This flat earth debacle is really annoying me, lately some people I know personally keep bothering me with it. I stumbled upon it a few years back and found it fascinating as a thought-experiment to test your critical thinking. And teased some of my friends with it. Now that it is getting popular, it seems like it's chasing me.
I like conspiracy theories and question the world I live in, remain critical and skeptical at all times, but this is spinning out of control. Even my sister is losing it...
I studied optics and always had an interest in astronomy. I'm not an expert in astronomy/physics but am somewhat the most knowledgeable about it among my friends and family. Where I could fascinate them with the theories of black holes or the explanation of eclipses, some of them now get angry and try to convince me it's all a scam, and I'm brainwashed...
It's sad to see this rise in anti-science mentality, mostly among people who can't even solve a simple equation. I wouldn't bother trying to convince people who dismiss or distrust math, but it's hard when you really care about them...
So thanks to you for taking it upon you to debunk this.
I hope it helps...
Thanks. Yes, my delving into this topic has been extremely enlightening and educational for me, in more ways than one. It's very easy to disprove the flat earth argument, but they literally cannot listen to reason or even play by their own rules of performing simple experiments like this themselves. ANYTHING that will disprove their theory, they just simply reject it.
Here is the ridiculous thing one women had to say when she showed a video of the sun changing in size, and I showed her that you need a solar filter.
It's AMAZING the mental gyrations they will go through to reject ANYTHING that does not fit their world view. I'll be doing a piece soon on the fact that one of the mantras of the flat earth community is that the earth doesn't spin and no one has ever measured it.
Well, the irony is that the tecchology is SO advanced to measure it, that they use microprocessors printed onto circuit boards that are inside of phones and gaming controllers like Wii, that use the Coriolis force measurements for more realistic gaming and to measure your activity! And he bigger irony, to prevent rollovers in cars! Maybe we should take away all of the Mems Gyros from flat earthers, since it's 'scientism'.