, I am new here so I am not familiar with your past posts saying space is quantized.
-
"I show that in all kinematic situations, π is 4. For all those going ballistic over my title, I repeat and stress that this paper applies to kinematic situations, not to static or geometric situations. I am analyzing the equivalent of an orbit, which is caused by motion and includes the time variable. In that situation, π becomes 4" -- Miles Mathis (inserted attribution)
I pointed out the only redeeming quality in the article you gave. It was an interesting read, but completely wrong, both mathematically and physically. I can prove that he's pretty incompetent at math, but I'll address the more obvious fact: his pseudo-mathematics doesn't have any bearing in the real world. He can show whatever he wants, but he's contradicted by empirical reality. Drive in a circle. Your fuel consumption will be the circumference (pi approx 3.14) divided by your gas mileage, not what you get when pi = 4. Take a string that's 3.2 times the length of another string. You can lay it in an approximate circle such that the other string passes through the center. You clearly don't need a string of length 4.
He actually has no idea what an orbit is; an orbit is not "caused by motion"; it is the motion of whatever particle. He has no clue what he's talking about. None whatsoever.
As an easier thing to understand, and you can verify this empirically, take a car and drive it in a large circle. Measure its speed. Measure how long it takes to get back to the original point. The circumference is not 4 times the diameter. Clearly, pi = 3.14 is valid in kinematics as well.
-
Somewhat off topic from our already tangential conversation, have you ever considered why the diameter cannot fully be translated into the circumference? At least as far as we know pi has no end.
-
Somewhat off topic from our already tangential conversation, have you ever considered why the diameter cannot fully be translated into the circumference? At least as far as we know pi has no end.
So? There's limiting behavior that approaches pi. That's what limits and calculus were developed around. This is the same concept as adding 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 1; you never get there, but you get arbitrarily close.
It's still a far cry from pi = 4, regardless of how you slice it. The ratio gets progressively closer to pi as you increase the size of the circle. (Of course, for all intents and purposes, it is pi at measurable scales)
-
Somewhat off topic from our already tangential conversation, have you ever considered why the diameter cannot fully be translated into the circumference? At least as far as we know pi has no end.
So? There's limiting behavior that approaches pi. That's what limits and calculus were developed around. This is the same concept as adding 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 1; you never get there, but you get arbitrarily close.
It's still a far cry from pi = 4, regardless of how you slice it. The ratio gets progressively closer to pi as you increase the size of the circle. (Of course, for all intents and purposes, it is pi at measurable scales)
I didn't ask that in relation to pi=4, just wondering if you ever thought about it or why it is.