You're the one arguing that it hasn't been proven even today that the world is spherical.
Ahhh.... NO.
I'm arguing that if I wanted to prove that the world was round I could do so without going into space or without trans-navigating the globe.
And others have already done so, unlike the era of Aristotle or Columbus.
And they didn't need anyone to. They had all of the evidence necessary to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.
You should have lived during Aristotle's day, so you could know without question that the world was spherical.
This is just you being silly. I've told you that I do accept modern evidence. However it is not direct evidence. The evidence the ancients had was direct. You keep saying incontrovertible. I haven't been into space so that evidence is not incontrovertible to me. I've not trans-navigated the globe so that evidence is not incontrovertible to me. I have to accept the testimony of others. That's a reasonable thing to do since there is so much of it and there is no evidence to the contrary. But you know what? The evidence I gave you is better because I CAN directly access it.
Skeptics doubt evidence.
Lunatics deny proof.
This has what to do with our conversation?
Not really. Scientists and or philosophers have been using these methods for thousands of years now. It's academic. Feel free to be amazed though.
No. Not at all. I understand the scientific method and I understand inductive and deductive logic.
If one doesn't control it, it isn't a test.
This is very misleading. There are two kinds of reasoning, inductive and deductive. The test you are talking about involves deductive reasoning. However much of science relies tests that require inductive reasoning.
Proposition: A ball dropped will always fall to the ground because of gravity.
Test: Drop ball. Observe behavior of ball. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Conclusion: Every-time I drop the ball it falls to the floor therefore it is likely that it always will.
Note: That the ball will always drop is not absolute proof that it always will. I would have to conduct the test an infinite amount of times to verify that the ball will always drop before I could ever come to such a conclusion. Since I could never reach infinity I could never reach any such conclusion.
Induction.
Oh, and BTW, going into outer space and trans-navigating the globe are also just observation. What tests do you have in mind to control for those observations. Oops.
It's observable phenomena; just like Aquinas' observations.
You don't know what you are talking about. Aquinas' observations have not lead to scientific consensus because they don't rely on empirical data. You can keep saying that the argument I gave you and Aquinas' are the same but they aren't.
You can take my 3 premises to 100 science teachers. They can be a mixture of Christians, Jews, Atheists, etc. If you ask them if the premises alone verify that the earth is spherical absent any other objective data they will all tell you YES! Of course!
Now, take Aquinas' arguments to the same science teachers and they will all likely tell you that the arguments are interesting but they don't prove the existence of god. You will not have a consensus. You won't even have a consensus among the religious because as smart as Aquinas was his arguments relied on premises that were not axiomatic. He makes assumptions that are arguable.
The premises of the argument that I have given you regarding the earth are not arguable. That is the difference. You cannot reasonably deny any of the premises of that argument. You can reasonably deny the premises of Aquinas.
The bottom line is that you cannot reasonably compare the argument of Aquinas with the argument that I have given you because the one I have given you is based on premises that are not debatable. Not true for Aquinas.
