Instigator / Con
10
1687
rating
555
debates
68.11%
won
Topic
#2554

The flat earth hypothesis is more intellectually bankrupt than creationism.

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
6
Better sources
2
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
0
2

After 2 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

Sum1hugme
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
14
1627
rating
37
debates
66.22%
won
Description

No Covid conspiracy theory allowed either for or against flat earth theory.

Round 1
Con
#1
I have seven minutes left of this Round so I'll just list my contentions without expanding or proving them true.

FE = Flat Earth
Cm = Creationism

  1. FE ~ 1 source of concrete information for the proof of Round Earth alternative (2 with Roscosmos but it's fundamentally all done via NASA, literally every single space missions is administered by them, for them and with their permission even research in Antarctica is similar). Cm ~ many, millions of different corroborated scientific findings, organisations, experts so on and so forth all support the alternative (evolution) with extreme variation of proof and explanations. 
  2. Motive to lie ~ extremely viable to explain with FE, money being the most blatant and others being more paranoid and/or cryptic. With Cm... Why lie? Why do all fossil finders and genetic specialists all lie together? Hello?
  3. Lots of inside-Earth visual and scientific reasons to be skeptical that we are on a spinning ball.
  4. Almost every single reason why the flat earth is rendered impossible is based on the axiom that NASA isn't lying to us. This is not the same as contention 1, just strongly linked.

Pro
#2
  Thank you RationalMadman for challenging me to this debate. There are several reasons why the Flat Earth Hypothesis is more Intellectually Bankrupt than Creationism, but the main ones I will focus on to prove my case are: that there is far worse internal disagreement within the models presented by Flat Earth proponents than there is in Creationist models and that no singular flat earth model can account for every observation that globe earth theory does, that any flat earth model cannot account for the fact that the tips of approaching mountains are visible far before their bases are visible, and that creationism rejects recent science that's only about 200 years old [1], while the flat earth hypothesis rejects science that has been around at least 2000 years [2].

  Because my opponent neglected to mention BOP, I will establish the BOP as shared.

Internal Disagreement

  There is much disagreement between flat earth models trying to describe different aspects of reality. For one, flat earth cannot explain why there is a day/night cycle, while also explaining where the sun is in relation to the earth. The globe model explains these phenomena, simultaneously, perfectly. The Creationist model however, is pretty straightforward: All living things came about suddenly, at the same time, via an intelligent designer.

Mountains

  No model of the flat earth can explain why tall things, such as mountains, appear in such a peculiar way as one approaches them. Their tips become visible first, slowly revealing more of the mountain towards the base until finally, the base is revealed last. On a flat earth, this observation should not happen.

The Years

  Darwin published in 1859, around 200 years ago. Around 2000 years ago, man discovered the earth was a sphere and started measuring it. Creationists reject this much newer science of evolution, but flat earth proponent reject the stuff that's been figured out ten times as long ago.

--------------------

REBUTTALS

----------

  • R1
"1 source of concrete information for the proof of Round Earth alternative (2 with Roscosmos but it's fundamentally all done via NASA, literally every single space missions is administered by them, for them and with their permission even research in Antarctica is similar)."
  SpaceX does space missions [3], and this guy jumped from space [4], one can watch it. Additionally, my opponent mentioned the Russian Space Program, which is indeed, as admitted, a second source for information about space.

----------

  • R2
"Motive to lie ~ extremely viable to explain with FE, money being the most blatant and others being more paranoid and/or cryptic."
  This doesn't really make sense. Is this implying that NASA is being paid to lie about the earth being round?

----------

  • R3
"Lots of inside-Earth visual and scientific reasons to be skeptical that we are on a spinning ball"
  Maybe intuitive reasons, but not scientific reasons.

----------

  • R4
"Almost every single reason why the flat earth is rendered impossible is based on the axiom that NASA isn't lying to us. "
  Nope, they're based on the idea that multiple, independent sources all corroborate the Globe Earth.

----------

CONCLUSION

  In conclusion, the flat earth hypothesis is indeed more intellectually bankrupt than creationism.  I have given three reasons as to why, and in a mere seven minute opening, we have already witnessed implications by my opponent of widespread conspiracy. I look forward to my opponent's response.





Over to Con!
Round 2
Con
#3
Forfeited
Pro
#4
Extend. Hope you aren't sick or something.
Round 3
Con
#5
Seeing mountains, horizon and all that Jazz
Okay, so basically there's a thread on this website where I've made replies to the direct lies proposed by Pro. 

The first lie is that no flat earther has ever replied to or addressed the 'why can't we see mountains and why is there a visible horizon' thing. Let's paste my own writing and then move on (if Pro challenges me on it, I am happy to cite others beyond what my threads posts cited).

Let's observe what you are saying and the flat-earth arguments against it.

Let's start here: 


After you have watched that, we can explore other arguments and diagrams.

I know what you're trying to say but due to the exact same illusion that creates a miraged oasis in a desert, the actual limit of vision isn't the kind of limit you think. There's a maximum "squash" meaning if you zoom in enough it doesn't undo itself squashing into the ground. I will like you to look here and see that the mirage illusion is not fixing itself as you zoom in. (Will post link to vid once I find it).



It's only obvious when it's sunny. The effect that happens when it's less blaring sunlight is that the squashing occurs without the 'glimmering'. What also happens is that the further away the actual object is, the more brutally thin the 'squash' section is relative the rest of it. If it's a cold day, sun is being obscured by either clouds or 'white-sky', you will see the horizon appears much more like Round Earthers support. They will see the object go 'down' and 'down' and 'down' especially like a boat where the last thing to go 'down' is its sail. The squashing effect will be so minimally glimmering or visible (especially if filmed on water, which all boat-scenarios are), that the denial of there being a maximal range of vision that is there even if we had super-eyesight and telescopes, means that Round Earthers justify the 'down into the ground' effect as proof of the Earth being Round. What is even more consistent with Round Earth theory, and why it's able to mesh so well with the real, flat Earth, is that whether you go closer to the object or 'up' into the sky, you will be able to again see the object and you will 'see' it go bottom-up because you're gradually undoing the minimalistic mirage effect. The reason that it's only blatant on a sunny day is that over a much smaller distance you can already see it happening. This is also supported by the face that the 'horizon' in a desert will shimmer with much less way to tell just how 'far out' what you're seeing is unless you already knew the ratio of distance-to-mirage-size.

That is the only way to prove it in a blatant way. If it's less sun-intense environment, instead of the mirage being blatant, you will see the squashing without the 'watery' effect to make it clear how and why it's happening.

In short, such an experiment would likely only be able to squash the tiniest bit of that tiny object on the tennis court into the ground because you'd have to travel to the maximal range of human eyesight to make the squashing happen. It's only ever able to happen on the smaller scale, in a more blatant way, because of the sunlight helping speed up and maximise the effect. This is a cop-out but it's a cop-out based on there because the mirage effect on a cold/non-sunny day is literally the gradual 'moving down into the ground', that's literally the effect. There's no shimmering of any significant degree and even that tiny amount of shimmering (especially in the boat-on-water scenario) is attributed to the water or whatever else.

The point is that as soon as we realise the ships or whatever you film, going 'down' past the line of vision is not proof of Earth's curvature, we start to look elsewhere for proof and patterns. Unfortunately, most stop there and say 'well here's the proof so let's apply confirmation bias to everything else we find'. That's genuinely how and why the Round-Earth theory gained momentum with the increase of ship-movement and conquest from the colonial times through to America's origin. The natural way to have perceived reality of this world in a visual and spatial sense, would have been the flat-Earth model had we not believed we were 'seeing' things 'go over' the curvature. It is even more of an issue because the fish-eye-type lens of many oldschool pseudo-telescopes that pirate's used could even make curvature artificially appear on the horizontal way (the horizon being correctly assumed to be flat and sideways led to inspire the word 'horizontal' after all). Whether the pirates or monarch-serving sailors were using a lower tech telescope or fish-eye-type lens, it still was relatively blatant to all the the Earth wasn't quite curving left-to-right as they were still smart enough to factor in the distortion that comes with such a lens. You will point out that fish-eye lens was invented much more recently but based on how they curved glass they could make that effect happen long before.

==

Pro has yet to provide us a means by which intellectual bankruptcy is measured.

Almost all of my rebuttals except the mountain-seeing one require me to refer to the mechanics of burden of proof in this debate and how Pro has failed to meet it with his/her proposed constructive arguments (or rebuttals). The means by which we measure intellectual bankruptcy are not only failed to be provided but Pro has failed to even define what 'intellect(ual)' actually means as a term and concept.

I will now define intellectual and once I have established precisely what 'intellectual bankruptcy' is and how to determine the degree to which it's been achieved, I will then turn Pro's points against his/her own case.

What is 'intellect(ual)'?

Definition of intellect

1a: the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will the capacity for knowledge
b: the capacity for rational or intelligent thought especially when highly developed
the ability to understand and to think in an intelligent way


I want to note two things:
  1. It is not mentioned here that to be intellectual is to be correct, only that the person has to understand complex ideas (or that the idea itself is complex and requires intelligence to decipher and grasp in its entirety).
  2. The degree to which a concept or person is intellectual refers directly to complexity of the understanding of it, not to the amount of agreement within the believers.
==

First backfiring concept by Pro: That there is more disagreement among flat earthers than there is amongst Creationists

You know the cliché saying 'great minds think alike'? Well, the complete opposite is true.

I am going to be a little lazy here and quote a brilliantly written source on the matter, if Pro dismisses this because it's not my own work, I'm willing to word it all in my own way.

"Great minds think alike."

No they don't, and it would be a horrible state of affairs if they did. In fact, it is the dissimilarity between human minds that is the source of our progress and success as a species. 
Now, this phrase is usually employed jocularly, as in the case of two friends having the same idea at the same time. But its prevalence means that it rings true for some, and that is a problem.
The notable feature of great minds—what, in fact, makes them great—is that they do not think alike to any other minds, great or otherwise. It is the ability to consider independently and originally that makes thinkers powerful and important.
In addition to its jocular use, I have also heard the phrase being seriously defended on the evidence of the history of great ideas being thought up at once and by different people.
Thomas Paine: "I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree."
Consider, for example, Leibniz's and Newton's seemingly simultaneous invention of calculus. It does seem like a case of great minds thinking alike. But, other factors precipitated the need for calculus at that time (and their respective finished products weren't all that similar anyway). In other words, the alike thought was caused by something other than respectively great minds.
It is much easier, day to day, to agree than to disagree. When minds seem to think alike, it is usually a result of intellectual complacency, and of a prioritizing of harmony over rightness, not a result of genius. That is the explanation that, to me anyway, makes this platitude, used in jest or not, so wrongfully attractive; "Wouldn't it be nice," users of the phrase tacitly and hopefully ask, "if exemplary human minds reached the same conclusions?" "Wouldn't that mean that the work of collaboration and coexistence, the very (hard) work for which intelligence exists, were done for us?"
I say no.
Consider this refutation of "great minds think alike" by none other than philosopher, founding father, and great mind Thomas Paine: "I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree."
Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman says that the ego-clashes we tend to excuse among high-achievers can be counterproductive when it comes to collaborating. 

==

Second backfirint point/concept by Pro: Flat Earthers have deeper and more in-depth conspiracy theories than Creationists do.

This is directly supporting the idea that it's flat Earth hypothesis which demands more intellect to grasp and propagate. Not only have they been more inventive and thorough in their theorising but I will like to explain just how severely this is done.

Creationists are denying that the plethora of genetic scientists (not just Darwin) and basically every single lab report on inheritance, mutations etc. are all in on a conspiracy together just because some lines in a book they consider sacred says that God designed us and that we didn't evolve from or alongside other primates from an ancestral, non-human species. Also, they always seem to focus on humans, they don't tend to ever really explain how breeds of dog evolved if species didn't, or is pedigree breeding also a conspiracy theory?

Flat Earthers have a singular source of conspiracy (well dual), NASA and Roscomos. All other space agencies answer to them, do missions via them so on and so forth. This is primarily because the (International Space Station (ISS) is owned by NASA and is the hub of virtually all international space-based cooperative missions in terms of where the astronauts and/or cosmonauts stay:


All remotely significant space missions and visits into space are done via NASA, with their permission. You actually need their permission to launch anything into space at all.


You even need their permission to film in space with your baloon-carried gopro camera:


You cannot do anything in space without their permission and it is illegal to produce media and upload it online regarding space science if they have not been informed and asked. Obviously all NASA-owned content is copyrighted but I am saying that even your own content gained from outer space would not ever be allowed.

This means that a company that never been audited other than financially (which is done by a government-run auditing orgnisation to a government-run space science organisation) requires complete trust in it in order to then hold the Earth being Round as an axiom where you then can attribute acceleration downward to mass-based gravity so on and so forth.

Creationism on the other hand is not only denying far more, its theory is baby-like in depth of thinking. They say 'God made us with a purpose because the religion I believe in says so and it's obvious'. Many flat earthers are also creationists so the two aren't entirely disconnected, actually. The flat earth hypothesis is more complex to explain and often people will research it in-depth before daring to say they genuinely believe in it as there's far more peer pressure against believing in flat Earth than there is against believing in Creationism. This means that those who are using their intellect more, even by demand, vs those who are merely conforming, are more likely to be present in a group that believes something with more logic to how the conspiracy is pulled off (single point of authority) and more depth to their theory as well as pressure against believing in it, socially.

I reiterate that Creationism isn't even a theory, it merely states that God made us because it says so in a scripture that assumes God made us. Flat Earth is not based on the fact that the Earth is flat, it doesn't use circular logic. Instead, it is based on observations combined with actual explanation of how the conspiracy is pulled off and even can give motive as to why.

Pro never replied to me on what the motive is to lie about Creationism and instead propagate evolution.

By the way, SpaceX is 100% permitted by and done via NASA:

Idk what Pro thinks he/she has proven with his source 4, that guy 100% got permission from NASA and that entire video doesn't show any stars or planets outside the Earth. Also the cut-scenes could easily mean that the video is faked but then I'd have to explain what happened to the guy as he appared to leave the sky and truthfully I don't know. There is an outside of the sky in flat earth model and that Earth below is barely visible through the clouds, it easily could be flat.
==

Third, final and most brutal and consistently present backfiring concept in Pro's case: Older theories are wiser theories.

Creationism is the most ancient theory of them all out of all of these theories. If being ancient means you are more intellectually bankrupt for doubting it and being new means you are less intellectually bankrupt, then Creationism vs Evolution holds far more intellectual bankruptcy than Round Earth vs Flat Earth... 

As for Ancient Greeks who hypothesised that the Earth is flat, no they didn't know and neither did Columbus when he said the Earth must be round. In the flat-Earth model, Antarctica is the outer ring, so it's completely possible to sail around the world within the Northern Hemisphere and not know the Earth is flat whatsoever as it's identical in spacing, pretty much.


Pro
#6
  Thank you RationalMadman for your response. We can measure intellectual bankruptcy by means of examining the validity of claims, the consistency of those claims, and the honesty of those making the claims. I'm sure there are other ways I'm not thinking of. Anyways, here are the definitions you requested:

DEFINITIONS

  • Intellect - The faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially with regard to abstract or academic matters [4].
  • Bankrupt - Completely lacking in a particular quality or value. [5]
--------------------

COUNTER-REBUTTALS

----------

  • CR1
"Let's observe what you are saying and the flat-earth arguments against it.

Let's start here: 


After you have watched that, we can explore other arguments and diagrams."
  Okay, this video is exactly what I'm talking about. At 1:13 The sun is modeled to be going over the flat earth, but is also modeled to look like it is rising and setting due to perspective. Only perspective can't be a factor as shown because the angular size of the sun doesn't change according to the angle of perception from the earth. Another problem is that if the sun were over the flat earth as depicted at 6:48, then it would be day all the time. But that video has to go and deny the speed of light (6:57), so that the creator of the video can just stop the light arbitrarily wherever he thinks it looks believable. Also, at 6:47 the moon is depicted as giving off light, like a night light, but we know that the moon doesn't produce light. It's not possible [9]. it can only reflect light. This video just proves my point. In a single video, my opponent has demonstrated the irreconcilability of the flat earth models.

"I know what you're trying to say but due to the exact same illusion that creates a miraged oasis in a desert, the actual limit of vision isn't the kind of limit you think. There's a maximum "squash" meaning if you zoom in enough it doesn't undo itself squashing into the ground. I will like you to look here and see that the mirage illusion is not fixing itself as you zoom in. (Will post link to vid once I find it).


It's only obvious when it's sunny. The effect that happens when it's less blaring sunlight is that the squashing occurs without the 'glimmering'. What also happens is that the further away the actual object is, the more brutally thin the 'squash' section is relative the rest of it. If it's a cold day, sun is being obscured by either clouds or 'white-sky', you will see the horizon appears much more like Round Earthers support. They will see the object go 'down' and 'down' and 'down' especially like a boat where the last thing to go 'down' is its sail. The squashing effect will be so minimally glimmering or visible (especially if filmed on water, which all boat-scenarios are), that the denial of there being a maximal range of vision that is there even if we had super-eyesight and telescopes, means that Round Earthers justify the 'down into the ground' effect as proof of the Earth being Round. What is even more consistent with Round Earth theory, and why it's able to mesh so well with the real, flat Earth, is that whether you go closer to the object or 'up' into the sky, you will be able to again see the object and you will 'see' it go bottom-up because you're gradually undoing the minimalistic mirage effect. The reason that it's only blatant on a sunny day is that over a much smaller distance you can already see it happening. This is also supported by the face that the 'horizon' in a desert will shimmer with much less way to tell just how 'far out' what you're seeing is unless you already knew the ratio of distance-to-mirage-size."
  This video only showed that on a hot day, light rays bend upwards in the inversion layer, creating a reflective effect. There is a maximum range before any thing disappears off the horizon and cannot be seen again through a linear zoom. Unless that's falling off the earth, then it's indicative of a curve. On a flat plane, sufficient zoom could bring anything on that plane into focus. On a sphere, linear zoom will only go to the horizon for bringing images on the spherical plane into focus. My opponent has failed to explain why the tips of mountains are visible before the bases, when traveling towards them. Is this a mirage too? I think not.

" That's genuinely how and why the Round-Earth theory gained momentum with the increase of ship-movement and conquest from the colonial times through to America's origin."
  The circumference of the earth was being measured by Aristotle [1] far before colonial times.

----------

  • CR2
"First backfiring concept by Pro: That there is more disagreement among flat earthers than there is amongst Creationists"
  I claimed that there is more disagreement between the models, so my opponent attacks a straw man here. Luckily, my opponent found exactly the kind of video I was talking about, that produced several conflicting models of the flat earth. Creationists however, have a straightforward, unifying model of creationism, creatio ex nihilo [2].

----------

  • CR3
"Creationists are denying that the plethora of genetic scientists (not just Darwin) and basically every single lab report on inheritance, mutations etc. are all in on a conspiracy together just because some lines in a book they consider sacred says that God designed us and that we didn't evolve from or alongside other primates from an ancestral, non-human species. Also, they always seem to focus on humans, they don't tend to ever really explain how breeds of dog evolved if species didn't, or is pedigree breeding also a conspiracy theory?"
  Creationists don't have to believe that it's a conspiracy. In fact many believe that science supports creationism and that the Evolutionist scientists have just been misinformed.

"Flat Earthers have a singular source of conspiracy (well dual), NASA and Roscomos. All other space agencies answer to them, do missions via them so on and so forth. This is primarily because the (International Space Station (ISS) is owned by NASA and is the hub of virtually all international space-based cooperative missions in terms of where the astronauts and/or cosmonauts stay:

  Flat earthers have to assume a conspiracy on the part of NASA, Roscosmos, and every single other company with anything having to do with space. Including every single employee of those institutions. While anecdotal, I have family that worked for The Cape during the Moon Landing. My grandfather calibrated their instruments. Is he also in on the globe earth conspiracy coverup? Even ATT has satellites [2]. Also, the first link links directly to the space programs of every other country in the agreement. So my opponent has changed his singular source of conspiracy to a dual conspiracy, to now with his link, at least fifteen space agencies, all providing aspects of and using the ISS, and all lying about the flat earth. According to my opponent's own article, all these agencies provide for the ISS. NASA doesn't "own" it, all the nations involved do [3].

"All remotely significant space missions and visits into space are done via NASA, with their permission. You actually need their permission to launch anything into space at all."
  These regulations are handled by the FAA, not by NASA. To quote the article my opponent cited, "Any American citizen who wants to launch a rocket or other kind of spacecraft into orbit must obtain authorization from the FAA..."

"You even need their permission to film in space with your baloon-carried gopro camera:
  The link my opponent cited just talks about using NASA's pictures and stuff (which they are actually quite lenient on the usage of).  Perhaps this was a mistake.

"You cannot do anything in space without their permission and it is illegal to produce media and upload it online regarding space science if they have not been informed and asked."
  According to my opponent's sources, you cannot launch something into orbit without the FAA's permission. The second statement is completely unsupported.

"They say 'God made us with a purpose because the religion I believe in says so and it's obvious'. Many flat earthers are also creationists so the two aren't entirely disconnected, actually."
  All creationism actually states is that there was a sudden, special creation out of an absolute nothingness, and doesn't require declarations of purpose. One could believe in a literal Demon that created the universe, ex nihilo, five minutes ago, and no indication of purpose is to be had, and that belief doesn't conflict with the creation model.

"The flat earth hypothesis is more complex to explain and often people will research it in-depth before daring to say they genuinely believe in it as there's far more peer pressure against believing in flat Earth than there is against believing in Creationism."
  The flat earth is actually easy to explain in concept, until reality starts biting chunks out of it. All the "research"  done by Flat Earthers is a great example of the intellectual bankruptcy of FE. Even after watching hours of pseudoscience propaganda, they what, just never take the time to read the refutations? Or do they outright dismiss the refutations in their arrogance? The latter is too often what I observe. Whereas, many creationists have been convinced of Evolution as a fact of population genetics. In this light, FE seems much more dishonest than Creationism. 

----------

  • CR4
"By the way, SpaceX is 100% permitted by and done via NASA:
  The links do not support what my opponent claims. SpaceX probably needs the FAA's permission to launch things into orbit, but not NASA's. The two organizations have worked closely before, but SpaceX is a privately owned company [6]. 

----------

  • CR5
"Idk what Pro thinks he/she has proven with his source 4, that guy 100% got permission from NASA and that entire video doesn't show any stars or planets outside the Earth. Also the cut-scenes could easily mean that the video is faked but then I'd have to explain what happened to the guy as he appared to leave the sky and truthfully I don't know. There is an outside of the sky in flat earth model and that Earth below is barely visible through the clouds, it easily could be flat."
  This response captures perfectly, the need by proponents of the FE to retreat into this conspiracy mindset to rationalize their hypothesis, ad hoc. And no, he was doing the stunt for Red Bull [7]. And you probably don't see the stars because the light from the earth is already really strong, and the camera just hasn't had time to catch the very faint light from distant stars. But you know what we didn't see; the Sun and moon, as small orbs floating around the top of the flat earth.

----------

  • CR6
"Third, final and most brutal and consistently present backfiring concept in Pro's case: Older theories are wiser theories."
  First my opponent has said:

"I reiterate that Creationism isn't even a theory,"
But leads his rebuttal with:

"Creationism is the most ancient theory of them all out of all of these theories. "
  Barring this blatant contradiction, my argument isn't that older theories are wiser theories, but:  "that the curvature of the earth has been measured for far longer than evolutionary processes. These measurements have had ten times as long to be refuted, and yet, they have not been. The idea that everything is made of water was posited around the same time [8], but has since been refuted. Globe Earth has never been refuted." Therefore, FE denies more well-established science than Creationism. 

"so it's completely possible to sail around the world within the Northern Hemisphere and not know the Earth is flat whatsoever as it's identical in spacing, pretty much."
  That's not how straight lines work on a flat plane. A vector on a flat earth will reach an edge. 

----------

CONCLUSION

  In conclusion, the Flat Earth Hypothesis is intellectually bankrupt; even more so than Creationism. While Creationism posits a model of creatio ex nihilo, Flat Earth cannot avoid contradicting itself in the first video presented by my opponent, which also nicely proved my opening remarks about a specific inconsistency regarding the Sun and sunsets. My opponent's sources don't support his points and in fact, work to defeat them alongside the many baseless claims made, while I am accused of lying. The "research" by FE reeks of dishonest investigation. Then finally, my opponent must argue widespread conspiracy to make his hypothesis seem a bit more feasible. Undoubtedly, FE is more intellectually bankrupt than CE.





Over to Con!
Round 4
Con
#7
Forfeited
Pro
#8
Extend.
Round 5
Con
#9
A vector on a flat Earth reaches an edge. From one end of Antarctica to the other. Antarctica is an outer circle, not an inner circle.


^ this is a very rudimentary example of a flat Earth map. In reality, Australia wouldn't be quite where it is there and South America would be a bit further from Africa (while Australia is much further from Africa).

There's a reason NASA even 'admit' that we live in an oblate spheroid that's bigger in the south:


Do you notice how nowhere in Pro's debate, he defends Creationism? That's because it's too simplistic and unintellectual to even bother delving into, no doubt.

In saying flat Earth is 'easy to understand' Pro fails to grasp that Antarctica is the outer edge, showing one of many complex things that are so commonly misunderstood about Flat Earth.
Pro
#10
  Thank you RationalMadman for your response. 
  
  My opponent did not contest the proposed measure of intellectual bankruptcy, nor my definitions, so they will be accepted for the context of this debate. My opponent has dropped that the models he presented conflict with each other in exactly the way I described in my opening statement. He dropped the fact that mountains appearing tip-first is indicative of a curve. He did not contest that his second video did not help to affirm his case, instead proving something totally unrelated. He didn't contest that all of his sources failed to affirm his case, and instead contradicted him on every single point. He dropped that Aristotle was measuring the circumference of the Earth 2000 years ago. My opponent did not contest that he attacked a strawman in his "backfiring concepts" section. My opponent dropped that Creationists don't have to believe in conspiracies like Flat Earthers. My opponent didn't contest that Flat Earthers have to assume a widespread conspiracy on the part of all sixteen ISS-associated Space programs and all their employees. He dropped that ATT has satellites. He dropped that the FAA handles permissions for orbital launches instead of NASA. He dropped that SpaceX isn't owned and controlled by NASA, and is instead a private company. He dropped that he has to retreat into conspiracies to rationalize his baseless conjectures, ad hoc. And finally, my opponent dropped that Flat Earth rejects science that has been established and vindicated ten times as long as creationists.

--------------------

FINAL-REBUTTALS

----------

  • FR1
"A vector on a flat Earth reaches an edge. From one end of Antarctica to the other. Antarctica is an outer circle, not an inner circle."
  Yet, there has been proven no edge. Additionally, if one was to fly west or east along the equator, they would never reach antarctica, as predicted by the globe earth model, and in stark contradiction to the model presented by my opponent. 

----------

  • FR2
"There's a reason NASA even 'admit' that we live in an oblate spheroid that's bigger in the south:"
  That's because that's what shape the Earth is. It's naive to expect a space rock to be a perfect sphere.

----------

  • FR3
"Do you notice how nowhere in Pro's debate, he defends Creationism? That's because it's too simplistic and unintellectual to even bother delving into, no doubt."
  I actually did in CR2:

"Creationists however, have a straightforward, unifying model of creationism, creatio ex nihilo."

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  • FR4
"In saying flat Earth is 'easy to understand' Pro fails to grasp that Antarctica is the outer edge, showing one of many complex things that are so commonly misunderstood about Flat Earth."
 
"this is a very rudimentary example of a flat Earth map. In reality, Australia wouldn't be quite where it is there and South America would be a bit further from Africa (while Australia is much further from Africa)."
  Aside from my opponent dropping every other argument surrounding this point; the image presented by my opponent is immediately easy to grasp. The most glaring problem is that it completely contradicts reality. The second, less obvious problem is that my opponent already can't agree with how the model is set up, strengthening my case.

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CONCLUSION

  In conclusion, my opponent dropped essentially every refutation offered and foreited two rounds without any reason provided. My arguments that Flat Earth models are horribly contradictory, while creationist models are unified, have not been contested. Also, the argument that Flat Earth rejects more well-established science than Creationism does, was also dropped. My opponent has completely failed to refute any of my arguments effectively and we can conclude without a doubt: that the Flat Earth Hypothesis is more intellectually bankrupt than Creationism.