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Flat-Earth theory – Why such views are increasingly taking hold and how the physics community should best respond (physicsworld.com)

submitted 3 days ago by AwesomeLowlander to c/longreads

63 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://archive.ph/vEoA7

The idea that the Earth is a sphere was all but settled by ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle (384–322 BC), who obtained empirical evidence after travelling to Egypt and seeing new constellations of stars. Eratosthenes, in the third century BC, became the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth. Islamic scholars made further advanced measurements from about the 9th century AD onwards, while European navigators circled the Earth in the 16th century. Images from space were final proof, if any were needed.

Today’s flat-Earth believers are not, though, the first to doubt what seems unquestionable. The notion of a flat Earth initially resurfaced in the 1800s as a backlash to scientific progress, especially among those who wished to return to biblical literalism. Perhaps the most famous proponent was the British writer Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1884). He proposed the Earth is a flat immovable disc, centred at the North Pole, with Antarctica replaced by an ice wall at the disc’s outer boundary.

The International Flat Earth Research Society, which was set up in 1956 by Samuel Shenton, a signwriter living in Dover, UK, was regarded by many people as merely a symbol of British eccentricity – amusing and of little consequence. But in the early 2000s, with the Internet now a well-established vehicle for off-beat views, the idea began to bubble up again, mostly in the US. Discussions sprouted in online forums, the Flat Earth Society was relaunched in October 2009 and the annual flat-Earth conference began in earnest.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (10 children)

“It’s not really an education thing,” she says. “It really is about distrusting authorities and institutions. [It] seems to be based on both a conspiracy mentality and a deeply held belief that looks a lot like religiosity but isn’t necessarily specifically tied to a religion”.

[...] Their lack of trust in authority includes not just scientists but scientific bodies such as NASA, all of whom (they think) are part of a massive conspiracy to prevent the flat-Earth truth being revealed. “[They] view the world through this really dark filter where [they] assume that all authorities and institutions and corporations are just there to exploit you.”

Yeah that really resonates with me, an anarchist. You can't trust authorities, you have to find out things your own way. Especially this part:

Oddly, Landrum says that many flat-Earthers may distrust scientists, but they are not against the scientific method. “The majority of them put a lot of faith, for lack of a better word, in science. There’s a lot of curiosity and a lot of scepticism and a lot of the really good qualities that make scientists.”

how the physics community should best respond

These people haven't hurt anyone. Why won't you just let them believe what they want to believe?

[–] AwesomeLowlander 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Oddly, Landrum says that many flat-Earthers may distrust scientists, but they are not against the scientific method. “The majority of them put a lot of faith, for lack of a better word, in science. There’s a lot of curiosity and a lot of scepticism and a lot of the really good qualities that make scientists.”

There are many experiments that can be done by a single person to prove that the Earth is a sphere. Some of these experiments have been known and performed for millenia. If flat-Earthers were truly scientific, they would have changed their minds based on those experiments. Instead, they willingly blind themselves to the obvious and come up with ever more elaborate theories as to why their experiments returned a result they disagree with.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

Certainly there are many experiments that can be done by a single person to prove that the Earth is a sphere, but who really has the time (and motivation!) to perform them?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They have their theory. It’s compatible with their experiments. They’re not being “unscientific”. What they believe makes perfect sense given their very strong priors against the possibility that the earth is round.

If you want to criticize them, criticize they way they obtained those extremely strange priors. Do not call people “unscientific” for doing science based upon different prior believes then yours. If everyone have the same believes, there would be no scientific progress.

[–] AwesomeLowlander 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Science does not HAVE any prior beliefs. It seems like you don't quite understand what the scientific method entails.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are you denying Bayesian statistics now? I’d argue that is even more “unscientific” than denying the earth is round.

[–] AwesomeLowlander 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Bayesian statistics

Given its irrelevance to the basic concepts regarding the shape of the Earth, I fail to see the connection

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Under the Bayesian way to do science, you start off with some beliefs (”priors”) about what your trying to understand. You then devise experiments that either confirm or deny those believes. You then update your priors based on the data you see from the experiment.

A normal person might start off with, say, 70% belief that the earth is flat. They then look at some data (take an airliner around the world, look at pictures of earth taken by satellites, do some of those curvature measurement experiments, …). Each time they update their priors, and soon enough it becomes a 99.99% belief that the earth is NOT flat.

A flat earther, for some reason, starts off with a 99.99999% belief that the earth is flat, along with a 99.99999% belief that the government is trying to hide the fact from them. You show them some experiments, they might update their priors to a 99.999%. To convince them the earth is not flat, you would need a LOT of data. You might tell them to look at previous experiments done on this, but due to the 99.99999% belief that the government is lying, they would only have a 0.00001% confidence in the data reported by scientists. So it takes a lot more to convince them that the earth is not flat.

Now why did they start off with such strange priors? They’re probably conspiracy nuts. You can criticize them for that. But don’t call them unscientific if they are still doing experiments and updating their priors.

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