Posted on 08/03/2005 6:21:00 AM PDT by conservativecorner
cosmic ping!
The new theory will be called "The Big Poof".
ping
No scientist has seriously argued that the world is flat since Leucippus in the 5th century BC. The sphericity of the earth was recognized even from the very earliest recorded scientific inquiry on the matter by Pythagoras. The irony is that this nonsense originated in the early 19th century as an anti-religious myth, and is now ridiculously turned around on science. The last notable people that argued the flatness of the earth were a handful of the Christian patristic writers in the 2nd century AD basing their inanity on scripture, not on science.
No scientist has seriously argued that the world is flat
------
I once fell of the edge.
Yet scripture says the earth is a ball suspended by nothing- from Job, which is considered the oldest book in the bible, (1400-2000BCE?) So was Leucippus in the 5th century BC as much out of touch with the common man back then as the flat earthers are today?
> It's amusing and disturbing to me that many scientists
> are comfortable with presenting their theories as fact.
That just raises their discomfort level when new facts
unseat the old theory.
Cosmology has undergone a revolution just in my lifetime.
I expect at least a couple more instances of
"everything we knew was mistaken"
while I'm still here.
The real test of a scientist is whether or not they are
willing to be mistaken. If they aren't, then they're
just a zealot in a white lab coat.
That's why recently when someone on FR posted an article relating to the 20 greatest unanswered scientific questions, I had to LOL. We know squat when it comes to so many things that to think otherwise is foolish. I'm not saying don't ask the questions, but please have some humility when you ask them. We are after all only human.
I was always told that everyone in medievil(sp?) times thought the world
was flat,but I have never been directed to a scientific
tome (for that time) which actually states that the world
is flat.Do you know of any, cause I'd like to see it myself?
Also, there must be some writings where someone mentions
the flatness of the world. I have never heard of, or seen one,
all I hear is "yeah, everybody thought the world was flat."
Regarding the big bang theory, it's amazing how some theory
could be thought of, and have so much backing, only to have
so many pinholes in it, makes you wonder about the theories of
science...
Alternative term for beginning of cosmos: Bertha D. Universe
But, getting back to the point, Thales of Miletus in the 6th century BC conceived of the earth as flat and floating on water. His ideas carried down through a series of noteworthy philosophers (esp. Anaximander) until Leucippus and his student Democritus refined them a century and a half later. I won't go into all the details, but the very prescient atomic theory derived from the same line of philosophizing as did the very incorrect flat earth cosmogony. Democritus later abandoned at least most of Leucippus' errors, while arriving at an even more remarkably precise view of the world. He wrote this:
There are innumerable worlds of different sizes. In some there is neither sun nor moon, in others they are larger than in ours and others have more than one. These worlds are at irregular distances, more in one direction and less in another, and some are flourishing, others declining. Here they come into being, there they die, and they are destroyed by collision with one another. Some of the worlds have no animal or vegetable life nor any water.--Democritus, according to Hippolytus
Meanwhile, Pythagoras who was a contemporary of Leucippus (except on the other end of the Hellenic world) had come up with his harmony of the spheres, including at its center the sphericity of the earth. Plato and Aristotle would embrace the Pythagorean spherical earth and the harmony of the spheres rather than the Miletan philosophy of the (tympanic) flat earth. Unfortunately, Aristotle also threw out the baby (atomic theory and the open universe) with the bathwater.
So, did I actually answer your question? LOL Hmm.. Well, most common men don't ponder such topics very deeply, but to the extent that they did many of them probably had some dim awareness of sphericity. The big huge tip-off that anyone can see is the moon. It's spherical. A modicum of thought takes you from that to a spherical earth. The only real confusion arises from the disc-like optical illusion, which very little thought can usually overcome. But, yes, the ancient philosophers were very out of touch with the common man, who was mostly interested in getting laid, making money, and bashing heads, not necessarily in that order. =)
No part to my knowledge states that the earth was flat, but that didn't stop a few from interpreting it as such. I think one verse refers to the "four corners" of the earth (a sphere doesn't have corners) and another refers to the earth as the foundation of God's house or the floorboard of his chariot or something like that (foundations and floorboards are literally flat). I guess it's all a matter of just how literalist one wants to be.
Eratosthenes in the 2nd Century BC knew the Earth was round. He even accurately estimated the circumfrence of the Earth at around 25,000 miles. Columbus would have starved had he not blundered into the New World on his way to find India.
"It's turtles all the way down."
Harvey Firestein has already copyrighted that.
What part of "scientific method" don't you understand? All of it, maybe?
Scientists do not present theories as fact. There is a complete method used in science (cleverly called the scientific method) which outlines how it is done.
Facts are little things, like the hardness of a rock or the color of a solution. But science is not just piling up facts. Science is facts AND theories. Facts alone are of limited use and lack meaning. A valid theory organizes them into greater usefulness. And, a powerful theory includes all relevant facts and allows predictions to be made and tested (i.e., falsified). When theories are tested, they are either retained, modified, or sometimes discarded.
Non-scientists often don't understand this procedure. They sometimes even gloat when a theory has to be modified or discarded. "Look, those scientist boys don't know everything after all, tee hee tee hee!"
You see that on the creation/ID posts here on FR. That gets old after a while.
I once did too. The hangover the next day was one of the worst I've had.
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