I remember you telling me on several occasions that my arguments should be based on what flat earthers consider valid evidence. Which is certainly skirting what Lonegranger said.
...It's also how debates work. If a FEer tried to convince you by appealing to laevorotatory subquarks without providing any reason to accept them, would that contribute anything to a discussion?
Is it? It can be, if one side decides to be super accommodating and restrict themselves to arguments the other side finds convenient.
But it doesn’t have to be. Certainly not if you consider this a scientific debate (which you allude to later).
No real scientific theory to my knowledge has ever been advanced by ignoring established evidence or dismissing it as fake. Not even a little bit, let alone entire fields of science, engineering, etc.
If you think something should be accepted as evidence, like space travel, which FEers object to, don't just assert that it's accurate. Give some actual reason for it, and bonus points if it's not the same basic things from the same discussion that's been rehashed a hundred times.
As far as I’m aware, my posts are usually relevant to the topic or a particular point that’s been made.
Also it’s not my problem if something has been asked a hundred times and still hasn’t been properly addressed.
You are the one who chooses to argue against it. You don't have to do that. No one has to.
Sure, I don’t have to be here. Neither do any of us.
If you want to reject FET, and justify your rejection, all you need to do is point to the lack of supporting evidence. That's it.
That would be pretty boring though, wouldn’t it? I thought you were up for debate?
When you decide that's not enough, when you decide that actually you want to go further and show that it can't function (something which most of science just doesn't bother with, for the record) then yes, you have to engage with FET on its terms, not on yours.
This again depends on the context of the conversation. Plenty of topics start with flat earthers incorrectly stating how things should work on a globe, and trying to use that as evidence for a flat earth. Very often, threads have arguments from each direction. So, no. I don’t always have to engage on flat earthers terms. It’s entirely situationally dependent.
Otherwise you aren't showing anything about FET, you're just saying that it's incompatible with RET. That's not news.
What are you even talking about here? A point I’ve made? How I debate in general? “Round earthers” in general?
You don't have to ignore science, you don't have to change your point of view... You just need to learn how science actually works, and how dependent on context and underpinning theory it is.
Just for fun, I’m going to address this one on “FET terms” and point out that The Godfather of modern flat eartherism, Samuel Rowbotham didn’t want to use the scientific method at all, proposing the “zetetic method” instead.
But that seems pedantic, so I’ll answer normally-
The whole flat earth topic is well outside the bounds of normal scientific debate. The real scientific response to all this would be “summit your work for peer review and see if anything sticks”. But we both know that will never happen, so it’s kind of pointless.
As you pointed out earlier, I don’t need to be here to defend anything, as this fringe idea doesn’t come close to credible science. I’m here because I’m interested in how flat earthers could have come to their conclusions, to see if they are capable of addressing the enormous holes, come up with new ideas and try to match their ideas to real world observations.
What’s most frustrating about talking to you, is I think you would be capable and perhaps interested in working through the issues, but your default position is to just say its all been covered before (without linking to anything apart from your own thread).
Science isn't a list of facts, science is a process by which we determine those facts. The process is what matters, not the conclusion. That's what I mean when I talk about religiously clinging to something; if all you care about is the statements of fact, that's when it becomes religion. Science is the means by which we actually find out the truth. Expecting you to actually be able to justify your claims is science.
You are partly right, but you’ve skipped the part about how science progresses.
It’s a process of building on the work of others (Hence Newton’s quote about standing on the shoulders of giants). So rather than everyone trying to constantly reinvent the wheel, there comes a point where scientists can generally agree something is a scientific fact and move on to next step. It is of course possible to overturn scientific facts, but not the way flat earthers are going about it.
This is all irrelevant though, as I don’t think I rely on quoting facts without justification anyway. If I wanted to take that route, I’d just say the basic shape of the earth is a scientific fact, which it is. Wouldn’t be much to talk about then though.
Object FEers don't justify theirs all you want, that's fine, but that's also no excuse for you to not do the same when you are the one who starts making claims. Again, reject FET based on lack of evidence, sure, but that is not the same as taking the utterly unnecessary step of choosing to argue against it. All you do when you refuse to do that, especially when you have centuries of knowledge to draw upon just a google away, is give the impression REers need to lie and use cheap tactics to defend their position. Nothing I say is for the benefit of FET, it's for the benefit of your bloody credibility. Don't blame me for the fact you apparently don't care about that.
But I make no claims. Or at least my only claims are that I understand the relevant details. This may not always be true. I’ve been corrected before, and I’ve actually learned some things here, which is all good.
It’s the flat earthers trying to overturn established science with their ideas. They are the ones making claims, not me.
Why do you bother?
Because this is a forum with other people on. It should be vaguely enjoyable rather than any remotely interesting discussion getting steamrollered by users that just come across as mind-numbingly insecure and utterly tedious.
Can I suggest (again) linking to some of the detailed flat earth models you claim to have seen. Your compendium, btw, would be a thousand times more useful if you said where any of it actually came from.
I’d be more than happy to look into something more substantial than what we usually get.