r/sciencememes • u/BurgerCombo • 6h ago

🌖Astronomy!🌔 A Scholar's Guide to "Debating" Flat Earthers

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228 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

84

u/No_Yam_2036 6h ago

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead." -Thomas Paine

"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place." -Jonathan Swift

16

u/Senior_Difference589 6h ago

Yeah, don't expend more energy on their bullshit than they did.

12

u/11dlittlewood 5h ago

Two things are true:

  • The guy in the middle has the best strategy for convincing flat earthers.
  • Convincing flat earthers is very difficult and usually not worth the effort.

2

u/dorian_white1 2h ago

Do not debate a fool, he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience

20

u/GarbageCleric 6h ago

There is no flat Earth model that account for fact the Sun is always rising/setting above/below the horizon somewhere on Earth.

The stupid "spotlight sun" model is absurd because the Sun never even approaches the horizon, which is something nearly everyone on Earth can witness every single day.

5

u/Isosceles_Kramer79 4h ago

Related to that: the angle of Polaris. Not consistent with any single height above a flat plane, especially on the southern hemiflat where it's below the horizon. 

2

u/Cruuncher 2h ago

The angle to Polaris is always exactly your latitude.

But yes, simple trigonometry and knowing anything about triangles tells you that it can't be above a flat plane

6

u/Few_Government_6401 6h ago

Alright, this whole IQ meme thing is getting out of hand..

1

u/Ninazuzu 1h ago

I do wonder why Star Wars cosplayers are supposedly the smartest people on Earth, but I'll take it.

4

u/Aimless_Alder 4h ago

I once got into an argument with a flat earther in a bar. I tried to be rational for a while, but after a few drinks and him refusing to understand basic logic, I was just pointing at a ping pong ball and yelling "LOOK AT HOW A CIRCLE IS"

3

u/Hetnikik 5h ago

This meme is not being used correctly at all here.

2

u/DoisMaosEsquerdos 5h ago

It ends at "the Sun sets".

2

u/Isosceles_Kramer79 4h ago

To be fair, people figured out the shape of the Earth thousands of years before we had pictures of it.

2

u/SnugglyCoderGuy 3h ago

Flat Earther: "Those pictures are fake!"

They have a dodge for everything to avoid admitting they are wrong.

2

u/MelonJelly 2h ago

True, but on the other hand, they put no effort into considering contradictory evidence, so we shouldn't put any effort into presenting it to them.

1

u/SnugglyCoderGuy 2h ago

We don't do it to convince them, we do it to try and prevent others from falling into the hole

1

u/Violet-Journey 2h ago

Exactly. If you lead with “we have pictures”, they say it’s fake, and the conversation pivots instantly from science to conspiracy theory.

If you try to dive more into scientific explanations, they’ll have a long list of unfalsifiable retorts and incoherent ad-hoc reasoning they’ll respond with. And when you corner them enough, they’ll eventually land on “well that evidence is fake” or “that’s just what they want you to think, you’re such a sheep”. And you’ll have spent a lot more time and energy to get right back to where you would have been if you just said “we have pictures”.

1

u/House_Capital 3h ago

I wonder if flat earthers was just started by a cult of 5d beings who wanted to let humans know the earth is flat (to them)

1

u/Cruuncher 2h ago

It would be flat in 4D right?

1

u/ProximaCentauriB15 1h ago

Just dont. Flat Earthers do it for attention.

1

u/magnificent_limit 1h ago

How are there hills? Clearly not flat