1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: I think I can disprove everything

« on: June 14, 2019, 01:00:46 AM »

It sounds like you just demonstrated the point of the car analogy. The conditions to travel in a perfectly straight line without navigational aid are impractical.

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment

« on: June 12, 2019, 10:02:05 PM »

Thanks for pointing out the timestamps, iampc. I've added your notes to the Sinking Ship Refraction Wiki page.

Some of the sinking ship examples have clear refraction effects going on. Much of the "sinking ship" media tends to have distortion at the horizon, which  is evidence that curving light rays are present. See Soundly's altitude change example:



The bridge appear and disappear from an inferior mirage.

The Lake Pontchartrain power lines also appear to be disappearing into refraction at the horizon:



An identical effect also appears to be happening in this road scene at the 58:21 mark:

3

Flat Earth Community / Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus

« on: June 08, 2019, 09:12:15 PM »

If science can't "prove" stuff, what good is it?
1) Science can disprove things. That's not hard.
2) Science can describe things with a degree of confidence. In science, we like to have a confidence level at "5 sigma" or better. (As you've seen, there seems to be some fudging on that from time to time.)
3) Science can build a model that can be used to make accurate predictions. That model may not be perfect, but if we can describe what the limitations of the model are, it can be extremely useful.

If we went through life believing that things were true because someone 'explained' why it occurred, we would be prone to believe in all sorts of things. There are many failed sciences in history which have created elaborate explanations for natural occurrences but went out of favor due to a lack of experimental demonstration.

A round earth can be demonstrated. Why should that be impossible? The phenomena used to determine things about the Round Earth Theory need only to be cross-correlated to provide controls for a given explanation.

If the distance to the sun could be determined with multiple triangulation methods, that would provide demonstration of the matter. For example, Aristarchus used the phases of the Moon to measure the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon. During a Half Moon, the three celestial bodies should form a right angle. By measuring the angle at Earth between the Sun and Moon, his method shows that the Sun is 19 times as far from the Earth as the Moon, and thus 19 times as big, which is far different than the current Transit-of-Venus method. Indeed, his method was accepted as the truth of the sun's distance in RET for over two thousand years... If we question the two thousand years of science's ability to measure angles, a modern version of his method to come up with an agreement with current theories would provide confidence of truth. In contradiction, the history of the sun's distance tells a story of disagreement and conjecture.

If one could find cross-correlation between different techniques, that demonstrates the truth of the matter. This is how other sciences work to demonstrate their explanations. Multiple methods, multiple scenarios, to demonstrate a truth.

As an example, there are many different radiometric dating methods. If each of those dating methods agrees that a given sample is about the same age, this gives us confidence for the accuracy of that method. If they vary wildly with each other, it shows that something must be incorrect. This is an obvious thing which should be done, right?

This is not a "it's impossible to prove anything" discussion. Demonstration is possible. Standard scientific competency is desired, and achievable, for these matters. Once multiple methods are involved to correlate results to verify explanations it transforms the observation and interpretation into an experiment. The interpretation is corroborated by independent methods. No longer is the matter mere speculation. It has become demonstrated.

Given the incredible effort of all of humanity to interpret and describe this theory, this level of simple scientific quality control should be an easy slam dunk. Anyone who promotes integrity in science should surely champion the suggestions and statements above.

From my research I do think that people have tried, and have failed, to do what I have described, and so the stories are kept to the simple observation-and-interpretation ones. The information is all there, if one were to look and document it, of science's failed and contradicting efforts to determine the properties of the model.  I'll continue to document it on the Wiki when I have the time. It most certainly is not a resolute story of agreement and success. The truth will come out, sooner or later.

4

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 08, 2019, 02:11:22 AM »

No, I don't really care about personal testimonials that can be cherry picked and taken out of context. Personally, I'm more interested in a plausible FE model that can explain everyday phenomena like the apparent motions of the sun and moon.

I see. So anyone Mark Sargent interviews is fake or was taken out of context and needs no promotion or consideration. It seems that you are just trolling us then.

In the hierarchy of evidence, I would think that testable models would rank higher than personal testimonials.  After all, how many people have done interviews and given personal testimonials about being abducted by aliens or seeing big foot?

The Coriolis Effect being discarded for military weapons  and curvature discarded in surveying seems like a test of the models to me.

Anything that anyone claims is a "personal testimonial."

5

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 08, 2019, 01:32:28 AM »

No, I don't really care about personal testimonials that can be cherry picked and taken out of context. Personally, I'm more interested in a plausible FE model that can explain everyday phenomena like the apparent motions of the sun and moon.

I see. So anyone Mark Sargent interviews is fake or was taken out of context and needs no promotion or consideration. It seems that you are just trolling us then.

6

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 08, 2019, 01:13:23 AM »

People are interested in conspiracy, religion, social aspects, mark sargent interviews with professionals and military personnel, the flat earth podcast radio shows, etc., etc., much of which do not have a place in forum web chat format.

If that's true, then there must be something wrong with me because I don't care about any of that.

If you don't care that Mark Sargent is having interviews on his shows with military personnel who say that they don't use Coriolis, or career surveyors who say that they don't use curvature, then I can only characterize that as intellectually dishonest. Many of these videos do have value and are of great interest.

7

Flat Earth Community / Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus

« on: June 08, 2019, 12:02:09 AM »

It is the responsibility of science to prove itself absolutely

I think that's an oxymoron. If I do an experiment a single time, that's clearly not absolute proof. What about 3 times? 5 times? 100 times? At what point does "maybe true" morph into "probably true" and then finally into "absolutely true"? Science can't give absolute truths, just the most likely explanation given the results of repeated observation.

Can you go into more detail about why you think astronomy is a pseudoscience? Let's say I'm trying to measure the redshift of some galaxy by pointing my big telescope at it and measuring the wavelength of the light that comes off. Which part of this observation isn't scientific?

Yes. Proof does exist in science! Spontaneous Generation was proven false. People studied the matter. Flies don't pop out of nowhere. People did experiments. You know, science?

A near complete lack of science has occured in Astronomy, however.

Per your redshift query, it is based on multiple hypothesis'. Blueshift and redshift as we experience on Earth doesn't occur with stars and galaxies. The theories need to be modified. Most galaxies we see are redshifted to a degree that doesn't really make sense, and the implication is that we are the center of the universe. The cosmological redshift is known as Hubble’s law, and postulated that the known universe is expanding. Hypothetical mechanisms were put in place to change the observation and its implications into an expanding universe.

See this quote from Edwin Hubble:

“Such a condition [the red shifts] would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central earth. The hypothesis cannot be disproved but it is unwelcome and would be accepted only as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. Therefore, we disregard this possibility and consider the alternative, namely, a distribution which thins out with distance.”

“A thinning out would be readily explained in either of two ways. The first is space absorption. If the nebulae were seen through a tenuous haze, they would fade away faster than could be accounted for by distance and red-shifts alone, and the distribution, even if it were uniform, would appear to thin out. The second explanation is a super-system of nebulae, isolated in a larger world, with our own nebula somewhere near the centre. In this case the real distribution would thin out after all the proper corrections had been applied.

Both explanations seem plausible, but neither is permitted by the observations.

The apparent departures from uniformity in the World Picture are fully compensated by the minimum possible corrections for redshifts on any interpretation. No margin is left for a thinning out. The true distribution must either be uniform or increase outward, leaving the observer in a unique position.

But the unwelcome supposition of a favoured location must be avoided at all costs….Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable … Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position, the departures from uniformity, which are introduced by the recession factors, must be compensated by the second term representing effects of spatial curvature. There seems to be no other escape.“

Stephen Hawking says:

"...all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe."

"There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe."

From Paul Davies in Nature:

"If the Earth were at the center of the universe, the attraction of the surrounding mass of stars would also produce redshifts wherever we looked! This theory seems quite consistent with our astronomical observations"

The concept of a central earth was rejected because it was unwelcomed and alternative hypothetical ideas were pushed. Never was it proven experimentally that the metric expansion of space was actually occurring to cause the redshifts. It is deemed sufficient that an explanation seems to work.

If your science is merely about getting things to seem to work, then you are basically just telling me a story. Astronomy is a contest of who has the best explanations and stories. It is simply not a science like other science.

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Flat Earth Community / Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus

« on: June 07, 2019, 11:29:07 PM »

Here I disagree. Science is explicitly NOT in the business of "proving" anything.

That is certainly not what I learned in my education. I have been under the impression that science had a mission to find the truth about nature.

We must reject "Seems to" and seek "Demonstrated to". My issue with the history of RET and astronomy is that it is based on pseudoscience. Consider the sinking ship proof of the Round Earth, as it is given in textbooks.

Aristotle gave out his 'proof' that the earth was round by saying that ships sink when they recede from us. But did Aristotle perform any studies, experiments, documentation on that? How many months or years of observations did Aristotle perform on this proof, exactly? Did he show that it was a consistent effect which occurs in different environments and that we could get the properties of the earth from it and compare it to Eratosthenes' ideas about the size of the earth? The answer is that he did none of that. That's not the story. The story is that Aristotle gave it as his proof and that's that. Lazyness and incompetence, to my mind. With that the earth is round, along with a few other observations. These matters were not studied at all. It is only now that the matter is being closely scrutinized.

None of this would fly with traditional empirical sciences. Chemistry doesn't work on "Seems to". This is the error of humanity. To the heliocentric theorists, as long as it "seems to be explained" by some mechanism, that is good enough. That is not good enough for truth, however. Real evidence is required, and this is not a "mathematical proof" type of requirement. Scientific investigation consistent with other sciences should have taken place, but they have not taken place.

If there were studies where Aristotle and Copernicus demonstrated their ideas we would not be having this discussion. It is for this reason FE might be correct. A nearly complete lack of real investigation has taken place, with only some cartoons and explanatory diagrams to "explain" how the seasons and to "explain" the equinox works. It is considered sufficient that things seem to be explained rather than any real demonstration of the matter.

A society of people with a relentless goal to "explain things" for the Concave Earth model of the earth that proposes that we are living in a hollow world would achieve that goal. Anything can be "explained". It is a fallacy to think that because someone can explain something that it means anything at all. These lessons have been learned in other fields, for which the Scientific Method was developed. Yet Astronomy has historically stood alone in this endeavor.

9

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 07, 2019, 09:23:51 PM »

However, the debate forums which improve the technical aspects of FET should ideally be a secondary feature to a tube website of some sort with a constant stream of Flat Earth videos, which provide information, research, opinions, in order to continue the growth which was seen on YouTube.

I would respectfully disagree.  Improving the technical aspects of FET should ideally be a primary feature.  After all, what good is a constant stream of FET videos if the content of those videos can't stand up to critical scrutiny?

People are interested in conspiracy, religion, social aspects, mark sargent interviews with professionals and military personnel, the flat earth podcast radio shows, etc., etc., much of which do not have a place in forum web chat format.
 
Forum web chats have an astounding history of not significantly growing the movement, while all of the above do. Things which grow the movement should be put front and center and things which do not should be of less priority. The forums are still of value, just not to the public at large who want to primarily observe and learn about it rather than debate it.

10

Flat Earth Community / Re: REs netiquette

« on: June 07, 2019, 07:45:31 PM »

I have come to the conclusion that average FE don't want to debate it. They want to learn about it from other FE. The FE'ers who bother to debate on forums long term mainly do so to strengthen their models. Whereas the average FE don't have that motivation. They want to learn, not argue with strangers about it.

The RE seem more than willing to spend many hours of their life researching topics for us, free of charge, which is generous and invaluable.

However, the debate forums which improve the technical aspects of FET should ideally be a secondary feature to a tube website of some sort with a constant stream of Flat Earth videos, which provide information, research, opinions, in order to continue the growth which was seen on YouTube. The videos can be hosted on YouTube and the new and popular videos from selected channels can be displayed. All we need to find is some platform which can facilitate this.

11

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Would it be possible for a satellite to rotate around a FE

« on: June 06, 2019, 03:00:52 PM »

All satellites use the Biefeld-Brown effect to orbit above the surface of the Earth.

Pure bunk.   Please provide proof.

The thread asked for possibilities, not proof.

12

Flat Earth Community / Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus

« on: June 05, 2019, 06:34:51 PM »

There you go. You have no real proof from science. Public science is peer reviewed, and its results have been tested by independent scientists and organizations in world-wide agreement. Public science is not a matter of putting your trust in the claims of government. In one breath someone will agree that the government lies a lot, has conducted secret wars, native american genocide, etc, and in the next breath they will tell us that the government is truthful about space.

13

Flat Earth Community / Re: Friendly Discussions to Build Consensus

« on: June 05, 2019, 06:01:25 PM »

I'll correspond with you.

You say "So far, it has been my experience that virtually everything I was taught in a science class has checked out."

Of course that will be the case. If you lived in Ancient Greece at a time when the supernatural ruled and Aristotile taught that flies spontaneously generated from rotting meat, what reason would you have to doubt him? All of Aristotile's teacher buddies in the pantheon seem to agree. After all, you have seen flies swarming around rotting and decaying substances all the time, often multiplying in numbers. Spontaneous Generation confirmed! It is only natural to observe and interpret that this is where they must come from.

Opinions were not significantly swayed until experiments were performed almost two thousand years later:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

Caption: "A modern rendering of Francesco Redi's 1668 experiment on abiogenesis. Flies form on the meat in the open jar (left) but not in the closed jar (right)."

So why should we believe Aristotle the next day when he gives similar observation and interpretation on a few topics on the shape of the earth?

All societies will have explanations and interpretations for nature. It "seems to check out" is not enough. If there is no direct experimental exploration and verification of an idea, any interpretation of nature invalid.

It is the responsibility of science to prove itself absolutely, not "seem to check out". Astronomy, for example, is to a great degree a science of observation and interpretation. It is for this fact alone that it may be incorrect. It is Astronomy's responsibility to prove itself to you, to separate one interpretation from another experimentally, to separate any possible phenomena which creates the event experimentally, with no other possible explanation. If there is another possible explanation, because experimental verification is impractical or impossible, then the science is of little value for truth.

"Observation and interpretation" is the largest fallacy in the history of science. It is for this reason that the Scientific Method was created to determine truth and became expected in most terrestrial empirical sciences. A hypothesis must be tested and experimentally verified to determine a cause. Yet we find that Copernicus performed zero experiments for his theory of terrestrial motion, and nor did Stephen Hawking perform experiments for his ideas on the metric expansion of space. A mere collection of ideas. A contest of "who has the best idea" is not science.

Today's purveyors of astronomical science seek to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’, building one hypothesis upon the next in mumbling pretension until we have house of cards model of the universe consisting nothing but undiscovered phenomena like graviton particles and dark matter to glue the entire horrid mess together. We should be disgusted every time we read about it.

14

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Let's investigate how viewing distance works.

« on: May 31, 2019, 08:37:16 PM »

I redrew the diagram with just two points. Connecting the eye to point A and B at a position closer to the table will make a very shallow angle, while connecting the eye to points A and B at a higher elevation will make a more broader angle to those points.



Near the surface of the table if points A and B are 1/60'th of a degree, they will appear to merge together. At a higher elevation points A and B may not be making 1/60'th of a degree, and will not be merged together.

If the 1/60th of a degree had any significance, we should be able to test that theory out with a telescope. A telescope would improve the visual resolution. Does a telescope "push back your vanishing point"?

Yes, a telescope will restore things which disappear to angular resolution. This is one of the premises in Earth Not a Globe. See: https://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za32.htm

15

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Let's investigate how viewing distance works.

« on: May 31, 2019, 05:16:33 PM »

We are looking at an infinitely long table with our eye right against its surface. When we are low to the table the distant extent of the table builds up and is making a sharper angle to the eye.

Perhaps the 1/60'th of a degree occurs at A:



When we increase our altitude we are now looking at the table at a broader angle, and it takes more distance for the extents of the table to build up and make that same sharp angle in the distance to our eye:



Eventually the view will be blocked by the opacity of the atmosphere, but it shows how the the viewing distance can increase with altitude.

16

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Let's investigate how viewing distance works.

« on: May 31, 2019, 04:37:54 PM »

You are thinking about it as like looking at an object, rather than the entire surface. Take the object out of the picture. We can see from your image that the FOV of the second person at the higher altitude can see much more land at a broader angle than the first person.



The first person is closer to the surface, and is looking at the surface at a sharper and smaller angle.

When you look across a kitchen table at eye level with the surface of the table, as an example, the view to the end of the table makes a smaller angle to your vision than if you incrementally lift your head above it.

17

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Consider Renaming the wiki

« on: May 31, 2019, 01:52:08 AM »

I like the category-system idea. There are now hundreds of pages and it's getting unwieldy to organize. I'm not sure how we should better categorize it though.

18

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Astronomy a pseudoscience?

« on: May 31, 2019, 12:35:30 AM »

There are multiple control points in that experiment and others. Each point is a test in the experiment. Amazing refraction coincidences would need to occur to account for them.

https://biologydictionary.net/controlled-experiment/

Controlled Experiment Definition

A controlled experiment is a scientific test that is directly manipulated by a scientist, in order to test a single variable at a time. The variable being tested is the independent variable, and is adjusted to see the effects on the system being studied. The controlled variables are held constant to minimize or stabilize their effects on the subject.

Rowbotham is well aware of the "refraction" argument, and this test is designed to test the refraction of light rays on the flags of constant height. The observation is turned into multiple experiments. The matter is artificially manipulated to separate one explanation from another, in the effort to more truthfully determine a cause of an observation.

19

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Astronomy a pseudoscience?

« on: May 31, 2019, 12:29:11 AM »

So sticking a few flags in a river is a carefully controlled laboratory level scientific experiment to you is it Tom?

What sources of possible systematic and experimental errors can you think of associated with such a method?

Since he saw the top of the flags to be perfectly aligned against the taller flag at the end, there would need to be a systematic refraction effect which caused the flags to be projected into the air at the exact height in accord with the height of the observer and the distance looked across to simulate a Flat Earth.

The top of the first flag would have been projected 8 inches into the air, the second flag 2.67 ft, the third flag 6 feet, the fourth flag 10.6 feet, the fifth flag 14.29 feet, and the sixth flag 24.01 feet in the air.

An amazing coincidence, really.

20

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Astronomy a pseudoscience?

« on: May 31, 2019, 12:11:24 AM »

Several experiments use multiple control points. See Experiment 2 in Earth Not a Globe.

Whenever your opponent needs to try and change the subject rather than defend the matter directly, it is an implicit admission that he has no defense, and a sign that he has accepted your position and argument.