1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Read the FAQ and still: why?

« on: April 20, 2020, 05:50:34 PM »

I'm not saying the minority cannot be right I'm just saying that when your position requires you to claim you're more knowledgable in such a wide variety of disciplines than all of those people perhaps you should be prepared to reevaluate that position.

Are you more knowledgeable than Einstein because you know how to work an iphone better than he ever did?

Exactly!
I'm glad someone gets it.

Its like flat earthers have only seen a boxed iphone, maybe talked to a few people who used one or to someone who has a friend who used one....and they're calling up apple and telling everyone that they know what the circuits inside the iphone are.

When apple engineers come out and say "Hey, no, sorry - thats not right" the flat earthers claim that its all a conspiracy and someone is putting words in the mouth of every engineer that thinks they're using component X in the phone.

Aaaand you completely missed the point, well done.

I knew what you meant - it was just that the analogy didn't fit. Perhaps the sarcasm doesn't carry well enough on the internet.

Expertise is not some catch-all. Einstein is not appealed to as an expert in biology, but in physics, and a specific subset of that. A child would be more knowledgeable than any of history's great thinkers when it comes to something outside their field of reference, such as a facet of modern life.

So what is it that you think you've got that all those other people haven't got? A questioning nature? A lack of education?

Physicists use the round earth model to get their results, true, so? They use observations and contort what the model predicts to allow for them, the model didn't come about in a vacuum, it was nipped and tucked until it worked as much as they could make it, up until some new discovery came along and they had to nip and tuck a little bit more. They are experts in their specific model and nothing more, just as engineers are great with telling you how to get from A to B but really don't concern themselves with why any of it works.

Their jobs are based around questioning why things works - models only work if they predict reality. Do you not think that something so simple as the Earth being flat wouldn't have been picked up by enough of them by now?

Am I more knowledgeable than, say, Steven Hawking? When it comes to certain topics, yes, just as I'm sure you are. For example, I'd put money on the fact that he wouldn't be able to describe any aspect of any of the major FE models. His expertise is in a set few fields, making claims as to how knowledgeable one is in comparison to him is plainly misleading becaue you are granting him an omniscience no human has.

I'm not granting any single person omniscience - if anything thats what you're doing. The basis of the models has to be in physics, whether its FE or RE, now there are thousands of people whose job it is to test the boundaries of that, to come up with new ways to model things and test the predictions of that. No one has come out and said they discovered it was wrong. You'll claim thats because its taboo and goes against the grain but that is what these people do for a job. If they can find some definite proof with repeatable experiments to prove the earth is flat you bet some would be publishing it.

All those people you mention know only what is within the framework they were taught. That is their expertise, that is their knowledge, if that framework is flawed then who's more knowledgeable about it is meaningless. I contest the foundation of that framework, not the petty bickering about intricacies long after the fact. Forget the geologists, physicists, they're working with fruit from the poisoned tree. What you really need to ask is if you're more knowledgeable than some bloke who thinks the elements are earth, water, wind and fire, or more knowledgeable than someone who thinks sacrificing a rabbit will cure an illness, the 'giants' upon whose shoulders all modern scientific understanding is based.
I'd say yes. We have centuries more knowledge since then, some founded on observation directly as opposed to assumptions and a flawed basis, if we used that to build a model of the world upon, used that as opposed to a blank page as our starting point, we'd have something very different to the mess we now have. The number of cracks that show when you take modern conclusions and try to tie them into established claims is staggering.

Science moves on all the time - Einstein was completely against the idea of quantum mechanics, in fact a lot of people found it a tough pill to swallow. It went against everything that had been thought before but the theories could make predictions which held true. The framework changed. Round earth makes predictions that hold true.

There are some incredibly precise engineering fêtes that, in their construction, took the Earth's curvature into account. In the search for gravitational waves LIGO was constructed to bounce lasers between mirrors 4km apart several times. LIGO measures to precisions smaller than that of a proton. If asked where to place the mirrors the round earth and flat earth models would have disagreed by 1 meter. If round earth predictions hadn't held true this experiment would never have worked - the laser would have missed and some serious questions would have been raised. None of that happened though.

Meanwhile, to use the analogy, you're saying iphones are pseudoscience just because Einstein wouldn't have a clue how they worked. It was beyond his knowledge, but according to you admitting that is the height of arrogance. Do you call that scientific?

No, Einstein didn't come into my analogy. I was just saying that you're trying to tell people who spend their life studying a thing that they're wrong and you, as a hobbyist who probably watched a few youtube videos, are saying you know better. I'm not questioning whats scientific, I'm asking why you don't question yourselves more. Nothing I've read on here has given anything like definite proof and yet there are people who believe it with such fervour its basically a religion. If thats what it is then fine. God works for some people to feel like they've purpose and maybe flat earth is your thing.

My problem is that if you need to have faith to divert from what all of those experts have told you then fine but don't try to pretend to be scientific about it.

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Read the FAQ and still: why?

« on: April 20, 2020, 02:32:04 PM »

I'm not saying the minority cannot be right I'm just saying that when your position requires you to claim you're more knowledgable in such a wide variety of disciplines than all of those people perhaps you should be prepared to reevaluate that position.

Are you more knowledgeable than Einstein because you know how to work an iphone better than he ever did?

Exactly!
I'm glad someone gets it.

Its like flat earthers have only seen a boxed iphone, maybe talked to a few people who used one or to someone who has a friend who used one....and they're calling up apple and telling everyone that they know what the circuits inside the iphone are.

When apple engineers come out and say "Hey, no, sorry - thats not right" the flat earthers claim that its all a conspiracy and someone is putting words in the mouth of every engineer that thinks they're using component X in the phone.

3

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Read the FAQ and still: why?

« on: April 20, 2020, 08:41:01 AM »

Phew -okay, read through all of those posts.

Looks to me like the common theme here is "we know better than the people who devote their lives to this".

A quick list looks like:

• Physicists - Should be clear but everyone from astrophysicists to geophysicists use the round earth model to get their results
• Geologists - The age of the earth, the pressures and movements of plates and so on come from these people
• Historians - In depth studies of what the ancients thought and how we're influenced by them (RE: claims about ancient Greeks)
• Engineers -Designing planes (and their flight paths), building large bridges, tall buildings, long straight roads, any long tunnels (like those at the LHC)

All of these people use the round earth model to get the results they do. They build things that stay standing, make predictions that come true and are continually vetted by their peers.

Flat earth belief requires the claim either all of those people are in on a conspiracy or that you know the subject better than all of those specialists who've spent their lives studying that particular area.

I'm not saying the minority cannot be right I'm just saying that when your position requires you to claim you're more knowledgable in such a wide variety of disciplines than all of those people perhaps you should be prepared to reevaluate that position.

4

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Read the FAQ and still: why?

« on: April 17, 2020, 01:34:56 PM »

I just think it's healthy to ask the whys.

There can be a lot of things that are confusing at first glance. If a person is looking out the window and thinks the world appears flat it might be difficult for them to reconcile that with what they're being told by scientists, teachers, pilots and so on. This might tempt them to search for an alternative view point that stays consistent with the belief the earth is flat. Fine if they want to explore that, but they should also be considering why, if the world is flat, the other people are saying otherwise.

5

Flat Earth Theory / Read the FAQ and still: why?

« on: April 16, 2020, 12:32:22 PM »

I previously posted a question asking why, if the Earth is flat, evidence would have been falsified and the millions involved in keeping this secret for thousands of years wouldn't have let slip.

Pete's response was to point me to the FAQ - I'd already read this before posting my initial question and it held no information on the question:

If the Earth is flat why is there so much effort in saying otherwise?

We see in The Conspiracy:

There is no Flat Earth Conspiracy. NASA is not hiding the shape of the earth from anyone. The purpose of NASA is not to 'hide the shape of the earth' or 'trick people into thinking it's round' or anything of the sort.

Okay, great! So no one is trying to put out false information about the shape. The page goes on to talk about a conspiracy around space travel but that diverges from our initial question.

Forget NASA or America, the idea that the Earth is round had been around for thousands of years before them.

For the idea to carry on we need every country to buy into it, we need physicists to construct laws of physics and spend their lives writing about this, assumedly fictional, work. We need handlers to make sure none of these people blab and we need to have had it for thousands of years.

Throughout the FAQ nothing addresses the question of why, if the Earth is flat, there so much effort in saying otherwise?

6

Flat Earth Theory / Why?

« on: April 15, 2020, 08:40:03 AM »

So perhaps there are ways to explain away gravity, orbits of planets, what is off the other edge and so on.

The thing that I don't understand is why anyone would be pretending the Earth isn't flat if it was. For thousands of years separate societies all over the world have reached the conclusion the Earth is round, it isn't a new idea and it wasn't an isolated one.

Why would this conspiracy have been running for thousands of years - who gains from it?

It must be something huge, right? Over time millions must have been involved in this if it is a conspiracy being kept from 'the people' and hundreds of thousands more must have been there to enforce this never getting out into the public.