Falsifiability of FE theory?

I have been reading this forum for quite some time, and one thing I have not seen from the RE community is a simple question:  Is FE theory falsifiable?

For those not familiar with the term, falsifiability is the terms/parameters/evidence that would prove a theory to be incorrect.  All good science has some form of falsifiability.  So, what exactly would the FE community accept as evidence that FE is wrong?  That is my challenge.  If you expect to be taken seriously, and you TRULY believe that this theory is correct, then please provide what evidence you would accept as anathema to FE theory.

Carl Sagan said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Which means that the ball is on the Round Earth Theorists side.

It's been brought up before usually as "what would it take to prove FE theory wrong", they usually don't last very long as threads though as the flat earthers have no desire to come up with experiments that can disprove their theory and label any evidence that doesn't agree with them as mistaken or part of the conspiracy.

Carl Sagan said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Which means that the ball is on the Round Earth Theorists side.

This is exactly what I expected: deflection.  Ok, for a moment, I will pretend that there is no evidence for a spherical earth.  Since you posit that the earth is a disc (this is a positive assertion, is it not?), then the burden does indeed fall upon you, and the FE community.  If you make a claim, any claim, you do have a burden of proof.

But, that isn't what I asked.  I asked for falsifiability of your theory.  I'm not asking you to prove it, as your evidence has been laid out in detail.  I'm asking you what would DISprove it.

Sorry, my English is so poor that I really should post only on the bottom forums. I'll call Tom Bishop and ask if he can answer you. Stay tuned.

No problem.  I really don't wish this to become a back-and-forth semantic argument, or to be rude.  Thanks for your candor.

Carl Sagan said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Which means that the ball is on the Round Earth Theorists side.

I'll try not to sidetrack this thread too long with this, but I think this comment is illustrative of the gap in thinking between the FEers and people such as myself. I don't see a spherical Earth as a particularly extraordinary claim. I apologize if it seems like I've been hammering on this point lately, but it seems to me to be one of the most crucial topics of the FE/RE debate: It seems to me that FET depends on the claim of electromagnetic acceleration or "bendy light", which I think is a more extraordinary claim than a spherical Earth right now.

To relate this back to the topic of this thread, I am of the mind that if bendy light can be shown to be false, FET has little left to stand on. This presents one possibility for the falsifiability of the flat Earth model.

Burden of proof is a waste of time to argue about.  In the end the burden is on whoever the reader believes less.  The best you can do is present your evidence and go from there.  Anytime someone starts arguing about burden of proof its comes off to me as an unwillingness or inability to defend ones beliefs.

Burden of proof is a waste of time to argue about.  In the end the burden is on whoever the reader believes less.  The best you can do is present your evidence and go from there.  Anytime someone starts arguing about burden of proof its comes off to me as an unwillingness or inability to defend ones beliefs.

To bring it back to the OP, he was not asking about a burden of proof but rather what proof would falsify the Flat-Earth Hypothesis.

Burden of proof is a waste of time to argue about.  In the end the burden is on whoever the reader believes less.  The best you can do is present your evidence and go from there.  Anytime someone starts arguing about burden of proof its comes off to me as an unwillingness or inability to defend ones beliefs.

Quite true, and really, both sides have a certain burden of proof to meet. I'm an REer who's come to a website called "The Flat Earth Society" with the stated goal of defending the round Earth model. Of course I should expect to meet some skepticism.

The FES, on the other hand, has the stated goal of promoting FET as a serious alternative model. So the FEers also carry a burden of proof if they are to meet their goal of wider mainstream acceptance of the flat Earth model. So this isn't like a court case where there are defined roles that determine burden of proof. Just makes the debate that much more interesting though.

But, I didn't mean to derail the thread responding to the original burden of proof comment. I do think it is at least possible that FET is a falsifiable hypothesis, and so it should be able to be explored and debated scientifically.

If you have a Ham radio, and you are trying to communicate with someone in, say, a city 300 miles west of you.  You point your antenna west and you cannot hear him very well at all.  Now then, you point your antenna east and BAM, he's coming in loud and clear?  What do you suppose would cause this?

Please give a scientific answer and not something like "you turned your volumn up" or something dismissive like that.

Quite true, and really, both sides have a certain burden of proof to meet. I'm an REer who's come to a website called "The Flat Earth Society" with the stated goal of defending the round Earth model. Of course I should expect to meet some skepticism.

The FES, on the other hand, has the stated goal of promoting FET as a serious alternative model. So the FEers also carry a burden of proof if they are to meet their goal of wider mainstream acceptance of the flat Earth model. So this isn't like a court case where there are defined roles that determine burden of proof. Just makes the debate that much more interesting though.

But, I didn't mean to derail the thread responding to the original burden of proof comment. I do think it is at least possible that FET is a falsifiable hypothesis, and so it should be able to be explored and debated scientifically.

Rarely are truer words spoken.

If you have a Ham radio, and you are trying to communicate with someone in, say, a city 300 miles west of you.  You point your antenna west and you cannot hear him very well at all.  Now then, you point your antenna east and BAM, he's coming in loud and clear?  What do you suppose would cause this?

Please give a scientific answer and not something like "you turned your volumn up" or something dismissive like that.

Now i'm curious, GIMME AN ANSWER!

The answer is quite simple, and we I learned it in my studies.  Radio waves travel in a straight line from the radiating source outward along the earth's surface.  As the earth curves, the radio signal keeps traveling in a straight line where it eventually reaches the ionosphere and reflects off that and angles back down to earth where it bounces off the ground it ends up back in the ionosphere like an accordian.  This is why when you tune your AM radio at night when the C and D layer of the atmosphere come together making one thicker layer, you might hear a station 600 miles away but not one 150 miles away.  Then you might hear another one 1200 miles away.  You might hear China on your shortwave radio but not Hawaii or Cuba.  A radio signal can actually weave it's way all the way around the earth where the signal will fall on top of you from that direction but not directly toward the station.   Go about 100 miles in any given direction and the signal from China fades away completely.   

I've heard from some that proof of satellites existing would do it. However, there are a few problems, even though the satellites can be viewed by anyone:
1. They would claim it's some type of blimp thing/projection
2. Make a theory for why it works, even after years of complete denial
3. Claim the evidence is photo shoped

According to FE, satellite reception by Sirius/XM is nothing but pseudo antenna sites positioned all across the USA.  OK, let's assume they really are antennas, just like AM/FM stations.  Now explain why when I go under a bridge and stay there for a couple seconds, the satellite signal falls completely away when regular radio stations do not do the same.  You can ever place a steel plate above a satellite antenna and the signal will fall completely off.  Now do the same with your radio antenna.  Simple enough?

That has more to do with the frequencies involved than the transmitters.

Whew, I went to work, and the thread just got derailed pretty heavily.

That has more to do with the frequencies involved than the transmitters.

It has nothing to do with frequencies.

Soooooo I guess I'm not going to be having any kind of discussion here.  Just thread derailment?

Soooooo I guess I'm not going to be having any kind of discussion here.  Just thread derailment?

It's pretty typical here.

I'll take a stab:

Universal Acceleration is a key feature of the most prominent Flat Earth Hypotheses. If the force we call gravity could be proven to be non-accelerative rather than accelerative that would be a pretty big blow to FET.

Thoughts?

I'll take a stab:

Universal Acceleration is a key feature of the most prominent Flat Earth Hypotheses. If the force we call gravity could be proven to be non-accelerative rather than accelerative that would be a pretty big blow to FET.

Thoughts?

UA is bunk.  That said, your attempt, if successful, would be a huge blow to Relativity as well.  I imagine you'd be able to rack up quite a few grants if you were serious.

Quote from: Rama Set on February 27, 2013, 06:18:20 AM

I'll take a stab:

Universal Acceleration is a key feature of the most prominent Flat Earth Hypotheses. If the force we call gravity could be proven to be non-accelerative rather than accelerative that would be a pretty big blow to FET.

Thoughts?

UA is bunk.  That said, your attempt, if successful, would be a huge blow to Relativity as well.  I imagine you'd be able to rack up quite a few grants if you were serious.

Einsteins theory of gravity does not show that gravity is an accelerative force, just that in a uniform frame of reference it would be indistinguishable from acceleration.

Quote from: Ski on February 26, 2013, 06:57:33 PM

That has more to do with the frequencies involved than the transmitters.

It has nothing to do with frequencies.

    

Einsteins theory of gravity does not show that gravity is an accelerative force, just that in a uniform frame of reference it would be indistinguishable from acceleration.

Well, locally indistinguishable.  Now, may I ask what you mean by accelerative?

(Though I do hope this thread gets back to topic and presents a method of disproving the FET.)

Quote from: Rama Set on February 27, 2013, 07:09:29 AM

Einsteins theory of gravity does not show that gravity is an accelerative force, just that in a uniform frame of reference it would be indistinguishable from acceleration.

Well, locally indistinguishable.  Now, may I ask what you mean by accelerative?

(Though I do hope this thread gets back to topic and presents a method of disproving the FET.)

I am not a scientist so you will have to bear with me.  UA is said to be pushing the earth in the opposite direction of what we call gravity at precisely the same rate that gravity attracts objects.  So by accelerative I mean that the force is shown to be accelerating the earth rather than the attracting an object to the earth, or any other instance that is not "a force accelerating the earth".

I am not a scientist so you will have to bear with me.  UA is said to be pushing the earth in the opposite direction of what we call gravity at precisely the same rate that gravity attracts objects.  So by accelerative I mean that the force is shown to be accelerating the earth rather than the attracting an object to the earth, or any other instance that is not "a force accelerating the earth".

Well, in an inertial reference frame in freefall, the Earth will appear to be accelerating upward.  So what are you saying it shouldn't be accelerating with respect to?  (Seems like a silly question, but it's actually somewhat important in this case.)

Quote from: Rama Set on February 27, 2013, 09:06:25 AM

I am not a scientist so you will have to bear with me.  UA is said to be pushing the earth in the opposite direction of what we call gravity at precisely the same rate that gravity attracts objects.  So by accelerative I mean that the force is shown to be accelerating the earth rather than the attracting an object to the earth, or any other instance that is not "a force accelerating the earth".

Well, in an inertial reference frame in freefall, the Earth will appear to be accelerating upward.  So what are you saying it shouldn't be accelerating with respect to?  (Seems like a silly question, but it's actually somewhat important in this case.)

UA claims that the Earth accelerates with respect to everything else, with the Etheric Wind (the force conveyer of UA) causung some upwards pressure to the rest of the heavens, keeping them in their place.)  So I suppose you would need to show that the Earth is not accelerating with respect to some to the rest of the objects in the sky.

Seems like that might be difficult with their Etheric Wind effects.

I thought UA said the Earth and all other celestial bodies are accelerating wrt an inertial reference frame.