In recent times, the number of people who believe that the Earth is flat and that Nansa deceived us has increased, and that human did not reach the moon, What is your explanation for that?
Certainly, we hear and read a lot, but we are mainly scientists, so we believe in the proofs and phenomena that we see and perceive, not in allegations, and there are many phenomena and facts that prove the sphericity of the Earth: kindly check the following link:
https://www.popsci.com/10-ways-you-can-prove-earth-is-round/
Omar -
Years ago i heard about the Flat Earth Society, and my understanding was that it was now really a joke, but considering the absolutely insane conspiracy theories that many people now seem to believe, I suppose people can talk themselves or have other people talk them into just about anything.
Perhaps it is the fast pace of technological change which disorients many into believing the most illogical ramblings of any person or group who will make them feel special or give them some meaning. (I'm fairly sure I've heard that somewhere before.) I suppose many still think the earth is the center of the universe.
In the United States many, inexplicably to me and to many others, have fallen prey to a cult of personality and have believed a man who lies all the time. Much of what he has told them has been mean-spirited. To want to believe such hateful things is truly appalling. Again, I think people fear change, and what they don't understand. And there is the kind of group/mob thinking and behavior that allows people to believe things that perhaps they would not dare if they did not reinforce each other.
As for the moon, perhaps trips there will not seem so odd once more nations put the expense and effort into going there, as this becomes of more interest again, which may be happening now on a less urgent level than it was in the 1960s.
But the notion of a round Earth was accepted by scholars long ago. Over 2000 years ago, the ancient Greeks tried to estimate the circumference of a 'round' Earth. I think they got a low estimate, but it was a good effort. So yes, if someone thinks the Earth is round now, that is a bit shocking, but no more shocking than some of the behavior you can see on the news on a frequent basis, also inspired by amazingly 'backward' thinking.
Why people are susceptible to cults and like thinking has been explained, I think, by a need to belong and find meaning in life. This indicates to me that many people who think they are self-sufficient really are not.
It's really odd and disturbing.
Best wishes - Jim
You may read this short chapter listing some of the reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience#Explanations
It refers to two older papers (reference 83 and 84). However, there are much more studies about this. You may, e.g., search ResearchGate for publications on Pseudoscience.
I completely agree with James' analysis. I addition, today people have less faith in politicians and more generally in "official information". At the same time, social networks have an important role in speading false informations and some people make the assumption that their is a conspirary and that politicians are lying. In addition, in some countries the importance of science in education has decreased.
thank you very much Wolfgang R. Dick Frankly, what prompted me to this question was to my shock at some educated people who believe in Flat Earth
thank you very much Richard Epenoy Yes, regardless of flat Earth and the rise to the moon, governments spent very large sums at a time when societies were in dire need of this money for development
Omar, since you know people who believe the Earth is flat when they should know better, that means such people must believe conspiracy 'theories,' as this is a big one. (What Timothy D. Sunder refers to as 'the Big Lie,' though i think he might only contribute that to one person that others then reinforce. I'm not sure.) For a conspiracy theory to flourish, where such people are convinced that many other people are lying about a fact so that they cannot accept the same set of facts, this can only happen if one expects that many people will coordinate and lie about a fact for some nefarious purpose. For example, i have never been to Paris, but I'm certain that Paris does exist because it would take a great many people to lie about it with no one letting out the secret that it is a myth. Why should I believe a conspiracy theory that Paris does not exist? Why would I believe that there was no Holocaust? Why would I believe the Earth is flat? There would have to be too many people coordinating too much false information for that to happen in each of those cases.
So why do some people believe some things that are so illogical, when they might function logically about other matters? It must fulfill some need they have that will drive them to suspend logic. And in a group, as I noted above, people are driven to things that they may not do alone. Others give them validation for thinking such thoughts. Perhaps your flat-Earther colleagues are online with other flat-Earthers a great deal. Why they want to believe such a thing is a mystery to me. The reason must vary by person, but I suspect there may be a common theme, though I cannot think of one.
Omar Aljubouri, I've got a better question for you. Off the top of your head (that is without looking at Wikipedia or doing research), can you provide me with 10 proofs of why the earth is round based on your own reasoning and experience?
That means you can't use the example of seeing the earth from space (I assume you are not an astronaut).
Perhaps you've seen only the upper part of far-away ships or distant buildings, this owing to the curvature of the earth. But said phenomenon only shows that the earth could be curved and supported on the back of a giant turtle. Wouldn't the water the just pour off, you say? Well the same would happen if the earth was a sphere - at least the World-Turtle can have a fence around it! And anyway, the debate is on your assertion of a spherical earth, not the refutation of an alternative.
Perhaps you are one of the relatively few people who was lucky enough to take a cruise or flight around the world. Well I haven't - so should I just take your word for it? :)
I hope you get my point. You don't actually have to provide me with 10 reasons - but what I'm getting at is an even more troubling trend in recent years. The "argument from authority" has gone from a scientific taboo to a mantra. In school classrooms, science is no longer taught as an empirical system but as unquestionable wisdom, the inner workings of which can only be understood by professional academics. If you ask the average person on the street if the earth is flat, they will laugh, but would they be able to provide substantial evidence, or is it just a matter of authoritative dogma. If it's the latter, then we have no more insight than the people of the middle ages, and arguably less.
I disagree with James R Knaub in concluding that their is a some pervasive culture of delusional ignorance that embraces illogical premises because of in-group ties. There are such people (9-11 conspiracists come to mind), but there are many many more who are righteous skeptics simply asking reasonable questions. It is unfortunate that the media, and not a few scientist/activists, have chosen to engage in completely unwarranted bullying on topics that they have no right in claiming certainty in. Just to be clear, I'm not implying you are doing this, James. :)
I first encountered a similar phenomenon when I had lunch with some individuals who, during our conversation, mocked creationists and claimed to be die-hard Darwinists. Yet at the same time they had absolutely no understanding of evolution/natural selection. These same people would, in the same conversation, go on to talk about the harms of genetically modified foods, the benefits of homeopathy, and the like. So for them belief in evolution was simply a cultural, and most unfortunately a political, rather than a scientific or evidentiary idea.
In my scientific field, evolution and natural selection are foundational, and I certainly accept the overwhelming evidence, both indirect and experimental, for these theories. But while I used to be a huge fan of Richard Dawkins, I now understand his critics, and I don't really care if people 'believe' in evolution, or not. I'm far more concerned with what scientists believe, what they publish, how they market their work, and the incentives they have to navigate.
Currently, there is this notion that scientists can predict the future. This despite the fact that historically such an attitude has repeatedly led to disaster. What is especially troubling is that when short term predictions fail, these are rarely noted and the project continues, method unaltered. There are also scientists who misuse statistical methods to 'prove' things, in some vague sense. I am far more concerned about these issues than flat-earthers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/ancient-greeks-proved-earth-round-eratosthenes-alexandria-syene-summer-solstice-a8131376.html and
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eratosthenes
dear Miky Timothy
we Muslims, calculated the circumference of the earth in the year 1050, that is, ten centuries ago. The Muslim scholar Al-Biruni calculated the circumference of the earth with an accuracy that is close to real calculations.
So I don't need to give you ten reasons why the Earth is round and not "the Earth is flat."
Dear James R Knaub
Yes, below is a link from wikipedia about the Al-Biruni
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Biruni
There is the Britannica reference above, and others. You can search on Eratosthenes. Not really "Ancient" Greece, but this was about two thousand years ago.
Any reference on Al-Biruni available? Britannica had an entry for him, but I searched for information on the current topic and did not locate any within that entry.
Cheers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_circumference
Dear James R Knaub read link upper
You will find that Al Biruni used trigonometry, which is a more accurate method
James R Knaub, yes of course I know of Erasthones, Al-Biruni, Thales, Ptolemy, etc. I would recommend nobelist Steven Weinberg's excellent book "To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science" for a very readable history on the topic.
It seems the point of my (granted, rather lengthy) post was completely missed. I am not claiming that the earth is flat, but am saying that, all too often many people take for granted that it is round without any understanding of why this is so. This is a worse kind of ignorance, since it is an appeal to authority rather than to our senses.
I did take some time to compose my previous post, so would appreciate if the latter points were addressed, as I already know the earth is round and my introductory question was meant (I guess not clearly enough) as a thought experiment.
Sure you should think things out and be rational. I was writing about conspiracy theorists, people who support something crazy just because someone said so. Consider QAnon.
James R Knaub, thinking things out and being rational is different than scientific empiricism. Aristotle's teleology was thoughtful and rational, but failed under testing.
Regarding your latter example, my policy is to not discuss anything remotely related to politics, either on RG or social media (if I can help it), and just stick to questions and controversies directly related to science.
Miky Timothy While argument from authority is indeed weak reasoning, a long tradition of philosophical inquiry and scientific investigation illustrate the dangers of appealing to our senses as well.
Scientific empiricism:
I repeat:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eratosthenes
Bye.
James R Knaub, what about Eratosthenes? From wikipedia:
- "The method was based on several surveying trips conducted by professional bematists, whose job was to precisely measure the extent of the territory of Egypt..."
This was not a pure arithmetical exercise. I don't understand what you are getting at, but my apologies if I was responsible for some confusion in communication.
I believe there is also the need to make a distinction between those who are in good faith and those who are not. Since there is nothing we can do for the second category, the main problem remains the former one. On this purpose I believe that in addition to what Richard Epenoy said about the social networks' impact (and I completely agree with that) there is for many people the psychological need to think that they are special and are part of the "light forces that fight a dark, powerful enemy". And the more sophisticated (and non-sensical) their explanations become, the more they believe they're special and are doing something important in keeping fighting the big conspiracy.
Unfortunately this effect is extremely pumped up by the Dunning-Kruger effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Because of this effect, those people are also extremely arrogant in believing that they can easily beat in reasoning the cumulative efforts of the best human minds of the last 2000 years, which makes quite hard trying to convince them.
I watched Netflix's "documentary" (yeah, sure...) "Behind the Curve" and there I also heard some NASA scientists saying that perhaps we are doing something wrong in communicating with them. But if those people's assumption is that they're right and you're wrong, no matter what you say well, there is not so much we can do about it on the short term, unfortunately, and we can only hope that this middle age 2.0 will be over soon.
Fanaticism, ideological dogmatism and ideas based on irrational and convinced thinking and pregnant with ideas that accept "conspiracies" from the hand of paranoid conspiracies ... all this leads to distrust of Science (evolutionist theories are not accepted, vaccines and a long etcetera)
Thomas de Koninck : La nouvelle ignorance et le problème de la culture.
This book points to such problems
There are videos and images of the Earth captured from the ISS..........
Certainly, we hear and read a lot, but we are mainly scientists, so we believe in the proofs and phenomena that we see and perceive, not in allegations, and there are many phenomena and facts that prove the sphericity of the Earth: kindly check the following link:
https://www.popsci.com/10-ways-you-can-prove-earth-is-round/
Blaine Tomkins, thanks for your reply. You are correct, of course, in that there is no single winner in the ages-old debate of empiricism-vs-rationalism. Indeed, a position of empirical absolutism would be untenable. However, the appeal to authority should be the last resort when it comes to justification of a strongly held position.
Our compulsory K-12 education system is more thorough than what the ancients had - and yet if it is an exercise in indoctrination, than we have failed. The reason I brought up the thought experiment, in which asked the OP for 10 reasons why the earth is round, is because off the top of my head, I couldn't think of 10 examples of evidence for the answer - even though my own education surely equipped me to provide a thorough evidential argument in at least such a trivial manner. I looked it up and indeed I had forgotten all about eclipses! Which is why my attitude is that it's a lot more interesting and rewarding to actually think through and engage such questions - as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction that is so prevalent of "why are people so ignorant!".
The flat-Earth society sounds like a bit of a joke thought up by uber-cynics and arguably serves a dialectical purposes both in reminding people that the body of knowledge we possess was hard-won and cannot be taken for granted with arguments for authority. It also provides an example of the limits of human knowledge, since nobody can truly prove anything, given the absurd endgame conceit of a a brain-in-the-vat scenario.
I don't think the OP is actually asking about the Flat-Earth organization, of which I am not particularly familiar, though it appears to have a complicated history, as per Wikipedia. Perhaps they are a bunch of fanatics. But if so, given a purely hypothetical scenario in which I would need to engage with one of them in some kind of Asimovian inter-galactic sci-fi debate, I'd better have more than the argument-from-authority if I expect to be victorious! (Now that I think about it, Isaac Asimov actually did write a fun book devoted to just these kinds of explanations - forget the name.)
I find it sad when people don't believe the moon landing, more for their own sake than due to the notion being particularly objectionable. The reasons for their position are various, ranging from near-solipsistic skepticism to being purposefully misled about evidence. It's complicated.
The problem is that some proponents of Flat Earth claim that it is forged by NASA Bijay Kumar Guha
Manal Hadi Kanaan
thank you very much
Honestly, always discussing questions with your indicates that you are a highly culture person
Mahmood Mahmood, I kindly ask you to remove your previous two "follower" replies. Your double post adds nothing to the conversation, other than filling up space. And it is a poor reflection on you, since it is spam.
I will then remove this post.
I commend Miky Timothy for taking this question seriously. Many scientific "truths" unanimously accepted today would be laughed at several hundred years ago - even among the most enlightened thinkers. Furthermore, some of the most prominent theories today will surely be shown erroneous in time to come. The moral is that scientific "truth" is not static, but malleable. I recommend "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. Therefore, scientists would do well to guard themselves against attitudes of certainty, if for no other reason than to prevent contaminating science. Arrogance does not a good researcher make.
I admit that I have not experimentally tested the question of earth's roundness and I have not observed it for myself. I accept this conclusion based on my trust in the work of others (i.e., the greater scientific community). Any scientist who claims they form conclusions and make decisions based solely on observation or data they've verified for themselves is lying. (If this were true, you'd never agree to take medicine that you had not both engineered and tested yourself, or agree to fly in a plane, etc, etc,). All scientists place trust in other scientists based on the assumption that their data are accurate and their methodology appropriate.
One of the major reasons science came about in the first place is because of the limitations and fallibility of experience. First, some of the most seemingly obvious things in experience turned out to be wrong. For instance, there is color in the external world (rather than color perception being a construction of the brain). Second, we learned that some of the most powerful things in the natural world operate entirely outside our experience (e.g., protons, electrons, genes, cells, microorganisms, etc,). *My own research largely emphasizes processes that happen entirely outside of conscious awareness. Lastly, we learned that some things in the natural world operate in ways completely at odds with the way that we experience them, such as space-time.
With all that said, the statement that the earth is flat is unconvincing from a scientific perspective because it's based solely on experience. Furthermore, technically speaking, flat earth theory is not a theory. It's a statement ("the earth is flat"), but a statement is not yet a scientific theory. Suppose I made the statement "Blaine Tomkins is immortal." You would likely not believe me. So, I ask you, "Have you ever seen me die?" Admittedly, you'd say no, but you probably still wouldn't be convinced. I have just as strong of argument as a flat earther. All of your experience of me is consistent with my statement and you've never observed any evidence to the contrary. Why, then, are you convinced of the flat earth account, but not mine?
Nearly all Flat Earthers, as they are called, have their beliefs rooted in religion. Nearly none are well-educated in science. Those believing in no manned moon explorations are conspiracy theorists that are politically motivated, and very few of them have a science education.
Basically lack of education when they were young and lack of good parenting or no parenting at all. They drifted and ended up believing in weird ideas.
When I came into this continent I could not believe the low education level in the USA. It used to be a joke talking to some people there, but tragically some of them ended assaulting their own "seat of their democracy". They can't even understand that!
I am certainly not qualified by my training in science and engineering to answer the original question for this discussion. I believe the answer lies in the realm of social sciences and psychology where I have at most superficial knowledge and is likely related to increasing complexity in our societies and the technology base on which our lives depend.
I can observe that there has been no increase in observable facts that support a flat Earth belief. On the contrary, modern life provides a barrage of evidence inconsistent with that theory - consider satellite communications, air travel schedules encompassing both North and South hemispheres, publicly viewable rocket launches to the space station and of orbital satellites, photographs and data from the space station, orbiting satellites, and interplanetary space missions, information and images from Antarctic science missions --- the list goes on almost forever. The original observations of ocean ships, planetary motions, stars, moon and sun that lead to current understanding of the Earth's form and solar system organization are all still possible today as well (although a bit more difficult due to air and light pollution).
If indeed there has been an increase in flat earth belief (It seems to me there may simply be an increase in reporting on and awareness of such beliefs instead as I have seen no real data on this), it is apparent that there has been an increase in people willing to ignore or unable to process readily available facts. That's alarming, seems evident in other areas as well, and may be related to many social and cultural factors. I think it is important to understand and counter this trend (if real) and would welcome insight from more knowledgeable sources.
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