The Flat Earth Society

SimonAH

wasn't the flat earth thing a Victorian conceit, a bit like Vikings wearing horned helmets?

veronese68

Maybe they're like Scientologists and they'll only prove anything if you donate huge sums of money.

optimisticbiker

Ben6899 wrote:

So last night we were talking about conspiracies, cults etc and my housemate said she always intends to do a bit of digging into the theory behind the Flat Earth, when she has a spare minute, but always forgets.

So what did I do? I had a look for myself - at The Flat Earth Society's website: http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/. I shouldn't have been, but I was left astonished after reading their "evidence" for the earth being flat. It's a right load of bollocks!

Has anyone else set time aside to critique this theory?
Are there any Flat Earthers on BikeRadar? If so, can you give us a one-post run down?
Are Flat Earthers a bit nuts?
Can there possibly be any sense in their claims?

Well that wasted a pleasant 30min yesterday afternoon... the most polite way to describe this crap is "content free". I note the pages in their wiki on 'Space Travel' are empty, probably had an apoplexy trying to find something to write that explained the moon landings, GPS systems, etc.

rjsterry

Just been on the FE Wiki - I feel like I need to give my brain a shower. The Earth has been known to be spherical since antiquity and the earliest surviving terrestrial globe predates Columbus' return by a year. The flat Earth idea does have some history beyond Victorian reactionaries, though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

Interestingly, Christianity seems to have always been pro-sphere, as was Islam.

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

Interestingly, Christianity seems to have always been pro-sphere, as was Islam.

Round stuff gives more depth for spiritual bullsh!t.

Flat stuff is a little two dimensional for that kind of thing.

Kieran_Burns

DonDaddyD wrote:

I can't believe no one can remember the Zombie war of '03.

The CIA pumped drugs into the atmosphere to make us forget.

The fact that we do not remember proves it worked, yu'see.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Interestingly, Christianity seems to have always been pro-sphere, as was Islam.

Round stuff gives more depth for spiritual bullsh!t.

Flat stuff is a little two dimensional for that kind of thing.

<shakes head disappointedly> I'd expected better than that from you.

Kerguelen

TailWindHome wrote:

I strongly suspect that when clever types such as fizzycists get to the point when most people stop understanding what they are saying, they start making stuff up. Black holes and such like....

Making stuff up? I wish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPIEW0fN ... re=related

There's one at the centre of our galaxy.

That Stephen Hawking fellow is having a right good laugh.....well sort of.

I'm sure he is.

Kieran_Burns

Holy Crap.

I'm hooked!

What you're interpreting as spherical could easily be an optical illusion of a flat disc illuminated by the spot light of the sun. Your example of a "conspiracy" again shows a lack of competent understanding of the conspiracy on your part. You don't understand how it is possible because either you can't or you simply don't want to.

What you're interpreting as a flat disc illuminated by the spot light of the Sun can be more accurately and more robustly interpreted as a oblate spheroid.

What you're interpreting as a flat disc illuminated by the spot light of the Sun could be interpreted as the top of the horn of the saddle on a unicorn in a marmalade forest under a sky filled with diamonds. Just saying, if you invoke what could be while ignoring what is more useful, you fail.

Goes on to:

I don't because it doesn't make any sense and it's rather idiotic. The planets are spheres because a planets gravitational field pulls all nearby matter inward (when the planet is changing from a nebula) causing angular momentum resulting in the mass beginning to spin. As this happens, more matter is pulled in and as the planet spins it takes a spherical shape from the matter organizing itself as close to the center of gravity as possible.

What I've just briefly outlined is the currently accepted theory of why planets are spheres and not discs, cylinders, pyramids, or shaped like Jesus. If you sincerely want to hold your claim up above the current scientific standard, then you will need to provide hard evidence (an internally consistent story doesn't prove anything) followed by a logical argument to support your claims, otherwise you're wasting your time.

and is answered by:

Gravity does not exist and therefore your entire paragraph based on such a pointless topic is irrelevant.

What.
The.
Hell???????

DonDaddyD

OK here goes...

The truth.

On my commute home I was once stopped by an unassuming police officer. I hadn't RLJ'd or infringed on any law but the officer was insistent that I had committed a crime, though would not specify. As I agrued with him someone lept from the shadows and put a bag over my head. I was bundled with my bike into the back of a van. When they let me out they had taken me to a facility and showed me a great something, that for legal reasons I'm not at liberty to say.

They then led me by gunpoint to a set of rollers and a Lotus 108 bicycle. Pleading with me I lept onto the bike/rollers and started to pedal and I mean really pedal.

My intention was only to bend light ever so slightly but I got too excited and I started to fold space around our solar system. I warned them, I really did. I said that there may be consequences if I unleashed the full ferocious magnitude of perpetual awesome excellence from my thighs. I saved the day, I saved the World but the Earth is on the direct opposite side of it's original orbit around the Sun.

While there appears to be no difference the Earth is no longer where it should be.

Sorry.

rjsterry

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Holy Crap.

I'm hooked!

What you're interpreting as spherical could easily be an optical illusion of a flat disc illuminated by the spot light of the sun. Your example of a "conspiracy" again shows a lack of competent understanding of the conspiracy on your part. You don't understand how it is possible because either you can't or you simply don't want to.

What you're interpreting as a flat disc illuminated by the spot light of the Sun can be more accurately and more robustly interpreted as a oblate spheroid.

What you're interpreting as a flat disc illuminated by the spot light of the Sun could be interpreted as the top of the horn of the saddle on a unicorn in a marmalade forest under a sky filled with diamonds. Just saying, if you invoke what could be while ignoring what is more useful, you fail.

Goes on to:

I don't because it doesn't make any sense and it's rather idiotic. The planets are spheres because a planets gravitational field pulls all nearby matter inward (when the planet is changing from a nebula) causing angular momentum resulting in the mass beginning to spin. As this happens, more matter is pulled in and as the planet spins it takes a spherical shape from the matter organizing itself as close to the center of gravity as possible.

What I've just briefly outlined is the currently accepted theory of why planets are spheres and not discs, cylinders, pyramids, or shaped like Jesus. If you sincerely want to hold your claim up above the current scientific standard, then you will need to provide hard evidence (an internally consistent story doesn't prove anything) followed by a logical argument to support your claims, otherwise you're wasting your time.

and is answered by:

Gravity does not exist and therefore your entire paragraph based on such a pointless topic is irrelevant.

What.
The.
Hell???????

I know. I popped back to look at the Wiki section at lunchtime - amusing how there are so many gaps in it - and it's like a portal into some weird parallel world. I love the sigs in the forum: 'GPS doesn't need satellites' is a favourite. You have to admit that anyone who goes on there to try and set them straight is probably more misguided than they are. The stuff about the Antarctic - sorry 150ft Ice Wall - is beyond parody.

Kieran_Burns

I'm presently spluttering at the article that the Moon produces it's own light.

Apparently sunlight can put out flames and the Moon injures plants and people.

Ben6899

These people are allowed to vote.

This fact scares me.

notsoblue

Kinda related:

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience
http://www.reddit.com/r/shittyaskscience

rjsterry

Kieran_Burns wrote:

I'm presently spluttering at the article that the Moon produces it's own light.

Apparently sunlight can put out flames and the Moon injures plants and people.

Did you see the Antimoon explanation of an eclipse?

Antimoon

Where's that gif of Greg's?

Ouija

DonDaddyD wrote:

Ouija wrote:

It's a common fallacy that people used to believe the Earth was flat. In fact, throughout most of history, people have never held that belief (though they did think it was some funny old shapes... but flat wasn't one of them). Even two thousand years ago, the flat earth society would have been deemed a bunch of wierdos.

Can that be substantiated with any evidence or references to evidence please?

Lol. I think it would be just as interesting to provide evidence that any scholars have believed the world was flat... Since Aristotle calculated the exact curvature of the Earth and it's diameter very few Greek/Roman scholars or subsequent Arab and Europeans have ever held the belief that the world was anything but round.

A large part of the reason most people think ancient people believed the world was flat was largely in part to the popular mid 20th century Gershwin tune "They all laughed" which contained the line "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus/When he said the world was round." when in fact that wasn't the objection to Columbus at all. As with all popular tunes where the writer didn't do his research ("there will be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover" anyone ..... we don't get BlueBirds in Europe) it's sheer popularity tends to make people think it must be true, since they can't be arsed to research every line of every popular ditty (not as if they had the Internet back then you know).

As for the Columbus thing. Most educated people believed the Earth was round back then. Their objection to Columbus wasn't that sailing West wouldn't take him round the other side of the planet to India, thus saving going down under Africa, it was his claim that it would be 'quicker' and easier to get to India sailing West. Most scholars and sailors knew roughly the circumference of the planet and rightly claimed that the ships of that time couldn't endure sea voyages of the length and duration needed to reach India going that way round the globe. Turned out they were right. Columbus's grasp of distance wasn't that great, which is why when he hit the East coast of America he was convinced he'd reached India, hence native Americans being labeled 'Indians' (their inability to rustle up a chicken korma didn't factor into his understanding of things apparently ).

So Christopher Columbus.... bit of a plonker really....

Stevo_666

Ben6899 wrote:

These people are allowed to vote.

This fact scares me.

Having had a quick trawl through their forum, it's even more worrying that some of these people are let out unsupervised. Jeez, I've never seen such a pile of deluded, blinkered shyte in a long time!

rhext

I don't understand how anyone could doubt that the Earth is really flat. Have none of you ever seen a map?

jimmypippa

You think that is odd:

Concave Hollow Earth

(The Earth is a sphere, and is hollow, and we live on the inside, with the sun at the centre, and I think Australia opposite us... )




I have no idea what that picture means.

Ben6899

jimmypippa wrote:

You think that is odd:

Concave Hollow Earth

(The Earth is a sphere, and is hollow, and we live on the inside, with the sun at the centre, and I think Australia opposite us... )




I have no idea what that picture means.

"UNDERGROUND". Brilliant.

SimonAH

Oh c'mon folks. There may be a fistful of genuine frog tossers in there - but this whole flat earth thing is a piss-take. Don't froth over some people feeding off each other and having fun winding up the 'norms' :-D

Aidy

Is anyone else ridiculously tempted to become a member?

rjsterry

SimonAH wrote:

Oh c'mon folks. There may be a fistful of genuine frog tossers in there - but this whole flat earth thing is a piss-take. Don't froth over some people feeding off each other and having fun winding up the 'norms' :-D

I think you are maybe giving them too much credit.

Stevo_666

Given the amount of time and energy some of the inhabitants of that forum invest in defending their position, seems to me that the majority are 'frog tossers'. Quite amusing though to read some of the debates.

Kieran_Burns

Stevo 666 wrote:

Given the amount of time and energy some of the inhabitants of that forum invest in defending their position, seems to me that the majority are 'frog tossers'. Quite amusing though to read some of the debates.

Like Richard Branson is the Devil 'cos he has a goatee?

Or the Moon shines because of a huge luminescent biomass that migrates across it's surface to cause the phases of the moon (which is only 3100 miles away...)

sketchley

Has to be a joke, no other explanation works and anyone who says otherwise is just in on the joke.

Stevo_666

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Given the amount of time and energy some of the inhabitants of that forum invest in defending their position, seems to me that the majority are 'frog tossers'. Quite amusing though to read some of the debates.

Like Richard Branson is the Devil 'cos he has a goatee?

Or the Moon shines because of a huge luminescent biomass that migrates across it's surface to cause the phases of the moon (which is only 3100 miles away...)

You'd probably only think Branson was Lucifer if you had Virgin Broadband.

The luminous 'Moonshrimp' theory did raise a dry smile, as did the idea that there is no gravity but the earth is being accelerated constantly by a howling wind of some sort blowing from below :-)

bails87

Stevo 666 wrote:

Jeez, I've never seen such a pile of deluded, blinkered shyte in a long time!

http://www.fstdt.com/Top100.aspx

Here is a question you.

So a light year = the distance light travels in a year.

You mentioned the figure 11 million light years away.

So my question is how are we observing this light 11 million light years away now?

I'm not 11 million years old, i'm 20.

---

If it takes 11 million years to travel to earth, how can i see it now? I'm only 20.

If it takes 11 million years to travel to earth then the viewer would need to be 11 million years old.

---

I don't believe light travels at all, i've looked at various models and worked on many but none of it works

Some things can not be explained by science. Take for example, rainbows. Rainbows are a mystery and you can not touch them, just like god. Despite this fact, they are still there even though there is no scientific explanation for them. So next time you find yourself doubting your faith, think of god as a rainbow. I know that this can be a difficult concept for some of you to grasp. It is just like air you can't see it but you know its there

The sun isn't the only source of light you know? Think of a cloudly day, there's light coming from somewhere.

Spectacular.

That's full of religious nuts btw, some stuff might not be SFW.

EKE_38BPM

Ouija wrote:

...Columbus's grasp of distance wasn't that great, which is why when he hit the East coast of America he was convinced he'd reached India, hence native Americans being labeled 'Indians' (their inability to rustle up a chicken korma didn't factor into his understanding of things apparently ).

So Christopher Columbus.... bit of a plonker really....

This also explains why Jamaica, Barbados etc are known as the West Indies, Columbus thought he had reached the west coast of India.

EKE_38BPM

Just had a rethink and realised that is rubbish. It would have been the east coast of India.