As they watched more carefully, they noticed that the moon moved in front of the sun. Why? Notice an “answer” usually generates one or more other questions. Why and how can the moon move in front of the sun? Again observation led to the development of the concept of paths or orbits for the moon and the earth. By observing them and projecting where they led, astronomers were able to predict when an eclipse would occur and even where on the earth it would appear.
The theory developed and was useful in many ways. The concept of a theory is that it encompasses all known data and proposes an explanation as to how and why they (phenomena) occur. A theory first must account for all known data, including those points that fall “outside” of the normal range of observation. If it cannot incorporate the “out-liers” it must explain how they can be legitimately excluded or ignored.
Besides including all relevant data, the theory must correlate with all other known theories that may impinge on the subject. One theory cannot say that north is up and another say that north is down unless they are in different worlds. These two components are critical in the development and implementation of theories to explain the world.
Finally, a theory should be predictive. If it adequately explains known phenomena, then a change of parameters will produce a new and predictable outcome. It goes without saying that using the same parameters should always produce the same result. And changing them should produce a changed result.
This somewhat long and possibly boring explanation is necessary to support the following statement. A theory is not changed on a whim or based on a single or even a few data points. A change of theory must meet the previously outlined criteria. If it doesn’t meet them it is merely a fancy or a plaything. And it is bogus, spurious. (Don’t get to use that often.)((Although we encounter such items more often than we should.))
With that in mind, a puzzling resurgence of belief in a flat earth has arisen lately, even to the extent of some college football players proclaiming that they are “flat earthers.” (To be brutally frank and logical, one would surmise that such “beliefs and pronouncements” are merely the result of following a fad, which was generated by a self-proclaimed superiority and elevated egalitarianism. “We are more sophisticated than the normal population, so we have a superior view of ‘reality.’” Which is in fact an inferior view.)
A flat earth is the result of such thinking, unless it is totally ignorant of the facts, data involved in the question. But before spiking the gun permanently on such thinking, let’s give it the benefit of the du-bit. Our very first question about a “flat earth” is its configuration. We know that parts of the earth are dark when other parts are lighted. (The original “flat earth” proponents were ignorant of such data. All they knew was their limited arena, and for all they knew, the edge of the earth, as they could see or explore, dropped off into nothingness.)
But our expanded body of knowledge gives us the puzzle of light and dark on the same flat earth. How can that be? Incidentally, we also know that the sun must somehow circle this earth out of the plane, or vertically, as it comes up in the east and goes down in the west. It cannot just circle above the disk of the earth because it would not be able to follow the arc through the sky that it does.
A giant “dark wall” cannot explain how part of the earth can be light while the other part is dark, unless it is a high as the sun. It will fail as an explanation because we cannot find it. Our travel “around the world” has not produced a turning point where it is dark on one side and light on the other. Lack of data is as detrimental to a theory as controverting data. Maybe even more so.
And just being a “shade” is not enough. If you walk behind the barn, where the sun cannot reach you, it is not dark. Light is diffused by the air and when the sun is up, it is light everywhere, even shadows, except where the sun cannot reach at all. And a wall only as high as the mountains would allow the sun to shine over it and eventually reach the other side as it orbits overhead.
That is not reasonable, as the rising sun would be seen far west of the wall first then progressively eastward as it rises until it crosses the wall, and shines on all of the “sun side.” This does not happen, so the theory fails there. (Explain and correlate will all known data.)
The flat earth must be a two sided disk with light on one side and dark on the other. The route of the sun is quite complicated, as it is equidistant from all parts of the surface. More about that later. A traveler, traveling “around the world,” involve a rapid change from seeing the northern skies on the top side, to a transition “around the edge,” to seeing the southern skies in a very short time on the other side.
That is not our main reason for rejecting this theory of the flat earth. The center of gravity of a disk is not equidistant from all positions on the earth disk. So gravity would exert more force a body at the center of the disk than at the extreme edges. You would weigh more in the center of the disk than at any other point, and your weight would decrease until you “reached the edge” then flipped and began to return to a location closer to the center. At the same altitude, a body would weigh the same anywhere on the surface of a globe. More contradictory data.
But that is not even the “ dead bang killer” argument. That is reserved for the sunrise. Every place on a flat disk would see the sun as soon as it rose in the east. The far western edge would see it as soon as the far eastern edge, except for some mountain interference. But once the sun was three or four miles above the eastern horizon, higher than the mountains, it would be visible to the entire disk. Data again is a killer of bad theories.
It is relatively simple to document a “moving dawn” all across the country and indeed the entire world-disk. This even harks back to the third grade science lesson where Miss Carlson explained, or read from a book, that a ship at sea appears from the top down. First only the top of the sail is seen, then more progressively appears, top down, until we can see the entire ship. This would not happen on a flat ocean. It is a mark of a curved surface.
Likewise the progressive sunrise is distinctive of a curved surface, and not a flat one. Flat earth is dead. Scientifically, that is. It does not correspond with any observed data. It does not correlate with other theoretical phenomena. It is contradicted by observed data. And it does not predict anything that really occurs.
If it persists, it is based on, well, not to be too critical, but on faulty observation and understanding. For those who like to joust at unicorns, take your shots. I am sticking to science.
Reality is much more real. (Incidentally, the Bible does not support a flat earth, so just leave that broken arrow in the quiver.)
And that, students, is the lesson for today. Any questions?
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