junkshop
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Nvm, wrong place. As you were.
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So which are craziest, flatearthers, sovcits, or ...?
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Reformed Offlian
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Figuring out the shape of an object is fundamentally a geometrical exercise, not a "first principles" one. And yes, gleaning that the earth is round from observation requires thinking about a bit about the geometry of what you're looking at. But it really isn't *that* complicated; it can be (and is) explained to schoolchildren. Your inability to follow is a you problem.
Simple explanations for how we know the earth is round abound on the internet. There is no point in trying to pretend it's some sort of arcane secret those snooty scientists never bother to explain.
Here's one very simplified one. Look at "Method 2: Watching the Sunset". Then get back to me about how it's just too complicated and that those snooty scientists need to use smaller words and more pictures.
https://www.wikihow.com/Prove-the-Earth-Is-Round
Orphia Nay
Penguilicious Spodmaster., Tagger
I agree, they all have similarities.
They all have a core anti-establishment and false belief, and are all reinforced with other falsehoods and poor logic by their own echo chambers.
You don't see any flat earthers committing violent crimes in the name of their beliefs, and I think the MAGA crowd have had the most dangerous people amongst their number, not just the most in number.
The Great Zaganza
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The difference with MAGA is that they really think they have something to gain (or not lose) from supporting Trump, something that is hard to imagine for Flat Earthers.
varwoche
Penultimate Amazing
I should have mentioned, they were into Q and Trump. He was also in the pantheon.
I was disappointed the filmmaker glossed over this aspect. Blink and you would have missed it. In an interview, they said they didn't want to provide a platform for these particular beliefs. I was also disappointed they didn't ask How is that you profess beliefs based on love, and also worship Hitler?
The group live-streamed on the internet extensively. And they allowed the filmmaker to film them. I like getting the facts from the horse's mouth.
Not only were their beliefs bat **** crazy. The things they did are utterly mind-boggling. What happens when she goes to Hawaii is priceless.
But the ending takes the cake.
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bruto
Penultimate Amazing
Maybe I'm misreading it, but I cannot say I understand what appears to the theprestige's point that somehow it's not so silly to believe in a flat earth because you can't yourself see the curvature from your back door, and some abstract scientists have not made a specialty of explaining in kindergarten terms what millennia of calculation, logic, and just plain observation have made obvious.
Sure, it would be nice if there were a Little Golden Book to explain why a rock is hard, but if you believe a rock is soft, the fault does not lie at the publishers' feet.
Scientists are rightly tasked with understanding why things are as they are, but I do not think they can be blamed for the inability of some people to understand whether they are.
Science has made plenty of explanations, whether or not they are comprehensible to all, but along with that, the roundness of the earth has been observed by millions of people over thousands of years. People have measured it, flown around it, walked over the poles of it, photographed it from outer space. The belief that everyone from Eratosthenes to the astronauts and beyond has engaged in a gigantic conspiracy is not a failure of explanation, and not a valid response to being peeved at some abstract genus of scientists for a pandering deficiency. It's insane.
The implacable craziness of belief in a flat earth cannot be blamed on those who meet its proponents with a handwave or its verbal equivalent of "don't be a ******* idiot."
Sure, it would be nice if there were a Little Golden Book to explain why a rock is hard, but if you believe a rock is soft, the fault does not lie at the publishers' feet.
Scientists are rightly tasked with understanding why things are as they are, but I do not think they can be blamed for the inability of some people to understand whether they are.
Science has made plenty of explanations, whether or not they are comprehensible to all, but along with that, the roundness of the earth has been observed by millions of people over thousands of years. People have measured it, flown around it, walked over the poles of it, photographed it from outer space. The belief that everyone from Eratosthenes to the astronauts and beyond has engaged in a gigantic conspiracy is not a failure of explanation, and not a valid response to being peeved at some abstract genus of scientists for a pandering deficiency. It's insane.
The implacable craziness of belief in a flat earth cannot be blamed on those who meet its proponents with a handwave or its verbal equivalent of "don't be a ******* idiot."
Foster Zygote
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Agreed. And it is worth noting that modern flat earthers have adopted a geometrically vague cosmology invented in the 19th Century in an attempt to explain away the centuries of learning that have proved the spherical nature of the earth. Early cosmologies involving a "flat" earth, like those of the Sumerians and Babylonians, still placed the sun, moon, planets and stars in motion about them at fixed distances with the observer at the axis of their revolution. If you showed any ancient astronomers/mathematicians Rowbotham's Zetetic model with its sun and moon revolving on planes above and parallel to the plane of a flat earth, they'd have immediately rejected it on the basis of the geometric observations they could make. Their minds were as sophisticated as any of today's cleverest people, they simply lacked observational data to work out the spherical nature of the earth. If Babylonian scholars had simply had the telegraph, or wristwatches and trains, they could have easily worked out such geometry.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Yeah, that's pretty much it.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Follow what? You haven't gone anywhere yet. You say it's an easy path with a clear destination, so let's walk it: Cocktail party. Flat earther. What measurements do you take, then and there. What geometrical proofs do you apply there, for everyone to see, and for the flat earther to accept or reject?
If you can explain it as if to schoolchildren, THEN DO IT.
Reformed Offlian
Graduate Poster
I linked you an article that does precisely that. I notice that you snipped it without comment. Why?
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Because it wasn't what the scenario calls for.
The gist of TGZ's premise is that the earth is so obviously round that we can't help but notice it every day in our daily lives. I'm curious to see how that is supposed to play out.
You're at a cocktail party. A flat-earther says, "okay, if it's so unavoidably obvious that we're seeing it right now, show me." What do you do? Pawn off some website? Drag him on a 1,000 mile road trip to get really precise measurements of shadows of perpendicular things in a distant city? Haul him down to the seashore and make him watch the sunset? Make him watch the advent of dusk and deduce that he's seeing the progression of a terminus?
And how are any of these things so obvious that we can't help but notice them in our daily lives every day? I guarantee you nobody is thinking about termini on a globe at dawn and dusk.
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Thermal
Penultimate Amazing
One of my kids plays at being a flat earther. She also gets into the Birds Aren't Real thing. Basically, she is entranced with the idea of the absurd having an unassailable explanation (well obviously not unassailable, but as theprestige says, not easy to demonstrate in casual conversation). She says tall things don't disappear due to them dipping below the curvature of the earth, but just appear smaller and get hidden behind smaller but closer things, like a variation of visually converging railroad tracks.
MRC_Hans
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Well, I also noticed you ignored my previous answer to the same question. You have now added a couple of strawmen to the cocktail party (or was it a barbecue?).
It is not unavoidably obvious that the Earth is a ball. There will be times and places where it will require a considerable effort to observe it, but it IS observable to any lay person without the use of any complex instruments, if you look for it.
However, the demand for immediate proof is frivolous: There are very few things that are immediately provable at a cocktail party. The existence of birds, elephants (although the latter may show up late in the evening), radio waves, corona virus, etc, etc.
Nothing can be expected to be proven at a cocktail party, except possibly the effect of too much alcohol.
Hans
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The Great Zaganza
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Can we at least agree that w FE would have to explain what they think the sun does while the moon is waxing and waning?
theprestige ignored this observation that anyone can make every month
theprestige ignored this observation that anyone can make every month
Yeah, if someone at a cocktail party denied the germ theory of disease, I'd have a hard time coming up with a demonstration that it's correct then and there. Such a person could also easily go through life with that misconception. One not need believe in the germ theory to wash one's hands, nor even to take antibiotics when a doctor prescribes them, any more than a flat-earther can't get on an airplane who's correct navigation requires knowledge of a round earth.
Still seems not just crazy, but also detrimental to me, because anyone with either world view who tries to understand the world will be working from a major epistemic handicap, and I think that handicap does have practical implications.
Still seems not just crazy, but also detrimental to me, because anyone with either world view who tries to understand the world will be working from a major epistemic handicap, and I think that handicap does have practical implications.
Can you spell out this argument? I'm not even entirely sure what you think the waxing and waning of the moon proves. Is it because it demonstrates the great distance of the sun, which is inconsistent with a flat earth model? Or something else?
Thanks, it's interesting the similar roads we've walked.
Yeah, I mostly agree with this and I think it's something we often overlook. I do think there's some way to mitigate the problem here, though. One method is what I'll call auditing. You can't check everything yourself, but you can check a few things, and if you take a random sample of things and check them yourself, you can see if at least those things match up with the view that people present. You can also look to see if others have valid critiques. If at least some people check things some of them would hopefully notice that they aren't in line with the general story you were told by people you trust. So looking at such challenges can be a way to become aware of inconsistencies. The next step is to figure out if the challenges that are presented are well founded. This is easier said than done. There certainly are challenges made against most claims of our worldview. A lot of them look like they come from crackpots, but that in itself doesn't demonstrate that there are no good ones. So again, this isn't easy, but it at least is easier than trying to replicate all of science.
100% agreed.
I would go further and say that we should actively seek out contradictory evidence and perspectives. For instance, when I was educating myself about evolutionary biology, I also read what the creationists had to say to see if there was any validity to their story (you can't just read the biologist's account of the creationists, think about the mirror of that strategy if you had started as a creationist). If I'm going to read Rawl's Theory of Justice, I also read Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which critiques it, etc. I don't think you need to take this too far. Fine the supposedly most well respected creationist, see what he has to say and if he's at least making honest arguments with some validity. If there seems to be something there, keep going. If not, I feel I've done my due diligence and move on.
MRC_Hans
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Well, one part of auditing is in the modern scientific method. If I see a theory published in, say, Nature, I know it has been audited. It might still be mistaken, but it is probably consistent with our best observations. If I see it in some YouTube video, not so much.
Hans
Hans
Gord_in_Toronto
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A major problem with the Flat Earth Theory is that there is no Flat Earth Theory. Just bits and pieces to counter claims of observed reality that don't in themselves add up.
There is a very good discussion here:
Fighting flat-Earth theory
No single Flat Earth model explains everything. The historical vast conspiracy that stops us from bumping into the Ice Wall should boggle everyone's imagination.
There is a very good discussion here:
Fighting flat-Earth theory
No single Flat Earth model explains everything. The historical vast conspiracy that stops us from bumping into the Ice Wall should boggle everyone's imagination.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The options I cited are not strawmen. They are the three experimental arguments put forth at ReformedOfflian's blessed website. They are literally his answer to my request. I'm saying that I find each of them inadequate to the task.
Yeah, if you look pretty hard, and remember a lot of non-Euclidian geometry, and spend a lot of time thinking it over. Which - my point - nobody actually does, not in the casual "can't help but notice it all the time" way that TGZ alleges.
I disagree that the demand, in this context, is frivolous. TGZ alleges that the round earth is so obvious that we can't help but notice it without even trying, in our daily lives. I want to see that concept demonstrated by someone who believes in it. If nobody believes in it, or cannot demonstrate it, then... Q.E.D.
threadworm
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I made a similar point to a flat earth idiot today. He presented a list of things that he demanded people personally prove.
My point to him was that, thanks to the way science works, other people have already done that for me. That same method allows him to try and prove that their proofs aren't correct, and he is welcome to try that.
He won't, obviously, because the one thing flat earthers don't want when the demand evidence is the evidence they demand. They only demand it because they either think it doesn't exist or because they can frame a demand in a way that prevents people satisying them.
The main thing flat earthers want to prove is that they can win an argument, not that the earth is flat.
Reformed Offlian
Graduate Poster
The challenge I was responding to was this:
"If you can explain it as if to schoolchildren, THEN DO IT."
The article I linked does exactly this: it explains the relevant geometry as if to schoolchildren.
And this was pursuant to another question you had asked, namely:
"When was the last time you observed the curvature of the earth in your daily life?"
As to the completely different question of: Could I prove that the earth is round to a tipsy contrarian using only simple parlor tricks that do not require leaving the room or even putting our drinks down? My answer to that question would be: "Probably not, but so what?"
This scenario is relevant neither to whether one can find evidence for a round earth through naked eye observations one might make in one's daily life (one can), nor whether flat earthers are crazy (they are). I don't see why you keep bringing it up.
TGZ didn't say that, nor do I accept this characterization of "the gist of his premise". I see him pointing out that one can observe the curvature of the earth in daily life, which was a direct answer to the question you asked, and is the same point Hans and I have made. His phases of the moon example is incorrect (he may be thinking of lunar eclipses, which *do* involve the earth's shadow and which do show the earth to be spheroid); his point about how sunrises and sunsets interact with elevated terrain features and buildings is correct.
Also, looking upthread, ISTM that you first presented your cocktail party "poser" in response to Hans, not TGZ, and that you did so before TGZ had written anything about observing the earth's curvature, so I also don't accept your framing of it as a response to TGZ.
Reformed Offlian
Graduate Poster
As already pointed out to you, this is incorrect. The moon waxes and wanes because of its self-shadow. The phases of the moon show that the *moon* is round, not the earth. You might be thinking of lunar eclipses, which happen from time to time, though not as frequently as every month.
The Great Zaganza
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You are missing the point.
The earth"s shadow on the moon proves that it's at least a circle.
With me so far?
Now, what happens with the earth during a day? It rotates, so the sun shines on different parts of it, creating night and day.
If a sphere rotates while being illuminated, the shadow on the moon stays the same.
But when the earth is flat, the shadow on the moon would change visibly within hours.
Obviously, the moon is part of the conspiracy, covered in flat screens to pretend that the earth is a sphere.
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gabeygoat
Master Poster
I pretty much just asked them why every other planet isn't flat, and well, that was enough.
Reformed Offlian
Graduate Poster
Nothing non-Euclidean required. It's basic solid geometry. And you can even use a plane geometry cross-section to approximate it. The sort of geometry the Greeks actually used to figure out this stuff.
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Reformed Offlian
Graduate Poster
I agree that I'm missing the point. I don't understand what you're saying here.
The Great Zaganza
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okay, so how does day and night work on a FE?
Is the sun really close on a firmament, or far away ?
because that determines what the moon would look like from the earth.
And there is, as far as I can tell, no combination that could explain the moon phases and night&day unless the earth is round and the sun far away.
and in fact, the explanation given by FEs is that the moon shines with its own light, independent of the sun. Night and day are the result of the sun shining incredibly focused on a part of the flat earth surface - which leaves no room for the illumination of the moon in a way that would persist for a day.
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Reformed Offlian
Graduate Poster
Sure, but you're talking about lunar eclipses now, not phases. And I've already pointed out that lunar eclipses provide evidence for a round earth.
The Great Zaganza
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See my post above.
My point is that, contrary to theprestige's claim, it takes Way More effort to explain a flat earth than a round one.
My point is that, contrary to theprestige's claim, it takes Way More effort to explain a flat earth than a round one.
Reformed Offlian
Graduate Poster
And I would agree with that point. I just think your attempts to use phases of the moon are a bad example.
The actual implications of a flat earth are pretty crazy. For instance, "if the earth is flat, where is the edge?" the flat earthers have an answer: the earth is a disc, the North Pole is at the center and there is a wall of ice that runs around the edge. We call this wall of ice Antarctica. "South" = toward the edge and "north" = toward the center.
But if we take that model seriously, notice what it does to the size of things. Russia is close to the center of the disc. Take a circular band that includes Russia. It's got some area, call that 1. Now take another band adjacent to it of equal thickness. It's area is going to be much larger. The next band adjacent to that will also be larger, and each band out toward the edge of the disc is larger than the last. The relative size of say Australia or New Zealand (relative to Russia, say) as seen on a globe is tiny compared to its actual size (again, relative to Russia) according to this model. But if you look up flight times from Beijing to Moscow and Sydney to Perth or whatever, they'll be much more in line with the globe model than the flat earth model.
The flat earther can say, "those flight times aren't real, they are lies". But the twists and turns that they have to posit in this conspiracy just gets sort of weird and convoluted. Maybe they say, "yeah, that model of the flat earth is wrong, I don't actually know its geography, I just know it's flat". Sure, that's fine, but it's still weird how the globe model works with everything we know and the flat earth model either is silent on specifics or has to posit a conspiracy to explain them.
Again, as thepretige says, most of this doesn't apply to your every day life, but it does exist on the periphery. And that periphery seems to me to have important epistemic implications.
But if we take that model seriously, notice what it does to the size of things. Russia is close to the center of the disc. Take a circular band that includes Russia. It's got some area, call that 1. Now take another band adjacent to it of equal thickness. It's area is going to be much larger. The next band adjacent to that will also be larger, and each band out toward the edge of the disc is larger than the last. The relative size of say Australia or New Zealand (relative to Russia, say) as seen on a globe is tiny compared to its actual size (again, relative to Russia) according to this model. But if you look up flight times from Beijing to Moscow and Sydney to Perth or whatever, they'll be much more in line with the globe model than the flat earth model.
The flat earther can say, "those flight times aren't real, they are lies". But the twists and turns that they have to posit in this conspiracy just gets sort of weird and convoluted. Maybe they say, "yeah, that model of the flat earth is wrong, I don't actually know its geography, I just know it's flat". Sure, that's fine, but it's still weird how the globe model works with everything we know and the flat earth model either is silent on specifics or has to posit a conspiracy to explain them.
Again, as thepretige says, most of this doesn't apply to your every day life, but it does exist on the periphery. And that periphery seems to me to have important epistemic implications.
The Great Zaganza
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again, flat earthers can't even explain Night and Day.
In their model, the moon would have no phases.
It's obvious to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
that is why humans have know more or less since forever that the earth is round.
In their model, the moon would have no phases.
It's obvious to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
that is why humans have know more or less since forever that the earth is round.
MRC_Hans
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Yes, that is correct. The FE model posits (and has to posit) that the moon and the sun circle over the earth (otherwise we could not have time zones), and you can't explain away that the moon is a sphere, but this would mean that the shadow on it would differ depending on where you saw it from, so different times of the day or different positions on earth would show distinctly different "phases" of the moon.
And btw it would be very hard to explain how we can observe a fully lit full moon, as the sun would be so far away that it is invisible.
Hans
Nessie
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Are they crazy, or is it down to poor education and a failure to teach any form of logic and problem solving at school?
I debate a lot of Holocaust deniers. Many are eloquent, knowledgeable and appear intelligent enough. The main reason why they have fallen for denial is that they get fooled by logical fallacies and do not understand evidencing. If their understanding was better, they would have less of a chance of being fooled.
I debate a lot of Holocaust deniers. Many are eloquent, knowledgeable and appear intelligent enough. The main reason why they have fallen for denial is that they get fooled by logical fallacies and do not understand evidencing. If their understanding was better, they would have less of a chance of being fooled.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
That's not contrary to my claim at all! I agree it takes way more effort to explain a flat earth than a round one. In fact, I think it takes an infinite amount of effort, and thus a flat earth cannot be explained at all.
But explaining a round earth still takes some effort - more than people think.
My claim is that if you don't make any effort at all, which most people don't, a flat earth is the easier assumption, and has zero practical downsides for most people most of the time.
Thus, since sovereign citizenship has practical downsides, I think sovcits are crazier than flat earthers, on the principle that beliefs that cause real net self harm are crazier than beliefs which don't.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that like Gell-Mann Amnesia, the Dunning-Krueger effect is strong amongst everyone.
The Great Zaganza
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Well, at a party, I can just ask 2 Flat Earthers how they think Day and Night works, and walk away when they inevitably will start screaming at one another.