Good evening gentlemen,
Below I am going to demonstrate
why an FE’er cannot win an argument with an RE’er with regards to the shape of the earth (edit dedicated to the deficient thebeast) using their current methods of debate. To support my argument, I am posting two different analyses, both of which must be disproved in order to prove my initial claim as false (please note that only one of these analyses is strong enough to disprove the logic of the FE'ers).
Analysis 1:Let’s begin with the definition of negative proof (in reference to "logical fallacy", not "proof of impossibility"). A negative proof is a statement such as:
“X exists because there is no proof that X doesn't exist.”
OR
“How come you think the flat earth exists?"
"Well, how come you think it doesn't exist?"
In most debates with FE’ers (such as Erasmus, GeoGuy, thebeast and many, many others), such negative proof is encountered somewhere, for example in statements such as “there is a government conspiracy because there is no proof that there isn’t a government cospiracy”, “the ice wall exists because you cannot prove that it doesn’t”, “photos taken from space have been falsified because there is no proof that they haven’t been falsified”, or even “the earth is flat because you cannot prove that it isn’t”. As stated above, negative proof can also have the form "How come you think there is a government conspiracy?" to which they respond "Well, how come you think that there isn't one?", etc.
It is also widely known that if elements such as the “ice wall”, “RE government conspiracy”, and other nonsense - which I will not bother to enumerate here - did not exist, then the FE “theory” would fail miserably.
Fortunately, FE’ers themselves sealed the tragic fate of “FE’ism” through their methods of arguing. Negative proof is by definition a logical falacy (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_%28logical_fallacy%29). A logical falacy is a flaw in the structure of a deductive argument which renders the argument invalid i.e. FE’ers make invalid arguments. Therefore, from hereon out when you encounter such a statement while arguing with a FE’er, consider the argument won i.e. their argument invalid i.e. there is no need to continue the conversation with them.
Analysis 2:FE’ers claim that the burden of proof lies of RE’ers, or “the accusers”. This is false. Please note that “outside a legal context, "burden of proof" means that someone suggesting a new theory or stating a claim must provide evidence to support it: it is not sufficient to say, "you can't disprove this". Specifically, when anyone is making a bold claim, it is not someone else's responsibility to disprove the claim, but is rather the person's responsibility who is making the bold claim to prove it”. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof). If that wording proves too difficult for FE’ers, then here is a simpler explanation: “The less reasonable a statement seems, the more proof it requires” (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof).
Conclusions:There are 2 conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis presented above:
1) Since FE’ers use logical falacies (in the form of negative proofs) in their arguments, and since they believe that the burden of proof lies with RE’ers, their arguments automatically fail. In other words, nobody needs to disprove anything in the FE “theory” since it hasn’t even been proved.
2) The only way that the FE “theory” can become a theory is if FE’ers find other ways to argue, for example by providing evidence for their claims (rather than saying “there is a government conspiracy because there is no proof that there isn’t a government cospiracy”).