Xref: utzoo talk.religion.newage:1237 alt.flame:901
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!ames!rutgers!rochester!bbn!lf-server-2.bbn.com!jr
From: jr@lf-server-2.BBN.COM (John Robinson)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.flame
Subject: Re: The flat earth
Message-ID: <350@lf-jr.BBN.COM>
Date: 9 Dec 87 17:50:35 GMT
Organization: BBN Communications Corp., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 46

In article  <17127@bu-cs.BU.EDU> madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) writes:
>About the flat earth stuff:  It's easy to show the earth is spherical
>and also to find it's diameter.  All you have to do is take the angle
>of the sun to the earth in relation to two lines (preferably
>perpendicular).  Like, angle of sun to earth along longitudinal and
>latitudinal lines (ie north-south and east-west).
>
>Do this at three points widely separated (same hemisphere) at the same
>time on the same day and look at the data you get.  The discrepancies
>in the data will give you the angles necessary to project to the
>center of the earth.  The geometry and math is simple so it is left as
>an excercise to the reader.

I think it's not too hard to find the circularity in this argument if
one tries.  Why assume that sunlight travels in straight lines?  If
the earth is flat, what does a line of longitude or latitude really
mean?  What do you mean talking about hemispheres?  I'm not going to
construct the whole alternative mechanics, but in principle you can
get a consistent flat-earth theory if you also revise some assumptions
that are taken so for granted you might not have considered them to be
assumptions (but to many they may have been in the fifteenth century).

Of course, this is exactly what happens when you take the round-earth,
solar system, galaxies and big bang model and try to make it
consistent.  Indeed, light has to travel in bent lines and parallel
lines have to sometimes meet for the current (most popular) cosmology
to be consistent with observation.  And there are several competing
theories for the structure of things on beyond general relativity,
each with their vocal adherents.  11 dimensions?  Come now!

The principle of Occam has to apply - given two theories which explain
a set of observations, you should trust the simpler one.  In our
experience, what with moon landings and whole-earth photographs, the
flat-earth theory begins to turn into a conspiracy theory of the
grandest order.

In the end, however, all we are doing is looking for consistency
between theory and observation.  Improved observations let us detect
better theories (in Occam's sense) as history progresses, but
alternative theories are still that.

Did you know that gravitation is a sham?  The earth is expanding at an
ever-increasing rate; its acceleration is 32 feet/sec/sec!
-- 
/jr
jr@bbn.com or jr@bbn.uucp