RE: Are Flat Earthers As Crazy As We're Led To Believe?
At least two easy things should dissuade anyone.
First, that the stars in the southern hemisphere revolve at all. They should, in a flat Earth, pass from left to right (while looking south), but instead they revolve around a point, meaning that the Earth has two external axis of rotation, like a spinning ball. The reason they revolve, as you say, "the other direction", is from you reversing your point of view. They still go from East to West, but you are looking south, not north. This could only happen on a Sphere. A Secondary point is that someone in South America sees that point of revolution as directly south, and someone in South Africa sees it as directly south too, but they (on a flat earth) would be looking 30 degrees or so to the left. Instead they look towards the south central point of a globe.
Secondly, that Australia (for example), fills the right number of degrees of longitude, and is the right miles of length, east to west. On a flat Earth, it should either fill the known amount of degrees, and be much wider than measured, or it should be the length we can easily measure, but fill far fewer degrees than we can also measure. Instead it is the right size and fills the right number of degrees - that it would on a spheroid.
BTW, the oblate spheroid shape has been known for about a century. I learned it in grade school 50 years ago. But your mistake is in thinking it is literally pear shaped. The degree of oblateness is so small that it's not even visible except under careful electronic measurement. Tyson is a blatherer and exaggerates for Infotainment.
Another mistake I hope to correct is your bewilderment at Oceans not falling off the bottom of the earth. The mistake is in thinking there is a bottom. There is no significant gravity in any direction other than towards the center of the earth. There is no external "down" for the oceans to fall towards. Therefore the gravity of Earth is adequate to hold the oceans down in the same measure that it holds you down, since you are mostly water anyway.
Finally, people get mad at Flat Earth folks because, having explained, as I have done here, certain and demonstrable truths about a Spherical Earth, they will ignore that and switch to some other factoid. Then when that is explained, having learned nothing, they go back and try to make us explain the original mistake yet again. These are things you should have learned from about 4th to 12th grade, but the schools failed to give you a proper science education. It's not your fault, but it's irritating. I usually don't bother to respond (because it doesn't help), but you seem so honestly befuddled by it all. Hope this helps.
I'm with you on this. There is no viable explanation for this presented within the flat Earth theory. I find it to be one of, if not the most powerful piece of evidence for the heliocentric model, hence why I listed it in the problems category.
I disagree with this one as any level of proof. If the Earth is flat then the cartographers who worked to create a fraudulent map that represents a globe Earth would have obviously taken this into account. It's also a very difficult thing to measure yourself without immense resources. How are you going to personally measure Australia? Or any country for that matter. You could do so on Google maps, but that isn't the same as measuring it for real. That's just measuring yet another map.
I have never heard this before so thanks for sharing it.
I am not bewildered at all. I understand how we are told gravity works. I also recognise that take there isn't a bottom when factoring in gravity, but considering the context of which I mentioned this phrase was bringing into question the existence of gravity, upside down would be the correct terminology to utilise. I feel you may have missed the point. I know how gravity is supposed to work-- I believe everyone older than five years old does. But gravity is a theory that has multiple working equations because no one can seem to agree on how it works. Gravity only needs to exist in a solar system of spherical bodies. If the Earth is flat, gravity is a moot concept at best.
I am not sure if you are using the word you in a general term or if you are specifically referring to me, but if it is the latter, then you should really read my post again. I don't believe the Earth is flat and was not attempting to convince any one that it was. The point of my post was to demonstrate why I feel so many people do believe in it, and that doing so does not make them stupid or crazy. It merely shows they have looked at different evidence from what they were presented with in an official capacity, and as such, they have arrived at a different conclusion.
To imply that I, or anyone else did not receive a proper science education at school is as condescending as it is ironic. One cannot receive a proper science education at school in the modern world. Science involves experimenting and challenging current theories to come up with ones that are more accurate or, better yet, 100% provable. This is not what we have in public education anymore. We have evolutionary theory taught as if it is fact, with many syllabuses conveniently leaving the word theory out of the title. Do they invite criticism of the theory or proposals of a more accurate one? No they do not. In spite of the countless holes in evolutionary theory, if you question it at school, you are ridiculed and laughed at. If you question it in the scientific community, you are ridiculed and ostracized by your peers. It's the same with gravity, climate change and many others. This is not science. This is politics.
Having a proper education nowadays leaves one less likely to give credence to anything that contradicts what they were taught, regardless of the veracity of what is being proposed to them. I was expelled from school just before I turned 15, yet I was still permitted to sit my exams because the schools get more funding depending on how well the test scores of the pupils are, and it was expected that I would do very well. I missed almost two years of the syllabus, including science, which was at the time a personal favourite. In spite of this, I still received 2 A*'s in science, so please do not imply that I am stupid. I understand science very well. I just do not believe that what we are being taught in today's world is even slightly scientific.
I do thank you for your comment as I learned something, and I feel that your intent was pure in nature. However, the closing paragraph was incredibly ignorant and I think you ought to talk to a lot more flat Earthers before implying that they, and everyone else who doesn't instantly write off the theory, are lacking in education.