What scientific evidence do you have which strongly supports the theory of a flat Earth? And how much has this "evidence" been scrutinized by the scientific community? If you are going to base your belief in a flat Earth on some scientific experiments and data, this data had damn well better stand up to peer review. I am unaware of the publishing of any of these studies in any legitimate scientific journals. I am also unaware of any scientists who believe in such a theory.
For me, it is not only the strength of arguments for the Flat Earth, but also the weakness of arguments for a Round Earth. To my mind, since the Earth appears flat, it rests with globularists to prove their outlandish claims, which so far they have failed to adequately do (despite the best efforts of the Conspiracy).
In the way of strong evidence FOR the FE, Earth: Not a Globe is definitely worth a read (despite what the resident globularists have said about it in this thread). "Torn to shreds" is a huge overstatement - as far as I know, none of them have replicated even a single one of the experiments in that book.
There's also plenty of evidence (some presented on this site) for the existence of the Conspiracy. If the Earth wasn't flat, why would the Conspiracy exist? I've posted quite a few phenomena which testify to its existence (and the subsequent true shape of the Earth).
The fact that
nothing that supports a flat Earth theory has ever been published in any scientific journals (and I've looked) or undergone relentless scrutiny or peer review severely impairs any claims the theory has that it is sustained by actual scientific evidence. From everything I've read that attempts to explain how the Earth could possibly be flat, it's a fair assessment to say that it is nothing but pseudo-science perpetrated by those who misunderstand the most basic implications of natural phenomena, and those with such a poor understanding of basic science that they will believe whatever they are told.
I am curious what you mean by a "weak" argument for round Earth, when there are quite literally mountains of evidence, proof, and a number of simple experiments anyone can perform that direct one to conclude that the results would be impossible with a flat Earth. It is not a weak argument by any means, rather it is the unwillingness of flat Earthers to accept evidence that so blatantly tears their theory apart. It is merely from your perspective that you somehow perceive the evidence for a round Earth to be flawed. This is not because it
is flawed, but it is a result of ignorance and misinterpretation. I mean no offense in anything I say, so do not take it that way. But ignorance is an issue here, because the fact that our Earth is round makes a lot of things work that would simply be impossible with a flat Earth. But if one is not familiar or experienced with these things which so clearly point to a round Earth, one will not find it so necessary to accept the round Earth. But for that person to vehemently argue that the Earth cannot be round, simply due to ignorance on the facts, is irrational. And to argue against it based on misinterpretation of science is a whole other story.
The things listed under The Earth in Space portion of the FAQ offer some totally bogus "facts" and data about Earth and the sun and the moon. And this is not even to mention the outstandingly ridiculous explanations of a sunset or Universal Acceleration. So this brings me to question these things as well. What is the scientific evidence behind this? Feel free to enlighten me. Explain it as in depth as necessary, and do not hide any of its complexity. I would love to hear how it was discovered that Earth and the sun and stars are all accelerating upward due to this Universal Acceleration.
There's a 14 page stickied thread on the subject - with more material soon to be added by yours truly (an article by an associate on the photoelectric theory of solar suspension).
It was discovered that the Earth was accelerating because things appear to fall to the Earth when dropped. Actually, the Earth is "falling" towards the objects. Round Earthers explain this with the theory of gravity - an invisible, never-observed, mystical force. If gravity actually existed, it would scrunch the Earth into a sphere. It hasn't.
This is a bogus hypothesis. Not simply because it isn't true, but because there's no evidence for it. For Earth to be accelerating through space there needs to be a constant force acting upon it. What is the mechanism driving this acceleration? This was not addressed in the FAQ at all.
Also, your take on gravity is incorrect. Other than being so bold as to declare that some of history's greatest thinkers (Newton, and Einstein for example) were just completely wrong, it's a little bold to call it a never-observed, mystical force. Gravity is not a never-observed, mystical force. Again, (it appears I'm going to have to keep saying this though I really shouldn't have to) there have been a large number of experiments that have verified the existence of gravity, and thus offer more evidence for it than one could even read in a lifetime. Einstein's theory of relativity made predictions concerning gravity that have since been verified: the gravitational bending of light, the precession of Mercury's orbit about the sun, the gravitational slowing of time/gravitational redshifts, and continues to pass with flying colors every time a study is done to see if this theory really works. Is gravity totally understood? No, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That means our model of gravity has some work. But every day, across the world, there are scientists working on this. And thus far, our model for gravity has proved to be very accurate. But your statement about the Earth being crunched into a sphere if gravity exists is correct. That's how we have our beautiful spherical Earth that we have today.
At the end of that section it goes on to say that sustained spaceflight is not possible. This is the most bizarre and perplexing lie I have heard. My current research is on the Galilean moons of Jupiter and how they effect the radio wave enhancement of Jupiter through interactions within Jupiter's plasma field. In order to study this, we use data collected from the Cassini spacecraft during its flyby of Jupiter back in 2000-2001. Do not even try to tell me that I make up bogus data to analyze and study, or that I am "fed" some bogus data, because I get the data directly from the spacecraft's data processing unit.
You told me not to, but...
How do you know you're getting data straight from the "craft"? How would you know that the Conspiracy wasn't sending you it from Earth?
All references to "the conspiracy" are null and void as far as this discussion is concerned, seeing as how this idea is merely a crutch and a very transparent attempt at rationalizing why technologically advanced civilizations and governments disagree with this archaic idea of a flat Earth. I don't mean to insult those who believe in the conspiracy, but it's easy to see that this idea was created only out of paranoia when confronted with the unfortunate circumstances that no advanced civilizations would ever dream of buying into an idea this baseless, undeveloped, and outdated. There was no initial evidence of a conspiracy. But anyone can find some vague scrap of something resembling evidence of some concocted conspiracy if they are willing to misinterpret ideas and misunderstand things to such a severe degree that it distorts their grasp on reality and allows them to further their agenda.
I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the data and information I work with is directly from the spacecraft. I work with those who developed and built the actual spacecraft, I understand every aspect of how it operates and how its scientific instruments operate down to the finest detail. All who hold onto this conspiracy idea really give NASA more credit than they're due. I've worked for them and currently work with them, and have got to say that regardless of the kind of reputation they have, they get careless and messy with things quite often. There's absolutely no way they could pull off a conspiracy like this. It is absolutely, beyond question, impossible. Until anyone here with more experience with and knowledge of NASA than myself can tell me (and show me) differently, I'll continue to believe the truth.
You mention that gravitational variation with altitude is possibly a myth, but it is not. It has been experimentally verified not hundreds, but thousands of times by practicing scientists all over the world.
So why doesn't this variation show up when I, and others, test it? Is it only observable by Round Earthers?
I don't know what kind of equipment you use to test this, nor by which methods. But depending on the different altitudes at which you undertake this experiment, and depending on what kinds of methods you choose to make the measurements, you will need to have equipment that will allow you to accurately measure differences in thousandths of seconds. Or hundredths of pounds. And you won't even notice this unless your altitude changes by about a kilometer. Otherwise you're going to need to measure to an even further out decimal place. And let's not forget reducing human error. Your experimental set up could be quite susceptible to human error, and therefore no change may be noticed. Or the variation of altitude might be insignificant. Let's keep in mind the large radius of the Earth, which is about 6,378 km. The mass is about 5.98*10^24 kg. But the Earth's mass and radius are not the only factors that need to be considered when making this measurement. It must be kept in mind that different locations on Earth have different distribution of mass, and therefore, regardless of altitude, can have slight effects on gravitational value measured.
I don't know why it hasn't worked for you, but it's much easier to mess this measurement up than it is to do it right. It requires very fine precision and any lack of it will show you absolutely no change. Performing an experiment unsuccessfully is not support for a flat Earth.
You claim that the whole "round Earth" theory is a conspiracy perpetuated by all of the world governments.
Only the ones with major space programs. Various scientific and business groups are also involved, but government involvement probably only occurs in nations such as the USA (and the former USSR) as well as a few others.
I'm not addressing this further, right now.
This is a laughable argument at best. Like all conspiracy theories, surely you've got some kind of evidence to try to back this up, right? I saw no mention of evidence of this conspiracy in that section of the FAQ, which leads me to believe it does not exist. A conspiracy may exist when you find mountains of undeniable evidence pointing to a conspiracy. But I'll tell you what does not constitute evidence: the fact that every government on the planet disagrees with your medieval, pseudo-scientific stance. That is simply a case of Flat Earth proponents making more far-out, totally outlandish statements supported by no facts. "They disagree with something that we believe to be true, therefore there must be a conspiracy among all of them to hide the truth." That's an absolutely painfully irrational and illogical move to make. I understand that the support for this theory lies on logical fallacies, but that one is just too blatant!
A good place to start is the murder of Scott of the Antarctic. After that, there's a tonne of posts on this site which address individual components of the body of evidence which exists for the Conspiracy, and a few searchs for relevent terms should turn some up.
Who is Scott of the Antarctic? Are you referring to Robert Scott, who froze to death in Antarctica? There was no murder of him, so I don't know what you're talking about. But I've searched this site and have yet to find any evidence of a conspiracy.
You also fail to offer any sort of motive for this conspiracy. What would these world governments possibly have to gain from us "wrongfully" believing the world to be spherical? You threw out the idea of money, as if it was the safe standard to assume in the case of a conspiracy. But can you hypothesize how there would be monetary gain from such misleading of the public?
The combined budgets of the world's space programs are tremendous. Vertical space travel is a physical impossibility. You do the maths.
Correct on the combined budgets. But you are very incorrect about vertical space travel. Though, I'd like to see an explanation of how vertical space travel is physically impossible. My years of formal education in physics tell me differently. I'd love to see your argument.
The ice wall. What is the scientific evidence for this invisible ice wall? It appears to just be a mechanism invented by Flat Earthers to try to explain phenomena that would be totally impossible if a flat Earth really existed.
Scott of the Antarctic's murder is a good pointer that there's something fishy in Antarctica. The Conspiracy systematically murders or bribes everybody who reaches the Ice Wall, Scott being the first.
Clearly I must be thinking of a different Scott of the Antarctic, because the one I know of was not murdered.
I'd like to understand how this contradiction is explained.
Those are alternative possible explanations, believed by different FE factions.
Turning this belief into something with different factions renders it even a little bit more hopeless in terms of scientific theory. The two answers blatantly disagree with one another, indicating that this theory harbors self-contradictions. If it is based on science there should be no separate factions. If the science shows one thing, it cannot be reasonable to draw conclusions that disagree with that thing. If it is the so-called science itself that is conflicting, well then that's not something that's advisable to build a theory on.
I think that the accepted theory is that it does exist and that the SUn and Moon have a slight gravitational pull, causing this. This would cause many things that they also believe to not be true, but they continue to believe conflicting theories.
It's impossible for these bodies to exert gravitational pull, because gravity does not exist! I still hold that no serious Flat Earther truly believes in this contradictory and absurd claim.
Disagreed.
Well, that's it. Hope I was of some help. I'm also sorry that my answers aren't more lengthy or comprehensive, there was a lot to deal with in a single post. However, I guarantee that almost all questions or criticisms will have "precedent" on these forums already - previous posts are a valuable resource in finding rebuttals, counter-rebuttals, counter-counter-rebuttals, etc., etc.
Thanks for taking the time to respond so completely. Although I strongly disagree with much of what you said, I appreciate your time and effort. I apologize if I came off at all a little aggravated or harsh.