If FE was accepted

Facts don't exist in science.

Facts exist in engineering, like in satellite tv design and operation.

John Davis, thanks for the link.

The author of that article, Julia Shaw, is a psychological scientist who specializes in memory and criminal psychology and false memories. She wrote a book titled, "The memory Illusion :  Remembering, forgetting, and the science of false memory." I like her.

In the article she contradicts herself by saying, "What we do is collect evidence that supports or does not support our predictions. Sometimes we do things over and over again, in meaningfully different ways, and we get the same results, and then we call these findings facts. And, when we have lots and lots of replications and variations that all say the same thing, then we talk about theories or laws. Like evolution. Or gravity. But, at no point have we proved anything."

So, Julia Shaw says facts do exist in science, but in that last sentence, science doesn't prove anything? Julia Shaw's area of expertise being psychology, isn't tangible like the physical world, so I wonder if that last statement was aimed more at the science of psychology?

John Davis, has this reasoning been replicated by statements by physicists, biologists, or chemists?

Facts don't exist in science.

Proof doesn't exist in science. Facts do.

Here's a bit on it, from a scientist.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-scientist-and-i-dont-believe-in-facts/

From that article:

Well, let me tell you a secret about science; scientists don’t prove anything. What we do is collect evidence that supports or does not support our predictions. Sometimes we do things over and over again, in meaningfully different ways, and we get the same results, and then we call these findings facts. And, when we have lots and lots of replications and variations that all say the same thing, then we talk about theories or laws. Like evolution. Or gravity. But at no point have we proved anything.

Although many people might be unaware of that, it's hardly a secret. I've been saying this for years, citing this article time and time again in these forums.

The author of the SA article argues that some commonly-used definitions for 'fact' do not apply in science, which has merit. Again from the SA article:

We think of a fact as an irrefutable truth. According to the Oxford dictionary, a fact is “a thing that is known or proved to be true.” And where does proof come from? Science?

The author's definition of 'fact' on the first quote above - "sometimes we do things over and over again, in meaningfully different ways, and we get the same results, and then we call these findings facts" - fits the "known to be true" part of the OED definition adequately well, but, in science, facts will never be irrefutable or proved. Facts in science are pieces of information that have been tested often enough to be considered reliable and, when properly used, give useful answers to questions or problems.

Here's an example of a fact in science: the speed of light in a vacuum, c.

c = 3.00 x 10⁸ metres/second

c = 2.99792458 x 10⁸ metres/second = 299 792 458 metres/second

Both are correct to the precision stated. Using these values will accurately predict the time it takes for light to propagate an accurately measured distance in a vacuum, or to determine the distance light travels in a vacuum in an accurately measured amount of time, to the precision allowed by the measurement and the precision of the value used for c. Using these values to determine time or distance light travels in, say, water would not give correct answers, hence the properly used caveat.

Quote from: John Davis on March 22, 2019, 09:11:55 AM

Facts don't exist in science.

Proof doesn't exist in science. Facts do.

Quote from: John Davis on March 22, 2019, 09:14:24 AM

Here's a bit on it, from a scientist.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-scientist-and-i-dont-believe-in-facts/

From that article:

Quote from: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/im-a-scientist-and-i-dont-believe-in-facts/

Well, let me tell you a secret about science; scientists don’t prove anything. What we do is collect evidence that supports or does not support our predictions. Sometimes we do things over and over again, in meaningfully different ways, and we get the same results, and then we call these findings facts. And, when we have lots and lots of replications and variations that all say the same thing, then we talk about theories or laws. Like evolution. Or gravity. But at no point have we proved anything.

Although many people might be unaware of that, it's hardly a secret. I've been saying this for years, citing this article time and time again in these forums.

The author of the SA article argues that some commonly-used definitions for 'fact' do not apply in science, which has merit. Again from the SA article:

Quote

We think of a fact as an irrefutable truth. According to the Oxford dictionary, a fact is “a thing that is known or proved to be true.” And where does proof come from? Science?

The author's definition of 'fact' on the first quote above - "sometimes we do things over and over again, in meaningfully different ways, and we get the same results, and then we call these findings facts" - fits the "known to be true" part of the OED definition adequately well, but, in science, facts will never be irrefutable or proved. Facts in science are pieces of information that have been tested often enough to be considered reliable and, when properly used, give useful answers to questions or problems.

Here's an example of a fact in science: the speed of light in a vacuum, c.

c = 3.00 x 10⁸ metres/second

c = 2.99792458 x 10⁸ metres/second = 299 792 458 metres/second

Both are correct to the precision stated. Using these values will accurately predict the time it takes for light to propagate an accurately measured distance in a vacuum, or to determine the distance light travels in a vacuum in an accurately measured amount of time, to the precision allowed by the measurement and the precision of the value used for c. Using these values to determine time or distance light travels in, say, water would not give correct answers, hence the properly used caveat.

I know you use the speed of radio waves to calculate distances .......That's how radar works.
Some ham radio operators have measured the distance from the earth to the moon with radio waves......That's how ''Operation Moon Bounce'' works.
Or the speed of light for laser measurements .....Some of the astronomic observatories have measured distances to a centimeter with laser beams.
But you use the speed of sound in water........That's how sonar works.

Quote from: Danang on March 21, 2019, 01:13:27 AM

Quote from: Sunset on March 19, 2019, 09:37:44 PM

Quote from: Danang on March 19, 2019, 03:39:06 PM

Of course Phew is not perfect yet. But it's on the track.

Danang, when constructing a world map, it isn't sufficient to only construct accurate positives of the land masses. It's equally important to construct accurate negative space around the land masses, being the water - the oceans, seas, etc.

This is called cartography.

Would you want to live in a town or city where the law is, all town maps and apps must be at least 80 percent wrong? If not, why do so with the world? It's impractical. Distances is important in calculating fuel required for trips, for one, and accuracy regarding direction.

Danang, is it your argument, the world has not been correctly mapped and you can do a better job?

As I said before, Phew is not perfect yet. But survey says, no other options but Phew FE.

If we're agree conventional FE is wrong, then I'd say globe is wrong as well.

Let's go to, say, Warsaw. At Equinox the noon sun is not at 12.00 and day length is not 12 hours. Why is it??

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/poland/warsaw

Danang, i'm not sure why you propose globe earth is wrong? Looking at that chart for Warsaw, it did have 12 hours and 5 minutes of daylight on the 18th of March this year. Equinox is supposed to be around the 20th of March each year. On the 21st day of March this year, noon was at 11:42am, which is 18 minutes off 12:00pm.

You need to bear into account, the heliocentric model is that the Earth doesn't complete a full rotation of the sun exactly 365 days every year. That's why we have a leap year every 4 years where we gain a day. Earth's rotation around the sun is not a perfect circle, it's elliptical. I'm sure these factors explain some of the time discrepancy in Warsaw you note, but I could be wrong.

An easier explanation is simply time zones. The time zone in Warsaw is a large distance across the longitude meridian. Within that meridian line is differences in the times of sunrise, midday, and sunset.

Danang, im no scientist, but science has an explanation for almost everything. What is the flat earth explanation?

Flat earth has transparent dome(s). It's been proven with various experiments: by rockets, baloons, photograpghs etc. The dome theory is a good start to figure out the true astronomical system. Before doing maths and lensing theory, UA etc. the raw data is needed to figure out the scale of the refraction/bendy light.
This dome explanation is easier to comprehend and more open to anyone to verify, at least by logic.

Equinox and anything in modern science may have explanations. But explanations ain't identical with evidences. It takes logical and emphirical explanations to get accepted by brains.

There are a lot of questionable explanations in schools theories. RET's sun in equinox comes and goes too early and beyond tolerance. So does solar noon time.
Not to mention ellipse path and eccentricity of celestial bodies etc.

Explanation is not fact unless it fits to the fact itself.

You raise an interesting point; I don't think the intent of the post-modernists that interpreted Kuhn to say scientific truth is a social construct is to say any view of reality is equally valid. It does point out though that there are competing views and methodologies that serve man better or equally and they should be considered. I believe it also strongly suggests that these centers of power should be open to all and not restricted to one tradition or world-view. It should be just as reasonable to gather government grants to prove the earth is flat rather than to show it is round, and in doing the opposite we are actually hurting the scientific view as well as competing views as well as the idea of an open society.

Scientific funding is really just a matter of someone seeing the value in the research.  If you want corporate sponsorship, you’ll need to find a company that sees some benefit from it.  If you want government grants, then the government should be able to justify why they should spend public money on it. 

Neither seems likely for flat earth research, so I guess that leaves finding wealthy flat earthers and crowd funding.

Admittedly, any flat earth research faces the additional problem of finding a university and/or scientists willing to be associated with it.

Some of these problems you mention are not scientific ones; one could argue that the argument centering around climate change is not a scientific one - we can say well enough that "global" warming is happening. Its a human question around whether we want to diverge resources to handle it and if such diversion would compromise other values we hold. However, given the priveledged place science holds in our society and its access to power, this argument is instead not had and we have to play in sciences ball park and present arguments against it in that tradition.

Climate change is both scientific and political.  What we do about it is a political decision, but we need science to make an informed choice.  ie. we need to know how it will impact us, and what it would take to limit it or deal with it.

I feel a similar argument is happening around abortion; its not about when science says a fetus is alive - its a human issue that is far more complex than this. Society has simply moved the argument to this venue as it disproportionately holds power.

Abortion is a very tricky issue.  The only thing I have to say on it is that by all accounts it’s a very traumatic experience that no one does lightly.  So however the debate goes and whatever changes in law might happen, harassing the women going through with it is fucking unacceptable (I’m not accusing you of advocating that, btw. It just makes me angry, so I had to vent).

My evidence towards my view presented earlier is really just the evidence that is used to support Kuhn and Feyerabend.

I do believe, and it is the text book example in fact, that this is what happened with the heliocentric model. If you look into the history, at the time it was accepted it could not explain the universe nearly as well as the dominant view of the time - especially along empirical lines. Most of Galileo's arguments were rhetorical tricks, inaccurate, or relied on some other non-scientific basis. His scientific basis also failed to be supported by knowledge of optics of the time. Ironically, the work stemming from Copernicus at the time had to make use of more epicycles to explained already noted empirical data than the epicycle model. It also predicted an incorrect number of tides a day, which should have put it out of the running right away.

And of course Kepler refined Corpernican model so epicycles weren’t needed.  Newton’s provides a mechanism to explain it (I know, I know, not on subatomic level).  Einstein refined it further.  These are the big famous ones, but plenty of other contributed as well.  Each of these steps has been verified by countless observations.

That doesn’t look “unsolved problems bubbling up” to me.  It looks like problems getting solved.

The view was largely taken upon due to social reasons more than it being suited to the task. Of course, this is how it must be in the large majority of paradigm shifts like it as the new view has not had anytime to gather empirical basis and then must rely almost solely on ad hoc hypotheses and later 'puzzle solving' to attempt to build to the accuracy of the previous paradigm.

Our view is as legitimate as the heliocentric model was when it was gaining support in comparison to the round earth model corollary of the time of the Ptolemaic model. This doesn't say much, but it is of interest to note.

Interesting take. 

I don’t claim to know exactly how and why the copernican system became favoured.  Apparently it was simpler to calculate and many astronomers at the time started using it for convenience without really agreeing with it.  Hence Tycho Brahe’s sort of compromise.  Only later did it become popular to think of it as literally true.

So that put the flat earth on par with Copernicus?  Not really, because Copernicus had a working model, and you don’t seem to think it’s necessary to agree on one.

Quote from: Danang on March 21, 2019, 01:13:27 AM

Let's go to, say, Warsaw. At Equinox the noon sun is not at 12.00 and day length is not 12 hours. Why is it??

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/poland/warsaw

Hmmm. Let's see.

First, the equinox in 2019 falls on March 20, not March 21. You've highlighted the wrong day.

Second, the page you link to has a link titled "Why is the day and night not exactly 12 hours on Equinox?"

I guess inattentiveness is your strong suit.

Of course March 20, at that time I checked out on March 21. But what's your point? The sun is too early comes and goes, including earlier solar noon time. As to sunset time. do you believe before 6 PM the sun has gone?
Phew map gives a hint why this happens, i.e. curved same longitude lines that is regarded in RET as "straight lines" from south pole to north pole. Nope, they're curved lines and gives different realities among the same longitude positions, but different latitudes.

Flat earth has transparent dome(s). It's been proven with various experiments: by rockets, baloons, photograpghs etc.

Danang, I would be very grateful if you could explain to me what your absolute best proof is for a transparent dome.

Since this is Flat Earth General and my question better fits in "Flat Earth Debate," I have asked the question there:

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=80258.0

Thank you so much!

Of course March 20, at that time I checked out on March 21. But what's your point? The sun is too early comes and goes, including earlier solar noon time. As to sunset time. do you believe before 6 PM the sun has gone?
Phew map gives a hint why this happens, i.e. curved same longitude lines that is regarded in RET as "straight lines" from south pole to north pole. Nope, they're curved lines and gives different realities among the same longitude positions, but different latitudes.

Nothing that can’t be explained by terrestrial refraction.

I know flat earthers hate refraction, but without it there’d be no Nikon P900.  And where would flat earthers be without the trusty P900?

(Or P1000)