"Flat Earth" photo, and why it's so hard to debunk pseudoscience

[Frank S]

It's an interesting point. Obviously, we don't believe that the Earth is flat. But how are we not succumbing to Semmelweis reflex ourselves?

Each example above plays out differently.

Flat Earth Theory - This one is the easiest. We can reasonably verify that the Earth is round without examining it from a far distance.

Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory - the conspiracists use observation in light of physical laws to make their position, just like scientists, but their analysis is very shallow. Here's a common example:

Science tells us that there's no wind on the moon. But, look at the photo below: we can clearly see that the US flag on the moon is "waving" in the breeze. Therefore, according to science, it must be fake!



It's true, there's essentially no wind on the moon (except that created by the Lunar Module). So how is the flag waving? Is it a conspiracy? When we analyze the flag photo more closely, we can see that there's a top support bar holding it in place. The flag is crinkled because it was folded up to conserve precious space in transit, not because it's waving in the breeze.



In fact, we know that properly flying the flag on the moon was VERY important, but difficult, so NASA engineers came up with a purpose-specific Lunar Flag Assembly Kit:



In fact, for the second moon landing, Apollo 12, the astronauts couldn't get the horizontal pole to latch correctly, and the flag just dangled like this:



Dorothy Martin UFO Cult - Interestingly, analyzing this one is a little tougher. After all, don't we intervene in and "save" other less-intelligent animal species when their habitat is being destroyed? The universe is vast; it's reasonable to guess that it contains other intelligent life, and that such life would both be able to predict a world-ending catastrophe on Earth, and would want to intervene to preserve our civilization. In this case, our best bet is to apply the concept of "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Martin's claim was extraordinary, but her evidence was very skimpy.

Similarly, "We landed on the moon" is an extraordinary claim. But, the third party evidence for Apollo Moon landings is also extraordinary, so it's reasonable to believe the claim.

This is the difference between pseudoscience (fake use of science), and simply saying "We don't know."

So, cybersam, in that regard, yes, I agree. The best answer is always "We don't know." In fact, some scientists believe that the true secrets of technology are indeed concealed from us. Not because corporations are "hiding free energy" or the government is concealing a pill that turns water into gasoline or similar such nonsense. The belief is simply that when revolutionary scientific discoveries occur, they're immediately and wrongfully dismissed, because of Semmelweis reflex.

More broadly, we can look at Brain in a vat theory, which is an example of Simulation hypothesis. This concept is commonly explored in popular culture, most notably with the movie The Matrix. Brain in a vat theory proposes that our reality is simulated, and that everything that we think is real is just being fed to a brain sitting in a vat in a lab. We can't prove or disprove this theory, and we may never be able to do so.

Well stated. In I believe one day this theory will be able to be proven either in truth or being false. However I do not believe this will be able until the human brain evolves (sorry creationist humans do evolve and have been doing so since for lack of a better explanation their creation, more on that later) anyway when the brain evolves to the point that we are able to consciously tap into what I call the universal pool of knowledge we may find this to be just that a large vat with a single brain in it. Using vat as an analogy only for I doubt very seriously it will be vessel of any sorts containing a lump of living tissue emitting neuro-electrical pulses feeding the throng of people walking around on the planet's surface. I don believe however that one may find again for lack of a better word a vast cloud if you will of pure energy which is not feeding to but absorbing from every living thing on the planet. Saying planet only to limit this to something closer to where we can understand not trying to include the entire realm of possible beings or entities of the known and possibly unknown universes.
Now back to evolution when an infant human is born it does not automatically know how to do much of anything, it has to be taught, but if one were to measure the intellectual level of a 1 year old say 200 years ago and measure that of one the same age born recently you will find many behavioral differences. Now one may say these differences are due to parental intervention the way infants are handled and treated today as opposed to 200 years ago. To that I say possibly but that would not explain why by 12 months of age most infants are now walking many even already possessing certain motor skills which were not the norm back say 200 years ago and almost certainly by age 4 or 5 children have a much faster capacity for learning new things. I'm not discounting the availability to modern technology has not in all likelihood contributed to this. I believe the human brain has evolved and may be evolving at an exponential rate
Be honest now for those of you who are old enough to remember when hand held calculators came on the scene and the very first one you ever tried to use. How long did it take you to master all of the complex functions of the simple 10 key machine which only did four basic functions adding subtracting multiplying and division. I'll tell you if you were 10 years old it took you as long as a week to become comfortable with one hand a 5 year old your smart phone today and in an hour it will have hacked your personal information found all of your stored photos and probably read your emails and texts as well.
SO if my theory of a universal consciousness has any merit what so ever what will the minds of 5 year old's be like in another 100 200 or 300 years. Will a 20 year old prodigy be able to wake up one morning with no prior knowledge decide it wants to learn everything there is about mixing amalgamated metals then right after breakfast go out and be able to combine 5 to 15 of the primary periodical elements with a few secondary elements and come up with a previously unknown synthetic metal structure that me might call unobtainium today l.
I just DON"T KNOW LOL

[C-Bag]

"...The universe is vast; it's reasonable to guess that it contains other intelligent life..."

Waddaya mean "other"? I've got my doubts about its existence here.

Are we alone in the universe? Yes or no, the answer is equally scary.

Religion says "yes" but religion's track record on getting scientific questions right is pretty poor; just ask Galileo.

Amen brother!

All my life has been spent trying to understand human behavior(starting with my parents)and the most baffling of this is to have such inflexible "belief" that you are impervious to any kind of logic.

A book I found facinating was "A First Rate Madness" by Nassir Ghaemi. He studied presidents and generals and found those he called homoclite that were supposedly "normal" were ok when things were going good. But horrible in a crisis, basically deer in a headlight and more likely to double down than to understand they are not responding creatively. And would never admit they were wrong nor change course.

On the other side Lincoln, Churchill, Kennedy etc each had mental problems and not particularly good when things were just going along. But excelled when in a crisis. I blame homoclite majority for Nixon's landslide in '72 despite Watergate and I'll leave it at that with that one of many blunders.

My old neighbor was a really "regular guy", would give you the shirt off his back. But evangelical that KNEW humans were the only people in exsistence, the Earth was 14,000 years old(because there's no way carbon dating works) etc. His belief was real and anything to the contrary was not, period, end of story.

[Jon]

Carl Sagan explains how Eratosthenes, the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria and the inventor of geometry, became the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth over 2,000 years ago.




More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

[mklotz]

If you accept that the earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth (yeah, there are lots of people who don't), then the earth must cast a shadow on the moon.

The shadow so cast is always circular; there's never a line image of a flat earth. For the shadow to be circular, the presumed circular and flat earth must have its axis of symmetry always pointed at the moon.

Thus the sun must always be on the side opposite ours of the flat earth to cast the shadow. But this means there would be no daylight for the side we live on. If the sun is on the side to illuminate us, it can't cast an earth shadow on the moon. Or alternately, the moon is always on the dark side, in which case we can't see the moon.

Whenever you encounter a flat-earther, get him to explain the phases of the moon; fun for hours.

Incidentally, it was the persistent circular shadow on the moon that led the early Greeks to hypothesize a spherical earth, since only that shape would always cast a circular shadow.

[Frank S]

If you accept that the earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth (yeah, there are lots of people who don't), then the earth must cast a shadow on the moon.

The shadow so cast is always circular; there's never a line image of a flat earth. For the shadow to be circular, the presumed circular and flat earth must have its axis of symmetry always pointed at the moon.

Thus the sun must always be on the side opposite ours of the flat earth to cast the shadow. But this means there would be no daylight for the side we live on. If the sun is on the side to illuminate us, it can't cast an earth shadow on the moon. Or alternately, the moon is always on the dark side, in which case we can't see the moon.

Whenever you encounter a flat-earther, get him to explain the phases of the moon; fun for hours.

Incidentally, it was the persistent circular shadow on the moon that led the early Greeks to hypothesize a spherical earth, since only that shape would always cast a circular shadow.

Yes but their argument would then be that the that the earth must be a flat disk so it can cast a circular shadow on the moon causing the lunar phases as it swings like a button suspended from its middle on a string. Flat Earther's can be very entertaining when questioned on their beliefs.
Like mklotz said fun for hours

[Rattlerjake]

It's always amusing to hear a globehead make their claims that the earth is a ball, and they always do so by making numerous assumptions that prove they are flawed. In this video, Carl Sagan makes the assumption, which is the same assumption that Eratosthenes made (at 1:01), that the sun is "so far away that it's rays are parallel". First of all, no one KNOWS just how far the sun is away, scientists change the distance all the time. Is it a million miles away, or is it just 1,000 miles? Every claim is nothing more than an "educated" guess, a theory! Flat earthers understand that the earth is flat and that the sun is only a few thousand miles away, which not only means that it would cast different length shadows on those two obelisks but also means that it is NOT as huge as "scientists" IMAGINE it to be. Do you think it is just a coincidence that the moon and sun are the SAME SIZE in the sky? So considering the smaller size and the closer location, it is EASY to show how the phases of the moon are made on a flat earth. And, by the way, if the persistent circular shadow on the moon is what led the early Greeks to hypothesize a spherical earth, then they were NOT as intelligent as everyone thinks, because it is NOT the only way that would always cast a circular shadow-- shine a flashlight on a ball and you'll see that the light conforms to the shape of the ball -- no straight line.

[Rattlerjake]

If you shine a flashlight on a ball, the light conforms to the surface of the ball, hence a "circular" shadow -- a flat earth doesn't have to be a disk! Besides, on a flat earth, neither the sun nor the moon ever go behind the earth, so the earth is NOT the shadow. The size of the shadow is entirely dependent on the distance between the two.

[Jon]

It's always amusing to hear a globehead...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

[marksbug]

flat heads.

[clavius]

"Sphere mongers"