Today, I'm gonna be addressing what is arguably a controversial topic (for reasons beyond me)- namely, the fact that the Earth isn't actually flat. Now, this is something I could probably write a whole essay on. There's one big thing holding me back though- I don't actually have a list of arguments to dispute. I'll come up with some I've seen in the past, but a lot of the argument is just pointing out fallacies.
Firstly, let's take a quick look at the scientific method. It'll be useful later, I promise. Essentially, it goes like this:
Now, let's apply this to the Earth. There's an old (and I mean old (though not necessarily the first experiment relating to Earth's curvature, just the oldest I know of)) experiment in which a stick is planted straight upright at the equator, and another way North of the equator, and the difference in the shadows is measured. From there, a hypothesis is formed- namely, the Earth being round- and further tested. Eventually, a model of the Earth is created (initially geocentric, then later updated to be heliocentric, but all the while having a spherical Earth). The heliocentric model perfectly explains the shadow lengths, the day/night cycle, eclipses, planetary motion, and countless other things like that.
On the other hand, we have the flat Earth "model". I use those quotation marks because I've never actually seen a concrete model, only talk of how it might work. On the less extreme side, there's a flat Earth, with a sun floating above it (I believe around 8000km but I may be mistaken), going in circles and somehow illuminating a specifically shaped part of the planet. On the more extreme side, the moon is a transparent disc, only one of many, which work together to create phenomena such as solar and lunar eclipses. This model, from what I've seen, is very self-contradictory, and goes against lots of known laws of physics.
This raises a question- how much of modern physics are we meant to throw out the window in order for this system to work? Gravity, for one, wouldn't work the way we know it. As is pointed out in a Vsauce video, a disc Earth would have a gravitational pull towards what we call the North pole, and near the South pole you would be standing almost parallel to the ground. I've heard that the entire planet is accelerating upwards- but that means, of course, that we would eventually be going faster than light, and all of Einstein's work would be nullified too.
Enough of the scientific method for now. Another problem is that flat Earth people always say NASA is hiding the truth, that rocket launches are faked, etc. There are a multitude of problems with this idea, so I'll go through them one-by-one.
How many people work at NASA? How many people are required to work together in order to create such realistic CGI? It's hard to coordinate a few people without any leaking of information, let alone hundreds.
Why is the model created by NASA so much more coherent than any flat Earth model to date? The globe Earth model explains a lot of things, as I've said, whereas the flat Earth model seems to change based on what needs explaining, often in self-contradicting ways.
How much stuff are they making up? Are rocket launches (which you can go see, in person) just holograms? There comes a point where it's easier to say we live in a computer simulation than it is to say there's some organisation faking everything around us.
Now, there's one other argument people make. Essentially, they say "we used to believe [claim], but scientists disproved it. This is one of those cases". I'd be willing to accept that, if somebody could provide a good alternate model. Like I said- the one we have now works really well, and the ones people are suggesting... don't. If the flat Earth models were somehow better than the existing globe Earth model, then I would at least hear them out.
Anyways, that's all I can be bothered to complain about for now- hopefully you enjoyed it, and cleared up any doubts people may have had on the subject. If you disagree with anything in here, please leave a reply stating your case, and I'll be more than happy to have a civilised debate on the subject.
