Flat Earth Theory P3

A short while back I had an interesting discussion with one ‘Darthbards’ over on Big Footy. This discussion related to the idea that the earth is in fact, flat. Needless to say, this idea is sketchy, at best.

The trouble is, after going around in circles for ages, there comes a point where it becomes hard to sustain a reasonable discussion. This is not helped by excessive attacks on science from Darthbards, who I believe deliberately conflates science with religion, to try and suggest the religiously-inspired Flat Earth theory deserves greater consideration as a science. When arguing in such a fashion, it becomes frustrating. Unfortunately, the powers that be who moderate the Conspiracies board on Big Footy have blocked me from posting replies, a decision I feel is unreasonable, but one that doesn’t appear likely to be reversed any time soon.

However, I can still make comments about the ‘discussion’ here. So I’m going to. For anyone who wishes to see the thread in action, it’s here. Let’s start with our old friend Dathbards, whose posts will be in pink.

While on the topic of things in the sky,why can’t I just hover in a helicopter and wait for the earth to spin round rather than having to drive or fly everywhere?
Big game over that one,and how the hell does a plane even land on a planet spinning millions of miles an hour?

This ‘point’ is easily answered via Google. Look up Newton’s First Law of Motion. Also, the earth doesn’t spin at millions of miles per hour. Another user, called Big Cox 88, summed up this point quite nicely (their posts are in dark green):

The reason is inertia, the Earth and you and travelling at the same speed so there is no relative change in velocity, you are geocentrically bound to the Earth with centripetal force.

To which Darthbards replied with the following:

That’s it though,I’m not moving. Going by your logic if I jumped I should feel that I’m whizzing around at a million miles an hour keeping up with the ground.
Their is no centripetal force because the earth is not spinning. The centrifugal force is just a reactionary pseudo force to the motion of whatever I’m in or ons movement.

Have you actually even looked at the science of the flat earth?

Bards does science backward. He starts with his conclusion – that the earth isn’t spinning. Unfortunately this is rather typical of this sort of ‘science’ – take the conclusion, and force the facts to fit it. It requires extraordinary leaps of logic.

Another user, Tants, asked a series of questions aimed at understanding FE theory. His posts are in blue:

Could one of the FEers please concisely post the relevant information about flat earth.

  • Is there an icewall? If so, how high is it?

  • Please post the accepted version of the map of FE.

  • Is there a firmament? If so, what happens to Elon Musk’s rockets?

  • Please use maths to explain UA (or whatever the preferred force that keeps objects returning to earth).

  • The moon and the sun are 3100km away and the same size. True or False? If true, how do solar and lunar eclipses work?

  • Every manmade object ever sent into space is a lie. If there are any that are true, how did they get there?

  • I get that “they” are keeping us from the truth. But who are they? How have they got so many people involved and yet none of those people have broken ranks?

  • Why are all videos confirming a flat earth denied as fake, yet we should believe all videos posted by FEers?

  • What is the maths of a flat earth? Surface area, radius of the flat earth, distance from Sydney to Tokyo, Sydney to Santiago in Chile and Santiago to Tokyo.

  • What evidence would you require to convince you that indeed the earth is roughly spherical?

Instead of attempting to answer these questions, Bards got quite indignant and tried to shut the conversation down…

How dare you once again raise point five as a question :mad::fire:
Not only was this discussed at some length only a matter of pages ago,but I opened my heart and explained how the shadow object is my favorite scientific thing. I expressed how I wished to call my next child Shadow and sent out an invitation to other flat earthers to come and discuss the shadow object with me.

You have no interest in flat earth and your just asking baby questions easily answered in the FAQ section of the website. Your trying to be a smarty pants. Why don’t you piss off back to the science board or something mate. Plenty of ball lovers over there you can chat with,I’ve had a gob full of you blokes constantly bringing your ball love over here and shoving it down people’s throats.
If you cannot show respect for the shadow object you are not welcome for scientific discussion here.

This mythical shadow object is purported to explain the eclipses. The aggression with which Bards responds over this (and indeed, the honest questions from Tants) goes to highlight just how unscientific FE is. Tants asks a series of perfectly fair questions and Bards dismisses them, completely and utterly, and with a fair degree of hostility too. I rather liked Tants’ reply…

OK. So rather than answer the questions you have chosen to deflect. I want the science of flat earth and the generally accepted view from FEers. From your overzealous response, I take it that the shadow object is the accepted scientific reason for eclipses. Thank you. Now if you could address the other answers, without further deflection that would be ideal.

One further question though, does the shadow object exist within the firmament?
How high does the firmament go? I assume 3100km.

I want your answers (or GGs or Negans), I don’t want references to other websites. I want your convincing reasons for flat earth. Your love of the shadow object is the first believe to answer a question(though there is no science to it, I’ll get to that later).

I’m a student of life and happy to learn. But what I get taught needs to make sense with maths (the numbers never lie).

Deflect – and as we shall see later, outright hostility – appear to be ‘go-to’ tactics for Bards.

Another poster – bovs – also challenged the FE nonsense.

167 pages… has anyone reported on their own experimentation yet?

Anyone tried to demonstrate that New Zealand, Antarctica, Mount Everest aren’t obscured by the Earth’s curvature if you try and observe them from Australia?
Anyone tried to demonstrate a ship sailing over the horizon is just an optical illusion?
Anyone demonstrated that measurements of atomic compositions of distant objects by spectroanalysis is fake and/or doesn’t confirm that those objects are what conventional science defines them as being?
Anyone documented a circumnavigation of Antarctica and shown that the distance actually reflects the “outer bounds of the planet” FE model rather than the continental circumference of a round Earth model?
Anyone attempted to fly from Australia to South America by crossing Antarctica and found it wasn’t possible?

For a bunch of people so passionate about FE, it’s a little surprising that that passion doesn’t seem to extend beyond reading and watching what’s on the internet. This is the difference between science and pseudoscience. Science isn’t some sort of global movement or philosophy (although I’ll admit the sorts of people who “defend” science on the internet often act like it is)… science is a process by which a hypothesis is formed, an experiment is then conducted to test the hypothesis, and the results are used to assess the truth of the hypothesis. Science is formalised by creating structure around how that process is then documented and verified by peer-reviewed literature so that the scientific body of knowledge is consistent and open to revision, disproof, repetition or to be built upon.

This process can just as easily be applied to the FE hypothesis, but not without experimentation. So I’ll keep checking in now and then to see if anyone has done any experimenting.

Bards responded with his typical passive-aggressive stance.

Morning bovs,was just enjoying a lovely flat white and noticed your naive post.

We are aware we can’t just endlessly see NZ or Mt Everest because of the angular limits of perception. This can be proven when a ship half vanishes over the horizon but can be pulled back into view with a set of binoculars or a telescope.

Numerous experiments have been carried out to prove the earth is flat. We have what is known as the Bedford Canal experiments,The Kansas experiments the Bishop experiments and if you take the time to read Thomas Winships Zetetic Cosmogony or A Hundred Proofs The Earth Is Not A Globe by William Carpender you will see numerous experiments carried out proving the Earth is flat. I highly recommend these books and highly suggest you read them.

I think your over selling the old fraudulent science as it is just a global movement and in actual fact is what’s known as a religion.
The peer review process sounds good on paper but with so many dodgy websites out there and the advent of social media I think it’s best we should be very careful what we read or believe in regards to the spinning,orbiting,hurtling,tilted round ball earth.
Having said that you will find that papers written and published by Samual Birley Rowthbottom regarding his flat earth experiments that were peer reviewed by a woman by the name of Lady Blount.

It’s interesting that Bards cites, among other things, the Bedford Canal Experiment. This experiment actually went a long way toward proving the earth is round, but also triggered a spiteful campaign by a fanatical flat earther against one of the participants.

I haven’t been able to discover anything meaningful about the Kansas Experiment, beyond the comparison of that particular US state to a pancake (yes, seriously, and this has been held up as some sort of proof of a flat earth). If you check the link  you will see that the state of Kansas is not in fact, flat, but only appears that way because of the distance. Familiar idea?

The Bishop Experiment is one I’ve having a hard time even finding out about. There are mentions on forums that it’s been debunked (not a surprise), but I’ll provide more info on it as I find it.

Bovs pressed on:

Wasn’t suggesting experiments you’ve read about on the internet. Was suggesting experiments you’ve conducted yourself. Or know someone who has conducted them. Or have seen detailed methodology not just a conclusion that says what you already want to believe.

I would happily through the same comment at those arguing the standard position. I don’t understand how anyone can be so passionate as to argue the point over and over again, but not have actually done anything practically to demonstrate what they believe to be true. 

I’m not convinced by the argument around angular limits of perception… but I guess when the moon or sun dips over the horizon it should be effected in the same way… and if the moon or sun is further away than whatever land-mass object is in the direction of where it dips over the horizon, then with sufficient magnification you should see that object silhouetted in front of the moon or sun.

Again I’m not arguing the point… I’m just pointing out that you could probably actually design an experiment and go and conduct it and produce some evidence that suggests the nature of the Earth one way or the other. It’d be a far more impressive than 167 pages of argument based purely off what people have seen on the internet.

It doesn’t even have to be peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed is a method that served humanity for a long time but I don’t disagree that the modern world presents many challenges for the scientific norm. But peer-reviewed isn’t the definition of scientific, the method of constructing and testing a hypothesis is what makes something scientific. This thread is exhaustive construction of the hypothesis without any testing. Regardless of which side you’ve been arguing.

I’ve done the binoculars experiment.
How’s all you’re experiments going? Been into outer space to view the earth or to prove we can get out of lower orbit? Discovered magik gravity? Dark matter and energy are important for the fraudulent science mythamatics ,how’s all that coming along?
Personally I think there’s big hurdles on both sides. It’s just the FE has the better scientific evidence and round earth sounds the most ridiculous and on top of that they use to many unproven things in their theories.

Have a read of these books I suggested and I’m sure you’ll have your eyes opened.

Also,to suggest the peer review has served us well is a bit rich. The majority of people in this day and age still think the earth is a ball. You can’t have a religious organisation running its own review and expect it to work.
Anyway,if you want to give a long and detailed explanation of what you think old fraudulent science is or stands for as opposed to modern science just go tell your riveting theory on the actual science board.

Bards continues his irritating lie that science operates like religion. Funnily enough, this is exactly what flat earth theory is – an old, long debunked, religious argument, pretending to be a scientific one.

Bovs called Bards out on his shambolic practises…

I’ve made 2 posts… trying in both not to actually argue one way or the other on the actual issue of flat Earth vs round Earth… merely to make the point that 167 pages of “the Earth is flat… no it isn’t… yes it is look at this video… no it isn’t look at this video… etc.” without anyone actually detailing their own experiences or efforts to demonstrate what they believe is a little surprising.

Yet you’ve managed to (quite rudely) argue with a non-argumentative point both times. 

Mathematics isn’t a myth. I can assure you of that much. If you’re going to throw mathematics out the window then you may as well be trying to have a debate on whether humans really need to breathe oxygen (or that oxygen even exists as a real thing I guess).

In terms of peer-reviewed science, whatever you think of it it has been the foundation of pretty much all technology and social advancement achieved in at least the last 100 years… probably the last 300 years… and depending on how you choose to define the concept of scientific literature for as long as humanity. Again, if you believe that scientific endeavour is a myth, conspiracy or Satanic work and all technology has actually been developed by faking it, aliens on being directly supplied by God then that’s fine and you can believe that but there’s not much point trying to engage with anyone else if you’ve taken such an outsider view without any consideration of the alternative. 

It’s pretty clear from your responses so far that you probably don’t even have an interest in the nature of the world as flat or round or anything… you only have an interest in arguing with anyone from the “other team” i.e. “science” which somehow means to you all the people on the internet who like technology or science news or arguing with religious types or something I don’t really know what. Maybe you need to spend more time on the politics board where people choose a side and debate it continuously regardless of whether they actually believe with any conviction what they’re arguing.

Sorry,I just didn’t get the point to your posts and you quite clearly haven’t thought your comments through and are blinded.
Yes,of course we scienctists at the FES would like to be carrying out a whole multitude of further experimentation,but money doesn’t grow on trees. I’ve made my suggestions as to how we could obtain greater funding by closing down LIGO and handing the facility over to the FES, as well as the funding, so we can carry out greater research. Do you think the FES is rolling in money just because the ball lovers are? I told you some of the experiments carried out but it wasn’t enough was it?
Your comments tend to be leaning towards saying the round earth is to be believed or given a go. We at the FES do not believe what we have been told by the old fraudulent,religious science. We think their made up theories are laughable with its made up Dark matter,energy and let’s not forget gravity. We think your math is wrong. I don’t mean to be rude but we don’t want a debate any more. Why do ball lovers think our flat earth thread is a great place to debate round earth but on the other science board flat earth discussion not allowed?
The ball lovers have made their garbage point. It’s the ball lovers who continuously come, spreading their lies and insulting flat earthers.
The FES is growing,old fraudulent religious science is a failure. Instead of saying I don’t have an interest in nature or science you should be pointing the finger at those spreading the lies or those wasting the billions of dollars,the old fraudulent religious science.

We at the FES do listen to other fields of science,but we have no respect for ball lovers. Who would believe that garbage.

Tldr..If you have constructive comments to make feel free,but don’t come here saying the old fraudulent religious science is not a global movement and don’t come here gobbling off about pseudo science like your some sort of a gatekeeper to how we reach our findings.

Emphasis mine. Any discussion of a conspiracy theory (which is what flat earth is, make no mistake) is going to be in the form of a debate at some point. Despite the rules of the Conspiracy board on Big Footy, in real life a conspiracy is not assumed to be true or accurate, nor capable of supplanting an existing theory, without reasonable evidence. When something like flat earth comes along, that pretends to be scientific, yet is in fact rooted in baseless ideas, why should it share the stage with proven, scientific facts?

I remain unconvinced that Bards is not simply trolling.

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