Slashdot Mirror
The Flat Earthers Are Still With Us
narcberry writes "The BBC reports on a scientific community still holding to flat earth theories. From their article: 'Are there any genuine flat-earthers left? Surely in our era of space exploration — where satellites take photos of our blue and clearly globular planet from space, and robots send back info about soil and water from Mars — no one can seriously still believe that the Earth is flat? Wrong. Flat earth theory is still around. On the internet and in small meeting rooms in Britain and the US, flat earth believers get together to challenge the 'conspiracy' that the Earth is round.'"
Well, that's obviously not the right thing to call them...
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Cue the Turtles
Dual Century Programming: Yeah I know
I can't decide which is worse, the Flat-earthers, or the hollow-earthers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth . I heard some guy on C2C the other week spouting out some nonsense about looking for a hole in the arctic that would prove the earth was hollow, I can't believe people still believe this crap.
- Aetheral Research -
Im Australian so I can understand the subtle nature sarcastic english humour. Sorry I have to rush off I have a committee meeting on a new funny walk that needs approval...
Of course the earth is flat.
Also, the internet is a myth.
Don't forget, there's a conspiracy of NORMAL PEOPLE trying to steal your slack and preventing the aliens from rescuing all SubGenii on July 5, 1998.
See http://www.subgenius.com/ for more details!
My Uncle belonged to this society when he was in college in the 1970's. He likened it to the SCA. I love these guys because they will never, ever admit to the joke.
I'm not sure which is more outrageous at this point - people blindly following the idea that the earth is flat or Scientology....
Flat earthers etc. are fine with me so long as they don't all join the school board and force the teaching of their ideas in public schools.
I think that the term 'News' should not apply to a 500-year old debate. While it is a fun mental exercise to actually try to pretend "What if" these Flat-Earth theories are true; it can quickly grow tiresome like Loch Ness, BigFoot, and all the other crackpot stories you can hear at 3am on shows like Coast-to-Coast.
What is more impressive IMHO is that much more ancient cultures like the Aztec 'had it right' thousands of years before these 'Flat-Earth' ideas were new.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
How do we know it's not a club of pranksters who want to fool the world into believing flat-earthers still exist?
Reality has a well-known round-earth bias.
Would you like a slice of toast?
There is no historical evidence that anyone ever believed the world to be flat. The idea is a relatively modern invention.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
you will find plenty of people that fall WELL outside the normal range. In my industry where I deal with millions of customers its always the case. Even if the earth were covered with only 1% of out of normal range people (which I think its much higher then that) that would mean 60 million or the roughly the size of the UK. If its closer to 5% then its the size of the US. Scary there might be that many people who think like that in the world.
Not only that, but just as amazing, Young Earth creationists are still with us as well.
And time is cubic!
Would you like a slice of toast?
It's flat, but in a curved and warped space dimension. Said like this it makes perfect sense, although it's merely a construct made to look at things differently in an arguably more convenient way.
You just got troll'd!
Yes, I'm still sore that my donut shaped earth theory never caught on. Mmmm, donut.
From the Flat Earth Society Forums:
"News: The Flat Earth Society forums are back up! I apologise for the downtime. The problem has been resolved and won't happen again...."
Far from the several thousand kilometres of flat earth, comes the slashdot effect. Expect downtime again.
call me Shirley.
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
Yikes. They're taking this (seriously) seriously. It is quite clearly a jape, but there are always some who will embrace it and fight for it as only a true zealot can. In a related story, they're being sued by Scientologists who claim prior art.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
It's encouraging that these same people are global warming sceptics. From their FAQs:
Q: "How does global warming affect the ice wall?"
A1: The Ice Wall is really a mountain range. It just happens to be covered in ice and snow.
A2: Global Warming doesn't happen. It and its counter-theory (Global Cooling) are effects that cancel each other out. Remember, these "greenhouse gasses" can reflect heat back out into space as well as keep it on Earth. Yes, there are recorded rises in temperature, but the only records we have go back, at most, around 150 years. This is very likely an occurrence that happens every [x>150] years, that's happened before (perhaps many times), and that the Earth has thus survived before.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Most people never travel farther than a few hundred miles from their place of birth. I've never seen Australia, so I don't know if it's on the other side of a round earth. For all I know it might not even exist at all. We're all like Truman. We believe what we're told because if we tried to verify everything, then we couldn't get on with our lives. Some people notice that "science" is often used as a "proof by intimidation" and consequently lose their trust in scientific results. So the earth is flat, because that's what I see, and none of you "scientists" can fool me with your "theories".
If you can't immediately [fnord] see it happening under your nose, it must be a [fnord] conspiracy. Flat earth, evolution, black holes, nanotechnology... all conspiracies.
I piss off bigots.
The parent does not deserve a "funny" tag. Rather, it points out a serious error in the summary, which largely justifies an edit. The BBC article reports on a "group of people". How on Earth did they become a "scientific community" on /.?
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
They are wonderful!
You need no facts, no proof, and you could give people a reason to distrust any evidence you throw at them.
Important stuff
The earth is round, just like a pancake.
The earth isn't flat. It's round; like a pancake! ^_^
-Herman Finkers (Dutch commedian)
"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for it's children." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Well I'm guessing this is probably a case more where people are trying (poorly) to be funny, but its probably appropriate on a Sunday to be discussing groups of people who get together in a room to discuss their believed truth in entirely irrational things with some seriousness.
I suspect there may be a lot of that going on today.
The Turtle Moves...!
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
And Pauly Shore is a fine actor.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's far more reasonable than the thing believed by many more people on this earth: They believe in something far more far fetched - a supernatural allmighty, allknowing being that existed before the universe did and actually CREATED the universe, just by demanding that it should be created!???
If they can get together enough cash and rocket technology then they could launch their own private rocket high enough to take photos and prove to the world that the world really is flat.
Really, the cost of such a mission is no longer astronomical, they should be willing to put their money where their mouth is.
And in a few decades maybe the lunar landing conspiracy theorists can afford to prove themselves right by sending their own probe to the moon and showing us that there are no astronaut footprints on our nearest neighbour.
He blinded me with science about the whole Flat Earth bit. He was very hyperactive about it back in the day.
My guess it is an attempt of a marketing firm to copy the success of the 'caveman' adds. Vista is so easy, a flat earther could hack it.
Sure they can. The Earth (and other planets) are like giant coins with constantly changing surfaces. These surface changes are possible whenever the elephants flexes its back muscles. Or when one or more of the turtles (that go all the way down) shifts their weight..
[Slashdot Comments We Liked]
I always thought that the Flat Earth Society was a drinking club, sort of like the "Man will Never Fly Society" that meets every year at Kitty Hawk, NC and gets smashed.
In their fabulous FAQ, http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=a1f7f3fc005b90c85c7385afa7ee25d1&topic=11211.0 :
Q: "Why are other celestial bodies round but not the Earth?"
A: The Earth is not one of the other planets. The Earth is special and unlike the other bodies in numerous ways.
Brilliant! Myself, I was wondering why the world is revolving around me. They just gave me the answer.
Dude, the Flat-Earthers aren't the Christian Right, here. Yeah, there's a Flat-Earther Society that likes to meet and pretend the Earth is still flat, but they don't, in actuality, take themselves seriousely. It's an amusing hobby and an excuse to get away from their wives and hang out with the guys once a year. Jeez.
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
Except that their "proof" would be:
See we failed to get into space/the moon so it must be impossible and the powers that be have obviously been deceiving everyone about it.
Fox News has announced that the world was a better place with far less pollution when the world was flat which resulted in the president's council on ecology recommending that we return to the flat Earth model to protect our environment.
I think someone is pulling a great prank. Just read this section in their FAQ:
Q: "What's underneath the Earth?" aka "What's on the bottom?" aka "What's on the other side?"
A: This is unknown. Some believe it to be just rocks, others believe the Earth rests on the back of four elephants and a turtle.
That's straight of of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
wouldn't that be awkward?
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
Most of their theory falls apart in how they draw a map of the world. According to them, the edge of the earth is the "antarctic rim". However, their map shows it as being something like 80,000 miles long.
Clearly this is at odds with measurement, and if you say anything different they generally say something like "lies! all lies!".
I tried to give them a theory that they could use: :)
That space stretches as you travel south from the equator. So as you get to the antarctic rim, you are stretched along the lines of latitude so that measurement yields something closer to 3,000-4,000 miles.
But, however, noone there has taken up the theory.
Reading these comments I am distracted by a loud "whooooosh!" of a great joke passing over everybody's head.
Just take a flight and you'll notice that the earth is round. I'd love to see the Flat Earth believers explain that.
Full Tilt
The flat earth society is meeting here today,
Singing happy little lies
And the bright ship humana is sent far away
With grave determination....
And no destination, lie, lie, lie
Seriously, you guys may not want to leave the store.
Well I figure for some the off chance of being published; even if as a crack pot; is just too much to pass up. Oh I am sure some might believe it but I doubt all who profess it do. Its outlandish enough so that you can always come back one day and say you were joking. It is outlandish enough many would just call it a day and pass it off as a personality trait they acknowledge but don't accept
Besides, it could be infinitely horizontal or what not, depends on what dimension your from, or perhaps you need to ascribe to this belief to get into Tom Cruise's inner circle?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
and carrot top is funny.
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
I think the people who think that surface of the Earth is the interior of a sphere are much more interesting.
For some of them the Universe is a hollow bubble (which I suppose you might say it is, in very rough sense) and the Earth is the interior surface of that bubble. Others have a more conventional cosmology, in which the Earth is a sphere in space -- just a hollow one. Some of those people believe we are living on the inside of the sphere, others that we are (as conventionally believed) on the outside of the sphere, and that the interior and polar regions are inhabited by the Hyperborean race.
Believers in the Hyperborean race tend to be those who give more credence to obscure references in Greek mythology than modern polar expeditions, which you have to admit makes for a higher class of twaddle. It's a pity so many of them are neo-nazis.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well both know that their stated beliefs don't really reflect reality, the Flat Earthers do it to enjoy the mental stimulation of engaging in the arguments; the Scientologists do it to suck the life out of their "followers" financially and emotionally; so I'd say the Scientologists are the more outrageous.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The hole is very, very, very small but with apparatus in my secret laboratory, I can see it very clearly. I hope that clears the whole thing up.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
The earth's surface is on the inside surface of a sphere, light bends towards the centre, relativity is expanded so that the centre of the sphere is an infinite distance away and presto you have our reality.
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime - Floyd, Pink
The Flat Earth guys are joking, dude. You just aren't in on it.
Well, you are now.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
I'd just like to say "kudos" to the author or editor of the article responsible for the illustrations and captions. I love the whole "this ancient guy knew what you didn't" seemed unbelievably, yet lovably, snide.
Should he/she be invited for a guest stint on The Bugle, by the London Times?
Talk about Stone Age beliefs...
you had me at #!
now that's just going too far!
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
and will be hacked by the more highly evolved. :)
you had me at #!
The FSM hacks in Scheme48. (And uses 3-space tabs.)
you had me at #!
andy kaufman died without ever admitting he was vic ferrari.
whoosh
Serenity now, insanity later.
you propose giving money to the poor?
un burrito me trampeó.
The Earth is Flat.
It is 6000 years old.
It was created in exactly 6 days,
by an invisible sky wizard that looks kinda like Sean Connery in a white beard and robe.
Oh, and He wants you to give all your money to those preacher guys on TV.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Sounds to me like it would be really easy to solve the problem once and for all. Just find where these genetic misfits are hiding and torch the building. Problem solved, and once less group of idiots breeding on an otherwise overburdened planet.
Time is DEAD - what we experience is merely the inter-dimensional smell of its rotting corpse. Everyone knows that.
The problem is the M$ ad is suggesting that the People who avoid Vista are like the Flat Earthers who are rejecting the obvious; but the reality is just the opposite. The Flat Earthers position is the original position and have the status quo position where the Round Earthers have the challenging position and the burden of proof; likewise M$ needs to not only convince People that Vista is better than XP, but that it is also better than OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris, and that is a mighty tough row to hoe.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Pffft! That's nothing. There are still 9/11 Truthers left! And they believe that fire can't melt steel!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
if (player.location.x >= earth.width)
{
player.location.x = 0;
}
else if (player.location.x LESSTHANDAMNIT! 0)
{
player.location.x = earth.width - 1;
}
if (player.location.y >= earth.height)
{
player.location.y = 0;
}
else if (player.location.y LESSTHANDAMNIT! 0)
{
player.location.y = earth.height - 1;
}
Yes. I had some problems with the right-bracket.
The Egyptians had a far more convincing arguments that not only allowed them to measure the circumference of the Earth's sphere to an amazing accuracy but the distance to the Moon. They achieved this amazing feat about 4000 years ago by measuring the angle of the sun to the Earth at different latitudes simultaneously on the same longitude a known distance apart!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=9.795678,-147.65625&spn=175.996711,360&t=h&z=1
According to the quoran (the islamic holy book), the earth is flat, please check this articles for more details:- http://humanists.net/avijit/article/flat_earth_kasem.htm According to CAIR (Council on American-Islamic relations), there are 1.200 billion muslims on planet earth, so at least 1.2 billion people believe that the earth is flat!
Well duh, of course they are. If anything, they may accept planar warming.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I think it would be interesting if somebody created a coordinate system / dimensions where the earth was Flat and then argued human perception is limited and the earth really is flat in actual reality- most of us just can not comprehend it :-)
It would be even more cool in such a system represents flat earth as an infinite plain (since it is ... round)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
E=MC2
The sun is sending lots of energy (E) to the earth.
where does all that energy go?
radiated heat, sure.
Maybe, just maybe, some of it is converted to Mass.
However, like the "expanding earth" theory people, I have no real proof this energy to mass conversion exists.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
"The Earth is, more or less, a disc", is quoted James McIntyre in TFA. Obviously, BBC asked in a Discworld fan convention, and started this big buzz about people still believing in flat earth. I bet Terry Pratchett itself was the one that called them with the story.
The curve of the horizon (in a flat open area) more than disproves this.
You should have a word with the cold fusion boys!
Would you like a slice of toast?
From what I gather, the Earth is accelerating at 9.8m/s^2. This is what causes the movement of things towards the Earth. It has been accelerating at this rate for a long time (i.e. throughout history), but the acceleration is not constant. The Big Bang occurred around 4.5 billion years ago.
The fact that at 9.8m/s^2 we would accelerate to faster than the speed of light in under a year has yet to be accounted for in that thread. They mentioned something about special relativity so maybe that's it.
By my calculations if we assume a mean acceleration of 4.9m/s^2, the Earth is traveling at c2.25e09m/s. FTL!
Source: http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=21147.0
" a hole in the arctic that would prove the earth was hollow"
That's where the north pole of the great axle goes
The earth is certainly NOT flat. There is a really big hill right behind my house, looking at it right now . . .
You even have an *idea* what you wrote??
Energy doesn't "convert" to mass and vice-versa. This is an *equivalence* equation, and not even a complete one because M is not M (as in rest mass) but also includes momentum.
If you can take any energy and magically convert it to mass (without the anti-particle), let me know. You'll get a Nobel prize in Physics.
Yes, all the energy ends up back in space as heat (regular light is almost heat anyway).
Now, if you said that the solar wind gets captured by Earth's magnetic field and sucked down to Earth - that is more believable. Except, the solar wind also strips off the outer layers of the atmosphere. So basically end up with insignificant changes.
1 cent for some effort and bold guessing though.
Thought they were called the Blockheadists now.
The problem is that people believe the stories of other people too much. Everyone says the earth is round because someone told them it is, not because they have personally done the tests or had the experience. I know people who think the earth is round, but can't say how they know except that they saw a picture or they read it somewhere. That's as stupid as creationist and their logic. I don't care if 'science' says so, or God. My earth is relatively flat. Nothing in my personal experience shows me otherwise. I've heard some great stories that the earth is round. It is probably true, but I personally have no way of verifying that information. Only an idiot takes thinks as true on faith. Now the practical reality is that a lot of science has a practical truth. Engineering science is a good way to build stuff that works, but to suddenly go off into believing 'ex officio' everything science says is silly. I can't wait to show myself the earth is round, as soon as I can get up the money for the flight. :)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365
ok. read the faq and i ain't no smart boy but here's an essential flaw in their bs:
the earth is accelerating up at 1G (what is UP in the first place??)
the earth is wrapped around a cylinder surface.
question arises: how come gravity pulls in the same direction if earth is a cylinder???
good luck
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
Time for a bunch of these wacko's to be shot up in a rocket so that they might see for themselves what is so logical to the rest of us.
... must we keep voting them into office?
Have gnu, will travel.
I see believing the earth is flat as no more crazy than believing some supreme being create the universe and everything in it in 6 days with no evidence what so ever*
*No the bible is not evidence. It is a collection of stories which cannot be validated as real. It is like saying, in 2000 years, that Harry Potter is "the truth".
They provide fodder so that the self-righteous Slashdotter know-it-all can feel superior.
I've met guys like this before, and a good portion of them are just being contrary because they know it bugs people.
Another good portion of them are suffering from some kind of obvious emotional/mental disorder which makes them difficult to be around. So yes, let's all laugh at the distressed people and jump up and down for the trolls.
The only real problem with these sorts of people is that they discredit any ideas which happen to have substance but which tend to get lumped in with and sullied by flat earth thinking.
-FL
The famous measurement of the Earth's circumference wasn't the doing of the ancient pyramid-building Egyptians that we know and love, but rather an accomplishment of a Greek scholar named Eratosthenes living in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period. This was roughly in 240BC, which was "merely" 2250 years ago, not 4000.
Don't get me wrong: the Egyptians of 4000 years ago had made some fairly solid advances in math -- for instance, they could do basic algebraic proofs and had a workable system for rational numbers and fractions -- but they didn't know the Pythagorean_theorem and weren't very advanced in geometry, trigonometry, or dealing with irrational numbers. This lack of mathematical knowledge would've greatly hindered any attempt they might have made to compute the circumference of the Earth, if they ever actually tried it.
Range Voting: preference intensity matters
I haven't. Perhaps its round, perhaps they are lying.
Give me a trip to the moon and i'll get back to you.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
...it's got a Tootsie Roll center. The only question is, how many licks does it take to get to the center?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Equal doesn't mean identical. People should have equal rights under the law, no matter what race they happen to be. Yes, there are differences between races. Darker skinned people handle the sun better than lighter skinned people, and lighter skinned people do better in colder climates. As far as intelligence and ability is concerned, individual differences overwhelm any racial ones that might exist; there are brilliant and stupid people in all races.
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
Really, the cost of [a mission to take pictures of the earth from space] is no longer astronomical
ROTFLMAO.
(BTW, are you the same szyzyg I used to know on mono?)
Or just go to the beach and observe that the horizon curves.
This space intentionally left blank
The earth is flat.
The only way, of course, for it to be flat is for it to be very large and (relatively) very round.
Flat in a 3d spherical coordinate system.
But evolution? Again, look to the woof and the weave in the coordinate system, and imperfections in the observation tools.
But I'm not going to claim that any modern view of history is nearly as accurate as our view of the sky and our view looking back on the earth.
Beyond that, trying to claim evolution as evidence that disproves the creation is focusing on one very small (if recently too noisy) class of creationist theory. (Call it pseudo-theory if you want, but if being able to poke holes in a theory makes it not a theory, then what would we do with science?)
The tendency that bothers me here is the tendency to jump to conclusions and paint all faith with one brush. Check your own faith in science when you're done.
What makes you so sure the Aztecs didn't know the earth was round?
In summary the flat-earthers won't allow any direct satellite imagery as evidence because "it's fake".
So why is this satellite imagery a fake? It's a conspiracy! A conspiracy by whom? Governments! All of them! Errm ... how do you know? Well ... *if* the Earth is flat *and* the Governments say it's not, *then* it's a conspiracy, see? Oh yes ... and we happen to know that the Earth is flat, which proves that there is this conspiracy.
Well ... there you have it: simple logical fallacy (circular reasoning).
Sorry, but that's quite enough to prove "Flat Earth" irredeemable crackpottery and abolish all and any of their claims to scientific work.
Someone interviewed in TFA states that the earth is "over 9,000 kilometres deep".
Dude! Nice post! I wish I had mod points today. I have only one criticism.
In any case, you need not fear alternative ideas (even blatantly false goofy ones) in your school systems. If anything you should fear people trying to coopt the boards to ensure goofy ideas are taught in a non-critical fashion.
You should be wary of any idea being taught in a non-critical fashion, whether you think it's a good idea or a bad one. Critical thinking skills are much more important than indoctrination in good ideas. The major difficulty you face in this regard is that Evolution is presented as an incontrovertible fact, which tends to dull the critical faculties.
In the immortal words of John Stuart Mill:
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. This is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of, else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. ... So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil's advocate can conjure up.
So flat-Earthers and creationists are actually pretty useful. As you've already pointed out, if you can't defend your view that the earth is a globe against the arguments of a flat-Earther, you really don't know your subject! The same applies for Evolution and Creation.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
One of the Flat-earthers interviewed , John Davis, is a computer scientist. That is quite ironic considering that the machines he makes a livelihood from exist because of the investment in lightweight microelectronics needed for the Apollo program. Mr. Davis is indicated to be a Canadian living in Tennessee. Hopefully there is some way we can get him deported before he manages to steal the limelight from Kansas with his brand of reationalized thought.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I have an off topic question that I failed to google.
Base on a round earth of course, I always wonder what will happen if we drill a big hole from north pole all the way to south pole, then drop a marble in it. Where will it stop?
I wonder if there are more Flat Earth believers than Expanding Earth believers. I didn't even hear about the Expanding Earth Theory until a few months ago.
AFAICT everyone there seems to be trolling each other.
The first subject in the forum is called "Notice for newbies" and this is started by "Professor Gaycunt"... (http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?board=12.0)
I guess no flat earth theorist has ever been in an airplane on a clear day.
The curvature of the Earth is clearly visible.
Hell, you can even see it at sea, though it's far more subtle.
I don't understand this planet sometimes; didn't Eratosthenes prove all this well enough in antiquity?
I want to be a flatearther. Do they have a clothing line to go with it?
Not wanting to spoil a party, and you're mostly right, but even so, it merits pointing out that Eratosthenes was in fact Egyptian, according to contemporary national borders, and most definitely not Greek in any sense other than first language, and even that's a maybe. I guess he was what Americans might call a "Greek-Egyptian". Or the other way round, I'm not sure.
I am not an ancient Greek philosopher (IANAAGP), but I believe he was refering to the Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse. Incidentally, we have one coming up in a few days, you might be able to see it.
I'm sure that a large percentage of flat-earthers live in Kansas. To be fair, that part of the Earth IS flat, so they can be excused for their belief.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
> This was roughly in 240BC, which was "merely" 2250 years ago, not 4000.
One must be careful, when disposing of one theory, not to make an appeal to the authority of another theory which itself lacks supporting evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_(Fomenko)#Brief_summary
We don't really know when Eratosthenes, or anyone else from ``ancient'' history, actually lived.
How come the guy in charge is Chaltier, Global Moderator ?
Now there's a conspiracy theory for you!
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
Well, that's obviously not the right thing to call them...
No doubt, the earth is flat for certain topologies.
So, three men were riding on a train in Scotland when they pass a brown cow. The first, a biologist, says, "hmm, I guess the cows in Scotland are brown." The second, a statistician, replies, "no, actually all we know is that one cow in Scotland is brown." The third, a topologist, corrects, "actually, all we know is that there is at least one cow in Scotland, one side of which is brown."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think Bush is a good person, just incompetent.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
It doesnot even require instruments to verify the earth is positively (roundishly/ball-like) curved.
All that is required is a medium-large body of water and tall objects (mountains, skyscrappers) on each side.
If you look accross the water from the bottom, you can see a portion of the objects on the other side.
As, you go higher, you can see more. And if you look carefully, you can see a portion of the lake but not all the way to the other side at certain heights.
These results require a positive curvature to the surface of the lake/sea.
If you use some instruments, you could eventually measure that this curvature is nearly equal in all directions accross all bodies of water. Leading to a spherical result.
Now the weird but true part.
I still don't understand why this was not understood in antiquity.
Once again, to see that the curvature is positive does not require ANY instruments.
"The Church says the Earth is Flat, But I know that it is Round, For I have seen the Shadow On the Moon, And I have more Faith in a Shadow Than in the Church." - Ferdinand Magellan
Happy to oblige. Things can be pretty simple if you know where and how to look.
There are lots and lots of conclusive observations that expose "Flat Earth" as total humbug (from the fact that ships disappear under the horizon, to satellite launches to high-altitude flights, to classical mechanics to geodesy) but they all require a little intelligence and some thought to understand, and may allow willfully stupid charlatans enough leeway to obfuscate the discussion that some people loose their way in the argument.
Satellite imagery on the other hand provides direct and totally conclusive evidence that doesn't require *any* thought or intelligence to understand, and it can't very well be argued about. So it can't be obfuscated either. But alas, satellite imagery proves the Earth is round (no matter what other considerations Flat Earthers might wish to trot out), so if "Flat Earthers" were to admit any of that as evidence, they have lost the debate before it's even started. So they don't admit satellite imagery as evidence. Instead Flat Earth enthousiasts will tell you that those satellite images are all "fakes" put up by a "conspiracy of governments".
When the main FAQ starts off by telling you that the conclusive evidence provided by satellite imagery showing the Earth to be round is considered inadmissible evidence by Flat Earth enthousiasts, on account of it all being a global "conspiracy by governments". And when the only "evidence" for this is based on the hypothesis of a global conspiracy which in turn can only be "proven" by assuming the Flat Earth hypothesis itself to be true (something that Flat Earthers had to prove in the first place), you see the logical fallacy in their argument (circular reasoning) which no amount of additional posts can repair. So reading all or any of them is a total waste of time.
And something else. The *number* of posts on the site has nothing whatsoever to do with whether they are humbug or not. There are lots and lots of extremely stupid people about, and unfortunately they can be quite diligent. If they all make a single post, then you can rack up an impressive total in no time at all. But that doesn't imply that any of those posts make sense. Sorry about that, but there it is. It's not quantity that counts but quality.
So, to avoid the need of crawling through a stack of 400,000 pretty darned clueless posts, you ask Flat Earthers to tell us why we should disbelieve direct observational evidence (satellite imagery again) that can decide the matter all by itself. When they can't, there is nothing but quasi objectivity to be gained by saying "gee perhaps somewhere in that stack of 40,000 posts there is one that actually makes sense", Ok? Whatever else they come up with is already beside the point since we already have conclusive evidence about whether the Earth is round or flat.
The point is whether direct evidence from satellites or high-altitude flights can or cannot be used to decide the matter. If "Flat Earthers" can only resort to conspiracy theories to neutralise that evidence (admitting it exposes them immediately), they have lost the debate and there is no point in looking what else they might bring forward, right?
That's how you distinguish real science from bogus: real Science doesn't rely on logical fallacies such as circular reasoning, and doesn't try to discard direct evidence by a gratuitous claim about a global "government conspiracy" rendering it fake".
It sounds like he was challenging you to question your preconceptions. It's one thing to know that the earth is flat based on your education, it's quite a different thing to know that the earth is flat by examining the evidence, questioning it, and setting out to prove it to yourself.
If you know that the earth is flat because that's what you've been told all your life by people you respect, how are you different than someone who knows that god watches them masturbate when they've been told it all their lives by people they respect?
I encounter a lot of this in my motorcycling. The vast majority of riders believe that gyroscopic forces stabilize their bike, but I've learned though a lot of research, thought, and experimentation that it's a secondary force to the effects of caster (trail.) Yet, gyroscopic balancing is taught by the majority of high school and college physics teachers, by many respected members of the community, and by a lot of motorcycling instructors. (How many people here believe that gyroscopic procession balances your bicycle?)
Question all belief, even what you know is true. You probably won't prove 'round earth theory' to be wrong, but you will learn a hell of a lot in the process.
I have gone though the forums of this site (Flat Earth Society) and it is quite obvious a dupe. Yes there are no doubt people out there that believe the earth is flat but this site is an obviously a dupe. Come on "the earth is constantly moving up at 1g" etc. This is someone who seriosuly thinks the earth is flat: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wppjYDj9JUc&feature=rec-fresh basically an Iraqi claiming the earth is flat because the Quran says so. The following is a transcript:
Interviewer: Lunar and solar eclipses, sunset and sunrise, and the changing of seasons -- how would you explain all these phenomena, if the Earth is not round, as you claim?
Fadhel Al-Sa'd: The sun circles the Earth because it is smaller than the Earth, as is evident in Koranic verses.
Have you ever seen how the sun moves? I have seen the sun moving. The sun makes one move every 24 hours.
What I say is based on Koranic science. He bases his arguments on the kind of science that I reject categorically -- the modern science that they teach in schools. This science is a heretic innovation that has no confirmation in the Koran. No verse in the Koran indicates that the Earth is round or that it rotates. Anything that has no indication in the Koran is false.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
I used to think that maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I no longer do. Good people don't advocate all the terrible things that he advocates.
However, that's besides the point (and also presumably the reason why I was modded flamebait although I think the modder is being overly sensitive).
The question remains, how can we tell if someone is dedicated to the joke or just plain unwilling to recognize obvious evidence?
Cow Cube
Oh really...now, I have my doubts about the Flat Earth Theory...even as a Christian. I can handle evolution pretty well...even the Big Bang, and a constantly expanding universe... However, the bloody/stupid, idea/theory, that everything came from absolutely nothing, is almost as insane as wasting time, looking for proof! Steven Hawking, in a lecture to University of Southern California, consistently made references to a Creator. And concluded his lecture, by acknowledging the question is not why we're here, nor where we came from, but what do we do, now that we're here? Now that, is true religion, DEFINED, by someone you trust!
Don't you think...? Or don't you?
"Man Will Never Fly" does not dispute the existence of wormholes. Which would easily explain how so-called "aircraft" can travel to different locations without flying (thin atmosphere is incapable of supporting the weight of hundreds of passengers). The flights are not instantaneous because the queues for wormhole access are very long.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Whoops, I'll have to remember that.
Range Voting: preference intensity matters
So, lets say that the earth is flat. Would it not be lit on both sides at a given point?