I'm back. Time to feed the heroic trolls again. I salute your determination, flat-earth proponents. Well sort of, I also feel sad at the waste of a life.
We're not the ones supporting fantastic ideas like NASA can send men to the moon, robots to mars, and space ships to explore the solar system. You are. Those science fiction claims are extraordinary and absurd.
You're quite right in that they are 'extraordinary' - they are not everyday events after all. A tsunami devastating a highly urbanised coastline last year was extraordinary. But also plainly evident. 'Absurdity' is a very subjective term. Things only seem normal to us if we repeatedly experience them, or are taught of their mechanics in a way which is understandable and plausible. If we were babies and raised in a world where insects (let's say) were smarter than us and composed symphonies and great works of art - it would not seem absurd.
Even in our own world, plenty can
seem absurd - especially in the world of the very small (quantum mechanics) and the very big (relativity, time speeding up and slowing down). However, despite the absurdity of some of these ideas - they have been put to rigorous test and confirmed by third parties the world over. Just because something
seems absurd, or queer, or impossible, does not mean it cannot be true. We are creatures of the 'middle world' where we have both an innate and learned understanding of the forces which govern our everyday lives. This is why the very small and the very big seem absurd - they operate by rules which are not apparent in our middle world.
When you are a baby or toddler, neither a flat-earth model nor a round-earth would seem any more absurd than each other, or indeed an Earth shaped like a spoon - if you were indeed told that.
You are blindly believing in things which cannot be confirmed by an unconnected third party. You are putting your faith in government, which on other subjects, you will do a 180o turn and almost universally call them liars and corrupt.
Why does blind belief win out over skepticism?
Before I continue down this line of debate - I presume you believe all national governments (or blocks, such as the EU) who have space agencies, these space agencies, their subsidiaries, the scientists who work with their data and publish papers, the other scientists who review these papers, the organisations that these scientists belong to, the journalists who publish this data, and the consumers of this data are all not in any way third parties to each other? They are one monolithic entity, of sole mind that the nature of the Earth must be suppressed? I'm not being sarcastic here. This is a genuine question before I continue.
I think you sully the idea of a 'skeptic'. Being a skeptic is not questioning every single claim put before you. You would spend every single minute from the day you are born investigating every phenomenon first-hand, as ultimately you are distrustful of second-hand evidence. Questioning every single claim put before you is the
beginning of skepticism, in a historical sense. It is the beginnings of the enlightenment, when argument from authority, holy scripture or tradition was discounted and phenomena were questioned anew.
With the progression of the natural sciences, one does not need to keep going back to the beginning over and over again. Science generally advances through the
disproof of hypotheses, as 'proofs' are only valid in mathematics. There is theoretically
always another explanation for a phenomenon, however, over the course of hundreds of years of scientific enquiry, more and more are gradually ruled out, to the point where the probability for a phenomenon being attributed to a certain cause or process approaches 100%. It never reaches 100%, but is so close that it might as well be considered so.
Skeptics are not outcasts, they are the foundation for modernity, for an escape from religious and superstitious thinking, they are the bringers of the scientific method to the discourse-table. True skeptics are the mainstream, the bread and butter of modern civilisation. True believers (a devout belief in a cause, in absence of evidence) are the outcasts today. I do not think flat-Earthers are skeptics (in fact I think they're all trolls, but I continue to debate because I like testing my mind), but rather display a brand of extreme cynycism.
I like this recent post by a self-identified skeptic on skepticism vs. cynicism:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/skepticism-vs-cynicism/ In particular it covers government conspiracies but its arguments are applicable to any set of claims. A quote from it:
The skeptical point of view is not to just assume the maximally cynical point of view. The skeptical approach is to evaluate the evidence and the plausibility of various hypotheses.
So, in short, skeptics aren't outcasts, they are the exact opposite. And flat-Earthers aren't skeptics anyway. Well, I know, they don't exist, they're all trolls, but if they did exist they couldn't be classed as skeptics.
Ok while I'm here I might as well have shots at this troll too:
Tom's point is shrewd.
No it's not. See above.
How is it people like ClockTower will readily believe anything the 'authorities' tell him about science but believe what he chooses about politics or religion and make his own mind up?
'The authorities' don't tell anyone about science. The authorities are informed by scientists. And scientists work can be reviewed and tested by any other scientist who has the appropriate skills, or any interested member of the public who has these skills. Science is not subjective, politics and religion are. That's why someone can have any opinion they like about the latter two. Politics and religion are not easily testable, although I am a proponent of evidence-based politics. Unfortunately not many politicians are.
Oh yeah and before I stop typing I thought I should bump this topic:
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=49864.0 - no convincing counter-arguments have been made to the OP. I encourage any claimed flat-Earth 'skeptics' to cast their skeptical eye over it once more, and come back with a reasoned answer.
Cheers.