Oh, that certainly isn't the oddest thing I've seen on the internet. Just browse Reddit for a little while and you'll come across lots. What it boils down to in the end though is that some people will just believe whatever they want, regardless of any and all scientific proof to the contrary.
Human beings... the only kind of life-form capable of such abnormal levels of stupidity that we can look at a squire and connvince ourselves that it is a circle... or a delicious ice-cone... I cannot decide if this is funny or saddening...
Oh lord, the Flat Earth Society... Yeah, My conclusion is that they are either delusional to the point of being incapable of rational thought, or they are the most dedicated trolls on the entire internet.
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"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those that don't understand it." - Florence Ambrose
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
Devil's Advocate:
People throw around a lot of smack talk about evidence and scientific proof, but I put it to you all that most scientific evidence is only 'evidence' to a very small group of people. To the rest of us it is simply the most appealing of all of the sermons we are bombarded with on a daily basis.
For example, the atomic theory. I say 'theory'. We know it's correct. Right? Everything material is made up of atoms, which are in themselves made up of blah blah proton nucleus blah blah, you all follow the concept I'm sure.
However, how many of you have actual evidence that stands as proof to you as an individual that the atomic theory is correct? You are told that it is. You have seen diagrams, equations, read papers written by esteemed scientists.
Well there are other words for those things. Some people call them Preaching. Visions. Miracles. The Bible.
I am not suggesting for a moment that the evidence is made up. I for one completely agree that the world is round, that the Earth rotates around the Sun, that everything is made of minuscule particles, that gravity is different on the moon, that we evolved from apes who evolved from fish who evolved from bacteria, and a hundred other things besides. But you know what I'm trusting for all of this? Words and pictures. Either of which can easily be faked.
I've never seen true evidence of these things. It has never been proven to me, personally, that these things are true. I look at my hand and see a hand, not billions of atoms. I look into the sky and see little shining dots, not giant balls of plasma. Hell, I don't even know from first hand evidence that China exists. I have no proof. Not really. I have never been there and seen it with my own eyes.
My point is, we take for granted that science > religion. Whilethere is a case for saying that, to 99.9% of the population of Earth, both sides of the argument are so far removed from their own lives that it is irrelevant. The average person has just as much reason to believe that Professor Schmidt from the local Observatory has seen a sun from another galaxy get sucked into a black hole the size of a pea as they have to believe that Father O'Rly has teatime chats with an invisible man in the sky.
So it's all well and good to laugh at the 'idiots' who chose a different bit of random jargon to believe in than what we chose, but when you're doing so just be aware that almost everything you think you know isn't actually what you know. It's just what you accept.
[/Devils Advocate]
No, I'm not trolling. Yes, I am rather confident that the Earth is indeed spherical (albeit mishapenly). Please do not assume this post is my coming out of the Creationist Closet.
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Take an advanced chemistry class, you'll see this shit in action. Words are all well and good, but they put us in labs so we can actually see this stuff happening. So Yes, I have seen REAL evidence of things like atomic theory, distant planets, the earth being round, etc.
As for stuff on the cutting edge... well, we have theories, but they are subject to change. Such is the way of the Scientific Method.
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"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those that don't understand it." - Florence Ambrose
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
Slice? Need I point out it is not playing the Devils Advocate when you're basically stating a fact of everyday life? The reason the world is the way it is is because if we educated each and every individual on all things we know to be true, we would spend no less than sixty years in school and probably the rest of our lives trying to live down such stress. The difference between religion and science is that science attempts to prove to you that this is how things are by testing, experimenting. Religion does none of those things, it just tells you that this is how it is, this is how it will and always shall be. That was nothing short of saying that to truly believe in science we have to know all that we know, every individual, and you know just as well as me that isn´t possible. Play the Devils Advocate all you want, you're preaching the impossible, at least until we are all networked and learn in our sleep or something. Until then, please refrain from defending people who are simply idiots, the Flat Earth Socity, the Christian Bible, Mideastern Islamics. People are, in the simplest of terms, sometimes simply idiots. And there is nothing more to it than that.
Brome Teks, you are a perfect example of why I tried to be careful with my wording. You have seen the evidence first hand. Fine. Great. So to you it is factual. However, you mention Advanced Chemistry Class. Surely you are aware that the vast majority of human beings on Earth have not and never will take such a class?
To every human being who has not seen the evidence first hand, there is no more a reason to believe it over anything else.
Allow me to give an example: Wind Farms. I have absolutely no clue whether they are effective or not. I have been presented with 'factual evidence' that PROOVES, without a shadow of a doubt, that they in fact cost more energy to create and maintain than they produce. I have seen equal 'factual evidence' that PROOVES, without a shadow of a doubt, that the reverse is true. Both quote well-respected scientists, both show charts and graphs, and throw numbers at you, and claim to have seen more evidence first hand.
And you know what else is the same about both of them?
They both say you'd be an idiot not to agree with them.
Climate change. Is it happening? I'm inclined to believe so. Plenty of scientists would call me an absolute idiot for saying that. For all I know there may be people on this forum, reading this post right now, cringing to themselves over the fact that I, personally, accept climate change as a fact. Why do I believe it? What evidence have I been given that conclusively proves it is happening? None. Not really. And I am presented with a similar amount of similar articles/studies saying the complete opposite.
I believe it because I choose it as the most logical, likely sounding reality, and then I subconsciously avoid most things that try to convince me otherwise. Am I an idiot? Either way plenty of people would say yes.
BIos, you partly misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that everyone is shown everything that is 'true' in all instances, because as you suggest such a thing would be impossible. What I am saying is really two-fold.
The reason the world is the way it is is because if we educated each and every individual on all things we know to be true
Who knows to be true? I know to be true that animals feel pain. Many scientists, biologists, zoo keepers and whoever besides would agree with me.
There are people who know to be true that animals do not feel pain. They have 'proof'. Did you know that fish can't feel pain? Something to do with their brain, apparently. I somewhat disagree. I have no proof either way, but I disagree. Am I an idiot for doing so? (This is not a hypothetical question, please tell me)
My point here is that the educator decides which truth to pass along to their students. This gets even hazier when you start including philosophical (but arguably provable) truths. For example, I would state that good and evil do not exist. I would state that no human being, past or present, can be considered 'evil', and I am so absolutely certain that that statement is factually and provably correct that I would bet my very life on it, in the most literal sense. That is the extent to which I believe that truth.
Some of you reading this may feel so strongly in the reverse that you would bet your own lives. We would each be convinced of our own truths, which we would each believe we have clear evidence to support, and yet clearly we cannot both be right.
Second part of my point is that, therefore, we cannot call people idiots for believing something that we 'know' isn't true. We can disagree, certainly, and we can try to convince them otherwise, absolutely, but to pass them off as '
simply idiots' is just abhorrent.
To give an example, have you read 1984?
The people in Orwell's 1984 are conditioned to believe that whatever the State says is true. If it was not true before they said it then it BECOMES true once it has been said. Therefore 2 + 2 = 5, if it is said to do so. The reason that people believe this is that they have been conditioned to accept it. They have been brainwashed, in our modern conception of it, they have succumbed to propaganda.
Are they all idiots? When we read 1984 do we scoff at the pathetic morons who spend 2 minutes every day yelling at pictures of enemies who they have forgotten were, only a week ago, stoic allies? Or do we scorn the society that has enforced this system?
The reason I mention this is that most very strict, ultra-religious people who hold the admittedly odd views that we enjoy making fun of so much will almost exclusively have been brought up in a household that follows those beliefs, possibly living in a community inside a country within an alliance of nations that all hold that exact same belief. So how can we call them idiots when in all truth they have been conditioned from birth to believe that? They are conditioned in the exact same way that most of us are conditioned to say 'please' and 'thank you'.
Most of the Americans among you will swear the pledge of allegiance to the flag, right? Why? It is a concept that you have been brought up to accept as the norm, and one that from outside of the US can unfortunately come off as seeming a bit strange or even comical. But it is forgiven because it is known to be the societal norm. Within religious societies the same is true; children are told by those they trust most (parents and by extension, priests/whatever, who are said by the parents to be the highest authority) all of these theories and ideas, and if they are ridiculous, how is the child to know? What frame of reference has the child for not choosing otherwise?
With that in mind, surely we can all accept how difficult it is to change a view or belief that you have held since childhood. Even when faced with overwhelming evidence otherwise, people can be forgiven as simply being 'stubborn' as opposed to being stupid for not accepting that evidence.
Anyway, I feel this post is probably long enough. To make sure no one misunderstands me, I'm not saying that we should sit back and happily accept people thinking the Earth is flat. We should try to show them otherwise. But they are not idiots for thinking that, and there are more similarities with the way they accept their world truths and the way we all accept ours than we would perhaps care to admit.
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Brome Teks, you are a perfect example of why I tried to be careful with my wording. You have seen the evidence first hand. Fine. Great. So to you it is factual. However, you mention Advanced Chemistry Class. Surely you are aware that the vast majority of human beings on Earth have not and never will take such a class?
To every human being who has not seen the evidence first hand, there is no more a reason to believe it over anything else.
It wasn't just advanced chemistry, they started proving this stuff to me as Early as elementary school science classes and high school chemistry classes. A good educator will not only tell you the conclusions, they'll provide demonstrations and hands on activities to show the results of these conclusions and spend a good deal of lecture time teaching why people have come to these conclusions. Bios actually has it right here, good science offers evidence and the path to their conclusions, and it's simply a matter of education.
Originally Posted by SliceOfDog
Climate change. Is it happening? I'm inclined to believe so. Plenty of scientists would call me an absolute idiot for saying that. For all I know there may be people on this forum, reading this post right now, cringing to themselves over the fact that I, personally, accept climate change as a fact. Why do I believe it? What evidence have I been given that conclusively proves it is happening? None. Not really. And I am presented with a similar amount of similar articles/studies saying the complete opposite.
Actually, among reputable scientists (rather than ones that large corporations give the title to with a large sum of money to defend the status quo) there is practically zero controversy that humans activity is causing climate change. All the controversy is on what the end results will be, just how badly we've screwed up, and what we can do to fix it. But they all agree that climate change is happening, and it's our fault.
Anyway, I feel this post is probably long enough. To make sure no one misunderstands me, I'm not saying that we should sit back and happily accept people thinking the Earth is flat. We should try to show them otherwise. But they are not idiots for thinking that, and there are more similarities with the way they accept their world truths and the way we all accept ours than we would perhaps care to admit.
Oh no. Not even slightly. Look through their pages. I've periodically been checking in on these clowns for the last 5 years, and seeing their pages is what lead to my conclusion of "Trolls" or "Beyond hope." There are literally thousands of accounts on that forum of people who came in and tried to educate them, and they're all met with exactly the same response. Flat Earthers think the Round Earth model is a massive conspiracy. Hundreds of people have gone on to point out the myriad of flaws with their world models, and they always either block the person, or invent some wild, absurd, claim about why a given form of evidence is not evidence of a round Earth.
Seeing only the tops of tall structures beyond the horizon? They invented some "Bendy light" crap that has absolutely no basis in reality. People did point out that light does refract, but nothing like what their explanation was. They even offered some simple, easy to carry out experiments to prove this, and what did they do? Ban the account and lock the thread. In other cases, they've simply pointed to another locked thread where someone spelled out their flawed argument and said "Case closed" without even considering any new arguments that anybody could offer.
They are completely closed-minded. They do this with literally every single argument in favor of a round earth. Explanations of satellites and space travel? Consipracies, radio towers, and weather balloons. Reasons why their explanation makes no sense? Point back to the original explanation and close the thread. Even things they could do easily on their own they ignore or invent fantastic conspiracies for.
For example, when presented with the case of why going by plane from Sydney to Rio De Janeiro doesn't take 60 hours by plane, which would be the case with their model, they came up with a variety of insane solutions to explain why the Great Circle route isn't why it's as short as it is. (By their model, Antarctica is a hoax and is actually an ice wall guarded by the world governments to keep the rest of the population thinking that the earth is round. I am not making this up.) By their model, Sydney to Rio should be one of the longest flights possible, but it isn't. Their explanations ranged from "Jet Streams," Which was noted to be inconsistent with how their explanation of satellite communication 'actually' worked. Then they moved onto how it's a big conspiracy and Boeing 777s can actually go supersonic and reach this destination in no time at all, but they don't for most commercial flights to perpetuate the Round Earth Conspiracy. When someone else pointed out that this was crazy and you could just look out the window to see Antarctica below, they retaliated by saying it was an elaborate holographic projection over the windows of the planes, and closed the thread.
You see why I think that "Hopeless" or "Trolls" are the only possible explanations for these people?
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"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those that don't understand it." - Florence Ambrose
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
It wasn't just advanced chemistry, they started proving this stuff to me as Early as elementary school science classes and high school chemistry classes. A good educator will not only tell you the conclusions, they'll provide demonstrations and hands on activities to show the results of these conclusions and spend a good deal of lecture time teaching why people have come to these conclusions. Bios actually has it right here, good science offers evidence and the path to their conclusions, and it's simply a matter of education.
Well I would be inclined to think that actually you weren't shown evidence. I would assume that you were told that such evidence existed and then perhaps had it described to you?
In other words, imagine a court case. In that court case a witness steps up and says "I have it on very good authority that the accused is guilty. He was the only person in the room other than the victim, and by the time he left the victim had been murdered. The only probable and logical conclusion is that the accused is the murderer." "And you saw the murder take place?" "Well no, but I've spoken to someone who did."
That is not 'evidence'. It would make a rather convincing argument, granted, but it is not evidence. It's a mix of circumstance, logic and the claims of others. Such is the majority of our education system, even in the sciences. We trust our teachers, and of course we have reason to do so, but very little hard evidence is granted to the pupil. Even when we do see the particular piece of science in action, we have to have some faith (and I use that term purposely) that we're being told and shown the truth. I have seen, for example, Potassium reacting with water first hand. I had it clearly explained to me, and then it was demonstrated. So do I have any grounds whatsoever to doubt that the reaction, as in the video, is how the element potassium reacts whenever it comes into contact with water?
Well actually yes. I happen not to doubt it, but speaking purely hypothetically, of course I have grounds to doubt this 'evidence'. Do I know, and I mean really know that I was witnessing Potassium? I don't know what pure Potassium looks like. I've never walked past a chunk in the street. It could have been another element, or a cleverly disguised miniature explosive. Do I know that the water had nothing else in it, no compound to cause the reaction? No, I certainly don't. I didn't check that it was normal water before the experiment occurred.
This may seem to be being paranoid, but think about how often people 'see' falsities. What is magic, if not the purposeful misleading of the onlookers? What were witch doctors, and charlatans, and all manner of other people who made professions from deceiving others? One might even mention priests. There are plenty of folk who believe they have witnessed miracles, and I'm sure you'd be quick to assure them they had been mislead. Why is it such a leap to assume that scientists could not pull similar tricks? I'm sure you, Brome, given enough time and a bit of money, could fake a potassium reaction well enough to fool someone who had never witnessed one before. You could even come up with a bogus explanation of why, and they would never question it. That is what I mean by things not being hard evidence.
(Oh, and before you reply to the above question with "Scientists would have no reason to deceive people like that, they only search for the truth", I would respond, once again with my Devil's Advocate hat securely fastened on, that the exact same could be said of Priests. Scientists are just as likely, hypothetically, to be driven by the desire to become rich and possibly even famous, if their falsified discovery was convincing enough and captured the public and/or corporate imagination)
Actually, among reputable scientists (rather than ones that large corporations give the title to with a large sum of money to defend the status quo) there is practically zero controversy that humans activity is causing climate change. All the controversy is on what the end results will be, just how badly we've screwed up, and what we can do to fix it. But they all agree that climate change is happening, and it's our fault.
I'm going to be a jerk now, although it's ok because I'm fully aware of it: Prove that claim. Show your evidence. On what basis can you state that almost all scientists support the theory? Do you personally know almost every scientist on Earth? Have you spoken to them face-to-face on the subject?
(I have the ulterior motive here of wanting to see your evidence because I desperately want the claim to be true. It would rather help to restore some much needed faith in humanity!)
[The entire rest of Brome's post]
I can completely accept that they are closed-minded. That's fine. But I maintain that calling them 'idiots' or 'hopeless' is still extremely dismissive. It fosters a hatred of these people, where instead we should be pitying them. What do you think of civilians in North Korea? What do you think when they weep for their dead dictator, and fall to the street wailing because a man they thought of as a god-upon-Earth has left them, when he almost single-handedly kept them in conditions approaching starvation and made North Korea an enemy to almost the entire planet? Do you look at the brainwashed children in rags and think them idiots, or do you feel sorry that they have been fooled so utterly into thinking in that way? I would sincerely hope it's the latter.
Well, this logic can apply to other fooled people as well. Perhaps the brainwashing element isn't as strong, fine, but I would imagine that very few of the people who believe in flat Earth have ever NOT believed in flat Earth. In other words, my assumption is that the vast majority of members (ignoring trolls saying it for the lulz and people joining to convince them otherwise) have believed that the Earth is flat from their childhood. Their parents will also have believed it, and will have passed it along as truth. At what point does a child holding the clearly incorrect beliefs of their parents become a 'hopeless idiot'? Is it the moment they become an adult? The second they turn 21, or 18 or 16 or whatever date you believe corresponds with a higher intellectual station? Are they always idiots? Is a 3 year old who believes in Unicorns a complete and utter fool?
My point is simply to have a bit more understanding of others. Of course you can disagree with them. In fact with opinions like theirs I would absolutely encourage it. But the clear tone of most people here is that these crazy wackos are just fools that the world would be better off without, and I take offence to that. It's almost funny to me that scientists will often not think of simple psychology when they are preaching to (or about) the scientifically unconverted.
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Part 1: The evidence is all around us, all day, every day. Evidence for chemistry, physics, biology, sociology, you name it. Science is based on understanding the natural universe, and hence the entire natural universe is evidence that is considered by science. Yeah, dominant theories change over time, usually in reaction to new evidence. But always based on evidence. You can see examples of chemical laws in action in things as simple as opening a soda can, brushing your teeth, or just baking. The key is learning how to interpret it in a manner that's self-consistent and accounts for all evidence you've seen.
Most people don't even think about how these things affect our daily lives. But every time you turn on a computer, or listen to the radio, thousands of years of scientific progress and understanding is what has made those things possible.
I'll give an easy example. Take a candle burning. You can observe that it is giving off heat and light, and that over time more and more of the candle melts and disappears. A normal person would just take that for granted, but you're seeing evidence of all manner of processes there. It's giving off heat. Why is that? Why isn't it giving off cold? Have you ever actually seen anything give off cold? Well, the fridge does, but then it gets all warm in the back. Where did that warmth come from? Well, since the inside of the fridge is cold, or the opposite of warm, that warmth probably came from inside the fridge. Yes, it's a bit of a tangent, but it's all evidence of the laws of thermodynamics. A smart person observes all these interactions that occur in our day to day lives, and comes up with ways of modeling them, models that have predictive power. As more and more evidence is compiled, people start to be able to explain the reasons for them. In the case of thermodynamics, combined with a wealth of evidence, people manage to devise that temperature is actually kinetic energy of little particles.
How did they come to the conclusion that matter is made of tiny particles? Well, If I wanted to go into full depth, I'd teach a class. Have this to help you understand it: Wikipedia: History of Molecular Theory
Part 3: It progresses beyond closed-mindedness when this forum has existed for years, mountains of evidence from performable demonstrations to simple thought experiments have been compiled, and they still reject every shred of it that doesn't mesh with their worldview. That does, by my definition, qualify them as Hopeless. Without hope. Beyond redemption. Unmitigatable.
I will call into question the character of any mentally fit person, when, given a mountain of evidence and explanation, continue to hold onto a belief that is clearly and diametrically opposed to all the evidence they are presented. I will call Young Earth Creationists and Global Warming Deniers not as bad as them, because at least they have the excuse of being misled by media and religious personalities. Flat Earthers, though, have no such excuse. They are either willing to believe that the entirety of the human race as been deceived or are willing to carry out this absurdly dedicated trolling spree. If it's the latter, I applaud them. If it's the former, I call their state of mind into question.
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"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those that don't understand it." - Florence Ambrose
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
Part 1: The evidence is all around us, all day, every day. Evidence for chemistry, physics, biology, sociology, you name it. Science is based on understanding the natural universe, and hence the entire natural universe is evidence that is considered by science. Yeah, dominant theories change over time, usually in reaction to new evidence. But always based on evidence. You can see examples of chemical laws in action in things as simple as opening a soda can, brushing your teeth, or just baking. The key is learning how to interpret it in a manner that's self-consistent and accounts for all evidence you've seen.
I'm not saying that the evidence doesn't exist. That would be ridiculous. Instead I am saying that evidence interpreted can mean much less than you seem to attribute to it. You are pointing at evidence we can see, yes, but the ancient religions were based on that exact same principle. Why does the volcano explode? Well, this morning we killed a bird, and birds live near the volcano. The volcano must be angry at us. When we dance around the volcano, it stops exploding. Clearly the volcano is appeased by our dancing. Tomorrow we don't kill a bird, and the volcano doesn't explode. Therefore the volcano is a god who protects the birds, who are his sacred animal. QED.
Ug has a headache. That must be evil spirits trapped in his head. We should let them out. We smash the back of his head with a rock, and stand back to let the spirits out. Then we block the hole with moss to stop them getting back in. Later Ug feels better. Therefore the spirits in his head escaped. QED.
I am drinking the dirty water that is near my home, and have an illness. I go to the local priest, who blesses the churches private supply of water, and then gives it to me to drink. Later I feel a bit better. He tells me to thank god in prayer. I do so, and the next day I am fully cured. Therefore the holy water and prayer cured me. QED.
This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. We always try to make sense of things we see, and just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's real.
Oh, and I never said I don't understand molecular theory. I'm far from an expert, certainly, but I'd like to think I don't need a Wikipedia article as a teacher, thank you. Again: It makes sense. I believe it. But speaking as a Devil's Advocate I've still never personally seen undeniable evidence. Of course I've seen the evidence that made other people come to the conclusion. But it's nothing that has made me come to the conclusion personally. If I woke up tomorrow and saw "breaking news: molecular theory found to be a hoax", I would be shocked and would have to change my world view somewhat, but it would have no practical bearing on my life. I wouldn't be going foetal in a corner. Surely you can accept that the vast majority of the world are accepting the arguments of a minority without ever actually caring to see the evidence themselves? Surely you can accept that most people just accept molecular theory as fact without ever really thinking about it. Not really. It is the exact same as religion. The majority don't think about it. They just accept it.
Fair do, then, I suppose I'm rather happy to read that, but I would point out that I have tried to do research myself. Unfortunately it was a case of losing your glasses while wearing them: I have spent many hours reading individual accounts for and against, trying to balance it out. You would perhaps be surprised how many seemingly legitimate accounts claim that there is no consensus, or that the consensus is in favour of the 'hoax' side. It never did occur to me to check Wikipedia.
That said, it is still rather meaningless to the layman, all things considered. Take evidence such as this:
Absolutely meaningless. Could easily just be squiggles on a graph. Again, I'm not saying it IS. But surely you are aware that there are plenty of example of 'official' falsified data? Of seemingly correlating but factually unrelated data? Of survey bias? Surely you know about the various fabricated propaganda graphs used by dictators, elected governments and corporations alike, especially under friendly regimes like the Nazis, Soviets and Kim Dynasty? Technically, there should be nothing convincing about me reading an article on a website that is run by people I don't know and can be freely edited by anyone, telling me about the opinions of scientists I have never met using evidence that I don't know is real.
And in regards to Part 3, you haven't responded to what point someone becomes 'hopeless', or whether they can be excused for being brainwashed.
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This is the point where I bring in the Scientific Method. I do realize that most people don't care enough to formulate experiments to test their worldviews, but therein lies a critical difference between scientists and normal people.
Relevant XKCD
All the examples you gave offer no predictive power. They can't predict the results (accurately) of what would happen if they killed a bird next week. The Scientific Method generates models that have true predictive power, they can tell what the consequences of an action will be. A normal person might just make some connection and never aim to put it to the test. A clever man would put his guesses to the test, so he can make a better guess in the future. Would Ug always recover from a headache by hitting him in the head? Would holy water and prayer always cure my ills?
Maybe science has some generally accepted theories that are wrong. it's the exact same thing, we're trying to make sense of what we see, and just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's totally right.
That's why scientists are always experimenting, poking, and prodding to see if their theories hold up in every circumstance. And if they don't, they freely modify them.
In the end, we've been talking about whether or not the general public sees evidence that can lead them to conclusions. Of course they do. That doesn't mean they do it right.
edit: And before you start, "Right" is making conclusions that can accurately predict consequences.
Part 2: I guess not. The only thing I can tell you is to formulate an experiment and observe the results yourself. Because at the end of the day, that's all we really can rely on.
part 3: There's no magical "point" at which they cross from brainwashed to ignorant. You have to take it case by case.
In Case A, of the Flat Earth Society, they've been presented with a mountain of concrete evidence for a round earth and absolutely no concrete evidence for a flat earth, and they still cling to the flat earth theory, claiming that none of the concrete evidence is real, even when faced with the fact that they don't have a working explanation for their alternative worldview. A world view which can be disproven by acts as simple as looking at the night sky once in a while.
In that case, they are willfully ignorant or screwing with people. Accepting that the earth is round would have no effect on their day-to-day lives whatsoever.
in Case B, Climate change deniers, they've been bombarded on all sides with mountains of evidence, falsified or not, trying to show them one way or another, and have been convinced that their happy status quo is at stake from those global warming doomsayer hippies who want to take away their nice gas guzzling cars.
Even if they realize that the falsified information isn't self-consistent or is nonsensical, they still may want to believe climate change isn't happening simply for the comfort of not having to change their lifestyle and the feeling of being right while those posh university professors with their fancy degrees and Science are wrong.
You can't just say, "This is the breaking point for willful ignorance." You have to think things through.
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"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those that don't understand it." - Florence Ambrose
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
The one objective truth descartes discovered was built off logical impossibility: You can't trick somethin if it doesn't exist. You can't trick a person into thinkin they exist unless they already exist, so by definition, if you think you exist, you exist. Cogito, ergo sum. Point is, beyond this, there is no way to know that everything your senses tell you isn't a lie. They could be very good lies, but lies. You wouldn't know- your senses would just keep lying.
I for one fully believe the world outside me exists. I also felt reeeally silly sayin that. Duh it exists. But you can't objectively prove it, and you can't objectively prove anything about it. All you can do is set premises and the logical truths that must follow through on them. If someone doesn't accept your premises as true, it doesn't matter if you're right- to them, your logic is flawed.
Have you ever been around the earth? I haven't. But I trust those who say it's round. A lot of people say it's round. And honestly? I don't care to check their math. Simply put, it isn't relevant to how my life goes. I point to Sherlock Holmes: When Watson introduced him to the Copernican theory, he was astounded- he had never thought the earth went around the sun. He then immediately went about forgettin it. Watson, shocked, asked why. "Because," Sherlock said, "it has absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever." Or somethin really close to that.
Between you me and the fencepost (and the internet), I think these guys are nuts- they could do some simple calculations to determine whether or not the earth is round or flat, and they'd only have their own senses and logic to fight. But what slice is sayin is that you can't prove them wrong objectively, no matter how hard you try. You can only set the premises and follow logically. And if they don't accept your premises as true, or if their logic is different (bad), they won't agree, no matter how right you are.
How can this exist?
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Originally Posted by SliceOfDog
