Flat Earth is an anarchy organisation.

Flat earth, accusing the government of making money off of a fake scientific claim, is an anarchist act, as it foolishly makes people act against the government as if the government was sinister, also, didnt the flat earth society start off when someone ironically stated that the earth is flat, then someone with anneurism believed it or something? Like.. You don't HAVE to see something to believe in it.

A flat earther's brain! I don't see it! It doesn't exist!

Curvature! I don't see it! Apparently it doesnt exist..

I believe a key part of the start (after people knew earth was round) was when someone conducted an experiment with poor controls, where they failed to accommodate refraction.

Ignoring the role of refraction the experiment indicated Earth was flat.
Rather than admit error, they decided to go to much greater lengths with many more mistakes to pretend Earth is flat and stationary.

Some people are joining the new movement for publicity or to make money.
Some join it for the conspiracy theory aspect.

Folk see that the horizon viewed from a low elevation is flat:So they simply conclude that the earth must be flat.

We have often asked for evidence of a flat earth only to be told "look out the window".

Then they have to invent all sorts of implausible explanations for this:

Then many are so conspiracy minded (conspiritards if you like) that they assume that "authority" is and always has been lying to them.

I have a guess about where the FE ideas really come from. In short, I think many people feel betrayed by their teachers.

Growing up, most of us start with a great deal of trust and respect for our elders, and teachers in particular. We put a lot of stock into what they tell us, and we're counting on them to set us up for a fantastic future. At some point, inevitably, we each find the boundaries of what our teachers were able to do for us. They couldn't teach us everything, and some of the stuff they taught us may not even be correct. Certainly, they can't make any guarantees about our futures.

There are a lot of ways to react to this when it happens, and it depends greatly on our own experiences. If our teachers managed to teach us critical thinking skills by this point, we're going to be ok. But if not, then this is an opportunity to lash out and reject their teachings.

We all run into those times when we don't know everything, and our ignorance gets displayed for all to see. I think for some, the embarrassment of that gets combined with a mistrust of teachers to turn into a sense of betrayal. Instead of saying, "Mrs. Jones didn't tell me that." some turn it into, "Mrs. Jones lied to me!"

What I see happening with science denial is a deeply rooted mistrust of academics. "Scientists don't know any better than me!" "Why are they indoctrinating our children with these lies?!" That sort of thing. At this point belief has become separated from evidence or any aspect of critical thinking. It is an emotional response. For some it's pure religious faith, but for many it seems aimed almost overtly at a hatred of scientists and teachers. Either way, it's entirely emotional.

what do you think about people that have medical practices imposed on them?

what do you think about people that have medical practices imposed on them?

That depends on the circumstances.
If it is someone who has a highly infectious disease and they are put into quarantine, I am fine with it.
If it is someone who is found unconscious and needs things done for them to live, I am fine with it.
If it is a child that is having something done for their own good, such as being vaccinated, I am fine with it.
If it is a healthy adult who is having something done knowingly against their will which would only affect them (such as being resuscitated when they have made it clear they have no wish to) then I am not fine with that.

But how is this in any way relevant to the topic?
Are you going to go down the conspiracy trail of chemtrails?

I meant the situation of people having practices imposed on them, didn't word it properly.Take vaccinations for example, most health care workers don't get them, and they don't tell people that they're made out of dead pig foetuses and so much other bs.
 But my question is where does science diverge from the truth. And why are things portrayed in the light that they are without more of the story being told. My personal belief is that at certain points in the mainstream explanation of the world, we have built on false premises(gravity being one). How extreme the divergence is, I cannot say. I think for many people exploring the flat earth, they have had experiences that show them there is MORE to the story.

There only so much real estate in every paradigm.

 

I had already said giving children vaccines is acceptable.
Giving them to adults is another issue, but if you don't get vaccinated for communicable diseases then the community has a right to refuse you entry.

But my question is where does science diverge from the truth.

Science diverges from the truth in 3 aspects.
One is that it is built upon inductive logic and thus can only get the best we can manage. This means theories can be incomplete or approximations.
Another is the complexity of some models. In order for science to be useful it needs to be simple enough to perform calculations in a reasonable amount of time. The more complex the model, the more time it typically takes, sometimes to a point of being too complex.
The final one is incomplete knowledge and randomness resulting in a failure to make accurate predictions. For chaotic systems (which can describe a lot of reality), slight variations in initial conditions can result in a large change in outcome. This also applies to quantum mechanics with its randomness.

However the scientific method is still trying to get the truth as best as we can.

at certain points in the mainstream explanation of the world, we have built on false premises(gravity being one).

Which is why these premises are typically tested to the best of our ability. Gravity is one example of this which has been quite rigorously tested. All the evidence indicates it is real.

I think for many people exploring the flat earth, they have had experiences that show them there is MORE to the story.

While I think something quite different and it varies from person to person.
Some have their religion telling them Earth is flat, and they see no other option.
For others, they simply misunderstand how the world works.

But my question is where does science diverge from the truth. And why are things portrayed in the light that they are without more of the story being told. My personal belief is that at certain points in the mainstream explanation of the world, we have built on false premises(gravity being one). How extreme the divergence is, I cannot say. I think for many people exploring the flat earth, they have had experiences that show them there is MORE to the story.

(Please let's not get into the anti-vax thing.)

I think what you're describing touches on the root of FE belief for many individuals. "...why are things portrayed in the light that they are without more of the story being told?"
I think of it like this... try to explain to a 3 year old why things fall to the ground. "Everything falls to the ground. We call it gravity." is good enough.
Then explain gravity to a grade-school child and it becomes, "Gravity is the force that pulls everything towards the Earth. The Moon and Sun have gravity too."
When you get to high school it becomes, "Newton's equation for universal gravitation is..."
And finally in college, you might get into general relativity.
If you move on to graduate school, you might study deeper than that, but for now, that's as far as we're really certain about.
The light things are portrayed in comes down to the target audience. Grade school kids don't have the foundations to deal with Einstein's equations yet, so we don't talk to them about that.
Add to that the chaos of different teachers dealing with different situations, and it's really hard to predict what you're going to end up with.

I think this may be the root of many people's dissatisfaction with science. Just tonight I was watching someone "debunk" Brian Cox. Brian Cox starts off with the usual, "under gravity, all things fall at the same speed." This immediately set the "debunker" off. Cox was trying to start off simplistically, and we was just about to add in a layer of complexity to it, but it was already too late. Moments later, Cox goes on to demonstrate that objects actually fall at different speeds, and then he starts to explain that air resistance causes that difference. But again, it was too late. The "debunker" was up and ranting again about how gravity doesn't apply to real-world situations so it's useless and Brian Cox just admitted it on TV.

Hopefully, in the calmness of reading this you can see what happened. Brian Cox wasn't lying to anyone. He was stating a fact (an accurate fact), and he gave it just a moment to sink in before complicating the situation with another fact.

Before I go on, let's all take a deep breath and run down what we ALL agree on (even the FEs):
1) Anything heavier than air is pulled down towards the ground.
2) Anything moving through the air feels a force resisting it's speed in the air.
These 2 simple facts are not in dispute.
As a means of communicating clearly #1 is called "gravity" and #2 is called "air resistance" or "drag".

Now the non-intuitive part that Brian Cox was trying to guide the audience through is this... The force imparted by gravity (#1 above) is such that, in the absence of any other force, all objects accelerate towards the ground at the same rate. This is non-intuitive because we always experience things falling under the influence of air resistance (#2 above).

But the "debunker" wanted to say that #1 is entirely the result of density and gravity (Newton's or Einstein's observations of gravity) is an illusion. But pause for a moment here and re-read #1 and #2 above. I didn't need to invoke any of that to get us here. Objects fall... that's all we need to get here. Clearly the "debunker" was NOT upset about masses attracting each other. He was upset that Brian Cox made an obvious oversimplification and then went on to expand upon that. At that point, the learning process was completely shut down, and we had left was ranting.

So tell us... how did you react to Brian Cox's explanation of that? If you also found it objectionable (as the "debunker" did), could you tell us how to present this better?

I don't know about all that, but it doesn't really change my mind. I'm hardly prepared to debate much of that at this point in time.

I don't know about all that, but it doesn't really change my mind. I'm hardly prepared to debate much of that at this point in time.

Isn't that the problem here? You have taken a position on a matter and have refused to consider ivjections to that position.  Like someone posted here, it is an emotional stand. Angst against early teachers and the educational system, angst against the government, angst brought on by faulty understanding of religious teachings. But in a fit of emotion evidence and explanations are rejected.

The amazing thing is the amount of gymnastics flat earth explanations have to go through to even begin to approach sensibility. But all of that is discarded because the emotions have firmed up on a position and will willingly ignore anything says or suggests otherwise

I don't know about all that, but it doesn't really change my mind. I'm hardly prepared to debate much of that at this point in time.

And that appears to be the big problem with FEers (and numerous other groups).
They know or understand very little and are not in a position to debate, but their lack of knowledge/understanding makes them assume something and claim it in various places, making other people have the same questions and jump to the same wrong conclusions.

If you don't know, that is fine, but it means you should try to find out before forming opinions, especially if those opinions are those who have been studying it for a significant portion of their lives are wrong.

Quote from: faded mike on June 13, 2018, 03:19:35 PM

But my question is where does science diverge from the truth. And why are things portrayed in the light that they are without more of the story being told. My personal belief is that at certain points in the mainstream explanation of the world, we have built on false premises(gravity being one). How extreme the divergence is, I cannot say. I think for many people exploring the flat earth, they have had experiences that show them there is MORE to the story.

(Please let's not get into the anti-vax thing.)

I think what you're describing touches on the root of FE belief for many individuals. "...why are things portrayed in the light that they are without more of the story being told?"
I think of it like this... try to explain to a 3 year old why things fall to the ground. "Everything falls to the ground. We call it gravity." is good enough.
Then explain gravity to a grade-school child and it becomes, "Gravity is the force that pulls everything towards the Earth. The Moon and Sun have gravity too."
When you get to high school it becomes, "Newton's equation for universal gravitation is..."
And finally in college, you might get into general relativity.
If you move on to graduate school, you might study deeper than that, but for now, that's as far as we're really certain about.
The light things are portrayed in comes down to the target audience. Grade school kids don't have the foundations to deal with Einstein's equations yet, so we don't talk to them about that.
Add to that the chaos of different teachers dealing with different situations, and it's really hard to predict what you're going to end up with.

I think this may be the root of many people's dissatisfaction with science. Just tonight I was watching someone "debunk" Brian Cox. Brian Cox starts off with the usual, "under gravity, all things fall at the same speed." This immediately set the "debunker" off. Cox was trying to start off simplistically, and we was just about to add in a layer of complexity to it, but it was already too late. Moments later, Cox goes on to demonstrate that objects actually fall at different speeds, and then he starts to explain that air resistance causes that difference. But again, it was too late. The "debunker" was up and ranting again about how gravity doesn't apply to real-world situations so it's useless and Brian Cox just admitted it on TV.

Hopefully, in the calmness of reading this you can see what happened. Brian Cox wasn't lying to anyone. He was stating a fact (an accurate fact), and he gave it just a moment to sink in before complicating the situation with another fact.

Before I go on, let's all take a deep breath and run down what we ALL agree on (even the FEs):
1) Anything heavier than air is pulled down towards the ground.
2) Anything moving through the air feels a force resisting it's speed in the air.
These 2 simple facts are not in dispute.
As a means of communicating clearly #1 is called "gravity" and #2 is called "air resistance" or "drag".

Now the non-intuitive part that Brian Cox was trying to guide the audience through is this... The force imparted by gravity (#1 above) is such that, in the absence of any other force, all objects accelerate towards the ground at the same rate. This is non-intuitive because we always experience things falling under the influence of air resistance (#2 above).

But the "debunker" wanted to say that #1 is entirely the result of density and gravity (Newton's or Einstein's observations of gravity) is an illusion. But pause for a moment here and re-read #1 and #2 above. I didn't need to invoke any of that to get us here. Objects fall... that's all we need to get here. Clearly the "debunker" was NOT upset about masses attracting each other. He was upset that Brian Cox made an obvious oversimplification and then went on to expand upon that. At that point, the learning process was completely shut down, and we had left was ranting.

So tell us... how did you react to Brian Cox's explanation of that? If you also found it objectionable (as the "debunker" did), could you tell us how to present this better?

I agree with most of what you said. But I think this is a place to explore the anomalous side of the world. My impression is that most people here already understand basic highschool science. They are interested and open to far out ideas and theories, and accepting that the described laws of the text books are not absolute. Also to work out the specifics of how  a flat earth is possible, and I personally don't see it as being impossible, far from it.

Quote from: faded mike on June 13, 2018, 11:25:30 PM

I don't know about all that, but it doesn't really change my mind. I'm hardly prepared to debate much of that at this point in time.

And that appears to be the big problem with FEers (and numerous other groups).
They know or understand very little and are not in a position to debate, but their lack of knowledge/understanding makes them assume something and claim it in various places, making other people have the same questions and jump to the same wrong conclusions.

If you don't know, that is fine, but it means you should try to find out before forming opinions, especially if those opinions are those who have been studying it for a significant portion of their lives are wrong.

I watched the debunk the flat earth videos and was not convinced. It seems to me that most scientists would never even consider wether the earth was flat in the first place, do you disagree?

Anyway, that's about all I got for now.
But consider this video if you please.

"Our Solar System: Evidence of Creation"



He says that gravity cant conglomerate planets.

They know or understand very little and are not in a position to debate, but their lack of knowledge/understanding makes them assume something and claim it in various places, ...

This post belongs in the self-unaware irony hall of fame.

I actually didn't watch many debunk vids, if anyone wants to suggest one...

I had already said giving children vaccines is acceptable.
Giving them to adults is another issue, but if you don't get vaccinated for communicable diseases then the community has a right to refuse you entry.

I just want to add that I disagree with the parts of the medical establishment not as an anarchist, but as a concerned individual.  In my suppressed inventions book, there is an article that suggests proper nutrition is always over looked. I believe that doctors don't learn nutrition in school, but Hippocrates said "let thy food be thy medicine", and they all take a "Hippocratic oath".

Anyway, kind of off topic, but I just wanted to add that.

I watched the debunk the flat earth videos and was not convinced. It seems to me that most scientists would never even consider wether the earth was flat in the first place, do you disagree?

The "scientists" of old did.
The assumed stance was that Earth was flat. That was based upon nothing more than an assumption with no critical thought applied.
But then people started to make observations and question that.
It was those people so long ago that realised that Earth was round.

Modern day scientists typically don't.
That is because for most, it either isn't all that relevant to their field (e.g. to a biologist studying viruses, Earth being flat or round isn't all that important), or it is so relevant and all the evidence points to it being round.

Science is a constructive process.
Each person doesn't start from scratch, instead they build upon the work of others.
This means if others have shown that Earth is round and that is accepted by the majority of the community, most people just accept that and build upon it.
It is only when a problem arises that people will question it. This has happened for several things, such as classical relativity.

However, plenty of scientists have thought about it, and the vast majority, if not all, accept that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of Earth being round.
The only way for Earth to be flat is if it somehow behaved in almost every way, just like a round Earth would.

As for some of your other comments, basic high school science includes Earth being round. Many here reject basic high school science.
There is also yet to be a mechanism of the formation of a FE provided which can stand up to scrutiny, while there is an explanation for RE. That is why people question if a FE is possible.

But consider this video if you please.
"Our Solar System: Evidence of Creation"

This video relies upon the current understanding of the world, i.e. not a flat Earth.


It is also quite long so I wont watch it all.
It starts off on pretty shaky ground when it claims the big bang claims that everything is explainable by current theories.
No one in their right mind asserts that. We do not know everything.

It also ignores the fundamental problem with creation.
If God created everything, that should include God, so they have a god creating itself...

He says that gravity cant conglomerate planets.

And that seems to be all.
He says that it can't happen without explaining why.
He also uses some quotes ignoring key parts of them (such as saying sulfur is volatile while ignoring iron sulfide, which was already in the quote).

He makes grand claims about what evolutionary asstronomy indicates is possible or impossible.
Instead of saying that they are possible, but not directly predicted he claims it is impossible, all to pretend it is evidence of creation.

He also completely skips the creation approach.
He shows alleged problems for evolution and act like that makes creation correct by default.
In reality, this is just another problem for creation. If the world was created for us, we would expect a model like those FE models proposed now. Instead we have a universe which is mostly empty were we occupy a tiny volume.

Creation doesn't indicate any of that should be true for Mercury, instead he uses the fact that a god could have made it like that so it is fine, again ignoring the fact that evolutionary astronomy indicates a similar thing, that it could be like that.

When moving on to Earth he makes the same old claims of it being "uniquely designed for life", with claims that a change can make in inhospitable, ignoring the extent of those changes, and more importantly, ignoring that the god would be designing the life and could thus make it suitable for any environment. If a god wanted to, they could design beings that live on mercury, or venus or even the sun. So the uniquely designed for life simply doesn't hold.
For the changes, he makes no mention of how much slower Earth would need to rotate before temperature fluctuations would be too great (and why that couldn't simply mean some creatures live on the hot side while others live on the cold side), or how fast it would need to rotate before producing violent winds, while ignoring the fact we do still get violent winds in the form of cyclones, and the option of having a much smaller sun revolve around Earth.
He appeals to axial tilt for seasons, but why would life need seasons? This limits the availability of various things with some things only being possible in certain seasons.
It often means crops need to be planted at a particular time of the year, grown over a long time and then harvested with the harvest lasting a year if you want the crop year round.
Meanwhile if there were no seasons and life was designed for that, crops could be planted at any time and harvested at any time.

These issues indicate Earth is not the creation of some omnipotent being. At best it would be the creation of a powerful but limited being or race which was creating it to be suitable for life within their limitations.

He also has at least another blatant lie, regarding Earth's magnetic field.
The dynamo theory (which has experimental backing) predicts the magnetic field produced by the dynamo to be unstable and flip at various intervals, with the length of these being somewhat random and dependent upon the size of the dynamo.

I think I will stop watching now. If you think there is a good point I missed or skipped over feel free to point it out.

I actually didn't watch many debunk vids, if anyone wants to suggest one...

I prefer logical arguments to videos.
There are many indicating Earth is round.

One of these is the horizon.
The horizon indicates an edge. This is seen when you view the edge of mountains or the edge of a table.
If Earth was flat, then out at sea the only horizon that should be visible is another land mass or the edge of Earth itself.
This prevents a various serious problem for FE as this edge of Earth is very far away and the atmosphere is not perfectly clear.
This means if Earth was flat the horizon wouldn't exist as it does. Instead it would be a blur, where the atmosphere scatters the light so much everything fades to a blur. The only time you would expect to see a clear horizon is when looking at mountains or the like.
This applies even more for level plains where there aren't even any waves to be an excuse.

Instead we often see a clear horizon, quite close to us, with a distance dependent upon our height above Earth.
This means edges are all over Earth. The only kind of shapes to have this property are round ones, which indicates Earth is round.
Objects are also obscured by the horizon, as if the Earth is a hill blocking your vision to them.

Then there are the stars, where there are 2 celestial poles, one always due north, the other always due south, always 180 degrees apart. This is impossible on a FE. (at least where you can circle the pole) The common FE model has a single north pole, and should not have any south celestial pole. The bipolar model has a north and south pole, but they are only 180 degrees apart at one longitude. For all others the angle between them should be smaller and for some locations they should be in the same direction.

And there are plenty of other arguments,  but these 2 are fairly simple and you can test it yourself.

In my suppressed inventions book, there is an article that suggests proper nutrition is always over looked. I believe that doctors don't learn nutrition in school, but Hippocrates said "let thy food be thy medicine", and they all take a "Hippocratic oath".

The Hippocratic oath is effectively to heal to the best of your judgement rather than to injure or damage, not to follow everything Hippocrates suggested. That can even allow them to blatantly lie to a patient.
Also, it is much more of a symbolic gesture and doctors these days do not follow it. Instead they have a set of ethical rules and regulations covering what they can and can't do.

Yes, nutrition is important and most, if not all, medical doctors know that. But nutrition alone can't cure everything.

I watched the debunk the flat earth videos and was not convinced. It seems to me that most scientists would never even consider wether the earth was flat in the first place, do you disagree?

I agree with this only insofar as an accomplished scientist will not want to waste time on a subject that they consider incredibly unlikely to pan out. But here's the rub: they know it's incredibly unlikely because they have a working knowledge of critical thinking. They can quickly think of 5 reasons why flat-earth is essentially impossible, and they need go no further. This doesn't mean they are indoctrinated. It means they can think about sunrises and sunsets, the motions of the stars in the sky, the effects of gravity, Coriolis effect, and a fair number of them work directly with satellites on a daily basis. That isn't indoctrination, that's just critical thinking.

Those of us who do engage in the FE discussion further are doing so mostly to understand more about how someone else would fail to come to the same conclusion.

I've probably said it 100 times by now... I'm not rejecting anything without evidence, but I've seen the sunset, so I have evidence here. What has FE got for me? Give me just ONE simple experiment I can do that suggests the Earth is flat. Anything.

I actually didn't watch many debunk vids, if anyone wants to suggest one...

I'd like to suggest this one:


What is it? All this guy did was take data from TimeAndDate.com and put arrows on the map showing where the moon is from various places at a given time and date. Then he shows an animation of what happens at different dates. Finally, he unrolls the flat map and shows how very very different these arrows look on a globe. (He does the same thing with the sun and stars in other videos too.)

What does it prove? It proves that in order for FE to be true, we need something seriously mysterious going on with the moon. OTOH, the globe needs nothing more than what we've all been told is true.

So where does that leave us?
a) We accept that the globe explains things nicely
b) We bend over backwards to make up outlandish claims to try to force the flat map to work anyway

on the vaccines thing, shut the F up it you have no Idea what you are talking about. ITs made of a Dead virus to allow your immune system to say, this is bad don't let it in. Its not made of pig fetus's. It has a very VERY small amount of mercury in it that's actually considered good for your body. IT also contains a suspending fluid called disopyrtrymald that your body naturally produces but also tells your body to attack that specific area because there is something bad there. We produce it in labs. ITs a simple procedure that you have no clue what your saying because you physically have AIDS and were born as an acostic child.