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Interesting bit to be found at The Conversation:
Speakers recently flew in from around (or perhaps, across?) the earth for a three-day event held in Birmingham: the UK's first ever public Flat Earth Convention. It was well attended, and wasn't just three days of speeches and YouTube clips (though, granted, there was a lot of this). There was also a lot of team-building, networking, debating, workshops – and scientific experiments.
Yes, flat earthers do seem to place a lot of emphasis and priority on scientific methods and, in particular, on observable facts. The weekend in no small part revolved around discussing and debating science, with lots of time spent running, planning, and reporting on the latest set of flat earth experiments and models. Indeed, as one presenter noted early on, flat earthers try to "look for multiple, verifiable evidence" and advised attendees to "always do your own research and accept you might be wrong".
While flat earthers seem to trust and support scientific methods, what they don't trust is scientists, and the established relationships between "power" and "knowledge". This relationship between power and knowledge has long been theorised by sociologists. By exploring this relationship, we can begin to understand why there is a swelling resurgence of flat earthers.
Interestingly enough, the author delves into philosophy, particularly the work of Michel Foucault, who, for those not familiar with him, traced the relations between knowledge and power, especially in The Archaeology of Knowledge.
In the 21st century, we are witnessing another important shift in both power and knowledge due to factors that include the increased public platforms afforded by social media. Knowledge is no longer centrally controlled and – as has been pointed out in the wake of Brexit – the age of the expert may be passing. Now, everybody has the power to create and share content. When Michael Gove, a leading proponent of Brexit, proclaimed: "I think the people of this country have had enough of experts", it would seem that he, in many ways, meant it.
Ah, that explains so much beyond Brexit! Alternative Knowledge!
And for those who will never read the entire article, bit of the take-away:
In many ways, a public meeting of flat earthers is a product and sign of our time; a reflection of our increasing distrust in scientific institutions, and the moves by power-holding institutions towards populism and emotions. In much the same way that Foucault reflected on what social outcasts could reveal about our social systems, there is a lot flat earthers can reveal to us about the current changing relationship between power and knowledge. And judging by the success of this UK event – and the large conventions planned in Canada and America this year – it seems the flat earth is going to be around for a while yet.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:08PM (22 children)
Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to directly see that the Earth isn't flat. It's reasonably easy to show this via complex reasoning, some ancient Greeks managed this, but the direct observations don't suffice. You've got to reason correctly from them. And a weather balloon wouldn't suffice. I'm not certain that one of NASA's high altitude balloons would suffice, but it might. Or it might just show that there was a circular outline, which you could also determine from a weather balloon, or from the top of a tall mountain.
IIRC the Greek reasoning involved the length of the shadow of a tall sun dial at noon at several locations hundreds of miles apart. It barely involved direct viewing at all. But it required a bunch of abstract reasoning.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:18PM (2 children)
You can see the curvature of the earth from high flying aircraft. I used to fly at 45000'-50000' and the earth's curvature is easily visible. And, having flown circumnavigational flights (not all in a single flight of course) I can also safely say that you don't fall off the edge of a 'flat earth' either.
(Score: 3, Funny) by BsAtHome on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:35PM (1 child)
But, but, you /did/ fall off the earth and simply landed slightly offset from the previous position in a vector direction and an infinitesimal delta-time calculation. You only need to accelerate to the proper speed and you will definitely fall off for an arbitrary direction of "off". See, it is flat for all practical purposes and intends. You only need to reduce your infinitesimal to the proper value or simply go fast enough (about c) not to be bothered by earthly physics.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday May 06 2018, @10:51AM
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:28PM (5 children)
And you know this how?
A balloon absolutely would suffice, as would standing on a seaside overlook, or mountain. Even the beach by the sea will show you the curvature of the earth. You really gotta get out more.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:56PM (3 children)
I used to be able to see the curvature of the Earth from the window in my mom's basement but our neighbor started parking their car in the way.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fyngyrz on Saturday May 05 2018, @07:39PM (2 children)
I'm telling ya, man, her name is Cindy, she's not your "earth mother", and if you don't stop staring at her from that basement window, we're going to have to make you stay in the shed out back again.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday May 05 2018, @08:09PM (1 child)
And I'm positive that wasn't the curvature of the 'Earth' he was staring at!
8)))
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @09:59PM
But, but, that curvature has gravitational pull!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday May 05 2018, @11:36PM
What does it take to convince you that the Earth is curved? I think you need to really consider that your evidence is insufficient. A circular horizon doesn't suffice. There's the argument about distant ships coming over the horizon in pieces, top of the mast first, and that's a pretty good one, but the view out a window doesn't do the job at all. It's quite consistent with a flat earth with local bumps.
I don't remember the view from the top of Mt. Fuji well enough to state whether or not it suffices to show that the world is round, but the top of the Berkeley hills or Mount Diablo sure doesn't suffice.
That said, I've never been up in a balloon, so perhaps that does suffice. I really doubt it, but it's possible. But I can guarantee that ONE flight wouldn't suffice. You'd need to measure various angles of separation from one known spot at a particular height, and then do it again from another known spot at a known height where you could identify the same features. Actually, you'd probably need to do it from three spots. Even then you'd be assuming a homogeneity of the surface that is demonstrably not present at a small scale.
Your problem is actually the same as theirs. When something agrees with your beliefs, you aren't sufficiently critical about what evidence you accept as proving them. That your conclusions are essentially accurate in this case doesn't make the reasoning valid.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday May 05 2018, @06:28PM (2 children)
Close. And point taken. But the history is important, Eratosthenes was Head of the Library of Alexandria, a very smart cookie.
Eratosthenes, on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 06 2018, @03:29AM (1 child)
TLDR Greeks used smart cookies to demonstrate that the earth is round. But, Ari doesn't explain what makes a cookie smart, and neglects to explain whether the cookies were chocolate chip, or just plain sugar cookies, or what. And, finally, he doesn't mention what might happen when the cookies are eaten. Would the earth disappear if enough cookies were consumed?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday May 06 2018, @04:23AM
The tricky part about building a smart cookie is getting the cyber to run on the chocolatechips. Micro is better than chocolate when it comes to cyber.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 05 2018, @07:05PM (1 child)
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-students-breathtaking-curvature-earth-high-altitude.html [phys.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jsu9W4qh6Q [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=student+balloon+curvature+of+earth [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Sunday May 06 2018, @01:00AM
That first one is a particularly poor example as they are using a wide angle fisheye lens that clearly distorts everything and even makes the suspension rope and the ground during takeoff look curved. If you watch the video while the balloon as at maximum altitude, you can see moments where the bouncing around image of the horizon goes into the negative distortion zone of the lens and actually looks completely flat.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Saturday May 05 2018, @09:04PM (6 children)
The curvature of the Earth is easy to see.
Go to a coastline, preferably one with shipping traffic nearby. Look at a distant object out at sea - an oil rig, a wind turbine, even a skyscraper on a distant coast.
Notice how the BOTTOM of the object is being obscured by the sea, way past any tide, wave or other movement.
You're either suggesting that the water somehow curves UP as you look out to cover that object, or that the water curves AWAY.
Try it from any direction, it works. The only object where distant objects ALWAYS fall away from you, no matter which direction you're looking? A sphere.
However, before we even start justifying this line of preposterous bullshit, there's a much easier way. Go around the world. Thousands upon thousands of people have done it, from zero cost hiking to expensive world cruises. Having to justify this utter tripe as if it has any scientific value whatsoever is just demeaning, as it would be to the Ancient Greeks who knew perfectly well what shape the world is, without fancy maths, tools, gadgets, flight, etc.
There are myriad ways to prove it's bollocks, simply by looking at the world. Everything from the tropics, the equator, seasons, the motion of the moons and planets, simple geometry, but the easiest are quite literally playground-level science. Get in a boat or plane. Go East. Keep going. Like people do every single week.
The Ancient Greeks / Egyptians / Babylonians and just about every ancient civilisation back to the Stone Age are turning in their graves at this crap.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday May 05 2018, @09:43PM
Or light curves slightly upward when traveling across the sea. There are other phenomena involving light curvature -- such as mirages on a desert.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Funny) by HiThere on Saturday May 05 2018, @11:43PM (2 children)
And the weird thing is that many of the people coming to this conference did so in international flights. Try and figure out just *how* they are processing the data.
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(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 06 2018, @06:49AM (1 child)
Well, if they saw a curved horizon, they probably concluded that the round Earth conspiracy made sure that the windows include some optical aberration so the horizon looks round while in reality it is just a straight line. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday May 06 2018, @04:56PM
But a round horizon would be true of a disk as well as a sphere. A round horizon doesn't prove anything WRT the spheric nature of Earth. For that you need some means of demonstrating that lines up and down converge near the center, or some analogous argument. Thus progressive images of a ship coming over the horizon are a good argument, but not proof, as it could be some sort of mirage kind of effect.
That's why it was important to the Greeks to measure the angles of shadows at noon at locations far apart. It really *isn't* something that you can directly observe. You can't observer roundness directly on anything much more than 20 feet away from your nose, because your eye's don't give you enough parallax. You have to reason it out from other evidence.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Sunday May 06 2018, @04:50AM (1 child)
They've got an answer for that, though. Some horseshit about gravity affecting light differently, so the light actually 'falls' faster than anything else. Therefore the light carrying the bottom of the object hits the ground before it can get to your eye, and only the light reflecting from the top of the object reaches you.
I had a discussion with a flat earther and used that very example, a ship at sea, to make my point. He was a semi-truck driver, and you see exactly the same phenomenon on the highway when you're meeting another vehicle on a hill. The top of the oncoming truck is always visible before the bottom of it. He'd seen it himself, literally hundreds of times, but he had his crazy answer ready to use.
It really is mind-boggling. Someone doesn't understand something and makes up some reasonable-sounding bullshit to explain it. Something else comes along and they make up some more bullshit to describe that. If bullshit x directly contradicts or disproves bullshit y, or vice versa? More proof they're correct! It's complicated stuff after all, and they'll admit they don't understand it so of course it'll be confusing.
- D
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 06 2018, @06:54AM
Of course according to that theory, you should no longer see the ground as soon as you are up, as all the light has already fallen on the ground … strange that I still see the landscape from a mountain …
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @01:48PM
just start drawing circles around a fixed point, and measure their circumference as a function of radius.
once the radius becomes large enough (I guess on the order of 1000 km), you will find that either Euclidian geometry is wrong (i.e. Earth not flat), or you are on a curved space in 3D Euclidian space (i.e. Earth not flat).