but here, as with all areas of science, it takes years -- if not decades -- to thoroughly test, retest, and strain a theory through the sieve of truth before dismissing it as false.
Hilarious. None of this dismisses the fact that you need to believe in something to theorise upon it.
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. May I submit that you are perhaps projecting your exceptionally poor imagination upon others?
This whole Forum might actually be the most weird thing Ive seen in a long time. For my first post, I would like to give this discussion a hint:
There's a little difference between hypothesis and theory.
Surely Mr. Roundy cannot theorize about something that he believes not to be true. That would indeed not make sense. He can hypothesize about it, however. His hypothesis would become a theory when it is sound and in accordance with what can be proven using scientific methods. In that case, he will surely believe in it, too, because "theorizing" implies that he is proving a hypothesis to be true. It's quite paradox to prove something and still not even believing in it yourself. I don't think that's possible.
However I would accept a shizophrenia-ill person to argue, that part of him theorizes, and another disbelieves in his own theories. Maybe that's the case. I doubt though, because I can see no way to ever find any proof for this ridiculous hypothesis of a flat earth in the first place.