Comment on Witness
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 4 hours agoIs it not an extraordinary claim to say that a giant flaming ball of plasma millions of miles away is responsible for our day/night cycle, seasons, and in a large part, weather?
Is it not an extraordinary claim to say a large, spherical rock hundreds of thousands of miles away is responsible for the tides?
Is it not an extraordinary claim to say we’ve launched astronauts into orbit around the earth, where they’ve lived for months at a time?
Is it not an extraordinary claim to say that all things with mass warp the very fabric of our reality, to the point where large enough masses can bend or even permanently trap light?
Is it not an extraordinary claim to say that light is actually made up of particles that have no mass, but travel at a measurable speed and interact measurably with other particles?
Is it not an extraordinary claim to say that tiny, basically invisible organisms are responsible for a wide variety of ailments and sicknesses that have affected all life on earth for billions of years?
Like seriously, what’s your bar for “extraordinary”, and why does the moon landing meet it?
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
And I would expect you to believe nobe of that without extraordinary proof, but the real difference is all the propaganda and active deception during the time.
You should believe literally nothing any government said during the cold war without external validation.
And don’t forget we live in a world with Flat Earthers, not everyone has seen that proof you take as self evidence.
Zron@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Okay, how about the fact that the Soviets congratulated the US on the first moon landing.
You know, the two opposite sides of the Cold War, and the other side admitted they were beaten?
That seems like pretty good proof
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
Wait, which is it? I shouldn’t believe any extraordinary claim without extraordinary proof? Or just the ones that were made during the cold war? You still haven’t given your definition of “extraordinary” either. And how is a layman supposed to obtain “extraordinary proof”? Is “extraordinary proof” different from “external validation”?
What are you actually trying to say here? Because it sounds like you’re tacitly implying that laymen shouldn’t believe scientists, but that would be asinine, so please correct me if I have that wrong.