Comment on Can't argue with that logic

fckreddit@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  In my extensive experience (I live near the coast) of watching ships, I find that by the time they’re far enough away to be disappearing, they’re also small, indistinct and hazy. I can’t honestly tell you that in decades of looking, I’ve ever seen a clear cut case of the bottom of the ship disappearing before the top. It’s all very indistinct indeed.

  If you want to convince flat earthers, the ship past the horizon thing isn’t going to do it.

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  • Wolf314159@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There is no convincing them through any kind of logic or observation. The logical proof of the shape and size of the earth is remarkably simple and straightforward, with math any trigonometry or geometry student could prove on their own. Eratosthenes did it a few thousand years ago with observations from a deep well and the shadow of a vertical rod a significant and measureable distance apart on the same day at the same time. These are simple and direct observations that anyone could make and repeat themselves. If Eratosthenes proof isn’t clear enough to them, nothing will be.

    There was even a documentary in which self professed flat-earthers performed a variation of this experiment with some careful arrangement of a laser over a large lake. Unsurprisingly, they did measure the curvature of the earth (with much less precision than Eratosthenes), but they still couldn’t accept the results.

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    • davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think we both agree that if someone really doesn’t want to believe something, they’ll disregard things that conflict with their world view.

      What I suspect we’ll disagree on is the extent to which everyone, very much including those of us who consider ourselves rational and sensible and at the science-trusting end of debates, form our beliefs about reality via a purely social and societal process of parental beliefs, teacher beliefs, peer beliefs and reading on and offline. Not through experiment. Rarely through actual evidence. Mainly through believing other people who we think are telling the truth or better informed than us.

      This is the context for my point about the ships over the horizon thing. It’s not even very convincing evidence to someone who already believes the conclusion and sees a lot of ships sail away.

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      • Wolf314159@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Stop trolling me by trying to blur the line between scientific processes and social belief structures. Claiming that I don’t also apply logic and scientific thinking to analyze my own beliefs is also petty rage-bait, as if epistemology hasn’t also existed for a very long time.

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  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Really? I’ve seen it firsthand quite often. It’s very obvious when you’re in a kayak, because you’re so low to the water.

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    • davidagain@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yes. Really. I find it hard to believe that people can see that clearly at the sea horizon, because I just don’t.

      Maybe it’s just hazier in my part of the world, and I mainly stand or sit on the shore. The sea is very cloudy round us, whereas I know it’s crystal clear on some parts of the world. But part of me still thinks you think you saw what you think you saw because I’ve genuinely tried to see it and can’t make out the detail. Maybe it’s just that most of the boats I watch to the horizon are oil tankers, and they’re just not very tall compared to their length.

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      • marcos@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yeah, nowadays most places where people usually see ships are so polluted that they can’t see them disappear. Also, ships are so large that you have to look a the details to notice them decreasing.

        The same applies to the stars, people just can’t see them anymore, so they never notice them rotating. People also do not navigate by the Sun anymore.

        People nowadays are so disconnected from Earth that they do indeed have no problem believing it’s flat.

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      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Nope, I’ve definitely seen parts of a ship disappear. You can see the bridge and superstructure, then the upper parts of the hull, and then the whole boat. Under good conditions, you can quite clearly see the bridge, but not the rest of the vessel.

        This would have been even more obvious in the age of sail.

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  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Imagine if we had some kind of tool we could use to see far away…

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