The flat earth hypothesis is more intellectually bankrupt than creationism.
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
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- 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
No Covid conspiracy theory allowed either for or against flat earth theory.
- 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.
- 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?
- Lots of inside-Earth visual and scientific reasons to be skeptical that we are on a spinning ball.
- 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.
- 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)."
- R2
"Motive to lie ~ extremely viable to explain with FE, money being the most blatant and others being more paranoid and/or cryptic."
- R3
"Lots of inside-Earth visual and scientific reasons to be skeptical that we are on a spinning ball"
- R4
"Almost every single reason why the flat earth is rendered impossible is based on the axiom that NASA isn't lying to us. "
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.
Definition of intellect1a: the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will : the capacity for knowledgeb: the capacity for rational or intelligent thought especially when highly developed
- 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).
- 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.
"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.
- 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]
- 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."
"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'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."
- CR2
"First backfiring concept by Pro: That there is more disagreement among flat earthers than there is amongst Creationists"
- 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?"
"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."
"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."
- CR4
"By the way, SpaceX is 100% permitted by and done via NASA:
- 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."
- CR6
"Third, final and most brutal and consistently present backfiring concept in Pro's case: Older theories are wiser theories."
"I reiterate that Creationism isn't even a theory,"
"Creationism is the most ancient theory of them all out of all of these theories. "
"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."
- 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."
- FR2
"There's a reason NASA even 'admit' that we live in an oblate spheroid that's bigger in the south:"
- 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."
- 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)."
Argument: Con's arguments were rebutted by Pro, such as that NASA's view is the only scientific offer for the global perspective, and that the video Con offered showing solar perspective as producing an angular path does not include a diminishing size of the sun. Equally, Pro did not defend Con's rebuttal that creationism is only an ex nihilo proposition. In fact, Pro acknowledges it when there are numerous sources that some scientists reject both this notion, and that creation and evolution do not co-exist. However, Pro misses a significant Con claim regarding the horizonal mirage demonstrating the diminishing perspective of ships and mountains when Con claimed in R3, "It's only obvious when it's sunny." Pro missed taking the initiative to clarify that the diminishing perspective is also evident at night, and there is no convenient horizonal mirage in that case, yet the diminish, or the augmentation is still evident. This was a significant miss. Tie
Sourcing: Con's sourcing was too easily rebutted by Pro's sourcing, such as the angular solar path, and the solitary NASA view by Con. Points to Pro.
S&G: Tie
Conduct: By Con's two forefeits, Pro wins the point.
Crossed would argue Pro on this one.
I am aware I made 2 errors (not really errors but flip-around) of explaining why your 'ancient is best' backfires. I'll correct myself in the next Round but basically it is a futile point to even raise regardless of backfiring.