
Originally Posted by
Coonehh
it provides ways to describe phenomena, (and more importantly) ways to predict phenomena.
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Fantastic post Coonehh. I have similar opinions to your own. In fact prediction is the way I fell into the round Earth camp myself. Using the Flat Earth models to predict how the sun and moon would work let me to believe those models fail to predict the most basic and obvious observations we can make about them. Round Earth, on the other hand, does a very good job.
I also agree with you on the atmospheric optics. Some random dude sitting on a boat with his gopro is a far cry from hard scientific evidence gathered in strictly controlled environments by professional scientists.
When I look at all the arguments on both sides, one side seems overwhelmingly better at explaining and predicting observable phenomena than the other. So that's the camp I find myself in. I can only suspect that other people who have done the same thing are either less capable of applying logic, reason, and basic math to their observations as I am, or they are incredulous. I'm pretty smart, but I'm still really stupid, and so I suspect it's mostly the latter.
When I began examining this subject the question of "is it round or flat" was very interesting to me. After plumbing the depths of that subject and coming away pretty well convinced, I find myself fascinated by a different question:
How can so many people look at the two models and come away thinking it's Flat? What is the source of this incredulousness?
I find it bizarre that some people can look into the information on building-7 and come away thinking that was fires. Equally bizarre to me is how people can look into Flat Earth and come away believing that.
Do you have any thoughts as to why this happens?