“The Final Experiment”

[petermarkley]

So in my initial post about Debunking Flat Earth, I made a passing reference to Will Duffy and The Final Experiment: a collaboration between globers and flat earthers to go to Antarctica and observe the 24-hour sun.

Well, the time has come! The team, which now includes 4 flat earthers, is now en-route to Antarctica!


Sociology

From the beginning, Will Duffy has been explicitly clear that a large part of The Final Experiment is sociological—and he has not disappointed. It has been fascinating to watch the flat earthers collectively melt down over this. It’s also acted as sort of a litmus test of honesty: the genuine flat earthers are excited about the experiment, whereas the cult leaders and their zombie followers are all completely knives out attacking and trying to discredit it. It’s been beautiful to watch.

Science Education

Another really fun part of this is the science education. As a bonus on top of the Antarctica trip itself, this past week Will Duffy issued 3 challenges to globers and flat earthers to make specific scientific predictions:

• Flight distances to Santiago Chile
• Sunrise/sunset in Punta Arenas
• Distance between lines of longitude in Punta Arenas

This also in turn feeds into the sociology, because the enthusiasm of globers to participate in this sort of science education challenge starkly contrasts against the denialism of flat earthers. As such, Will told me he wants as many glober submissions as he can get, to provide the best contrast!

I took the opportunity to go above and beyond, especially with calculating sunrise/sunset. Here’s my full write-up.



I share a little more about it in this video:

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[data66]

Can't wait to see how this turns out. The debate between Will and one of the flat earthers was pretty interesting too. For anyone interested in this, you should watch the debates.

 

[petermarkley]

The debate between Will and one of the flat earthers was pretty interesting too.

That would be this one:

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[Tiffany]

Thanks for adding this debate video. I watched it for a few minutes. I can't even imagine how a flat-earther can debate the earth is flat.. like a monolith in space, within it's own gravity or something. Is that with flat-earthers see? The world has pictures from outer space satellites and the space station that clearly shows the earth is round, omg! Great topic, @petermarkley.

 

[petermarkley]

Yes, modern flat earth theory obviously goes hand-in-hand with conspiracy theories about NASA and the government lying to us all, etc.

As for gravity, they deny that too and say things fall down because of “density and buoyancy” or “electrostatics.” It’s a bunch of word salad basically. But they don’t believe in space, they think up & down are absolute directions and the earth is a contained “realm” under the “firmament dome.”

 

[Retro]

@petermarkley oh gawd, that beyond stupid firmament idea.

@Tiffany of course the globe earth pictures from the 60s are Photoshopped. Yes, some of those dumbos actually believe this.

Flerfs are so beyond stupid it hurts.

 

[Tiffany]

Firmament what, lol? This is the first time I'm hearing this. I think the science classes where these flat-earthers went to school completely failed them. I can't even believe they go against "density and buoyancy" on top of denying gravity.

I can see why the flat-earthers believe that the lunar landings in space where photo shopped. They must have been using too many psychedelics or skipped classes or something to go against proven-without-a-doubt science too.

 

[petermarkley]

One of them was smoking something from a bong while talking to me on a livestream. Another one actually tried to argue that drug trips can reveal truth

 

[Tiffany]

Lol, I'm envisioning your live stream experience a little like a Cheech and Chong scene.

Well that totally explains it... all flat-earthers are tripping too much to get back to earthly realities and scientific fact, like the earth is round and aliens don't exist or do they?

 

[petermarkley]

Lol, I'm envisioning your live stream experience a little like a Cheech and Chong scene.

Well that totally explains it... all flat-earthers are tripping too much to get back to earthly realities and scientific fact, like the earth is round and aliens don't exist or do they?

Well many of them … not all of them.

As for aliens, they don’t believe in space and I suspect most of them would mock the idea but I did have one tell me he believed in “interdimensional beings”

 

[Retro]

@Tiffany Do you know what the purpose of the supposed firmament is? To keep the air in. Seriously. Flerfs say that without it, all the air would just escape into space as there's nothing to hold it in. They can't grasp the idea of that little thing I like to call grabity caused by spacetime curvature holding onto it and the air pressure constantly reducing with altitude until it hits approximately zero at around 60 miles up. Nah, that's far too cerebral for them.

 

[petermarkley]

@Tiffany Do you know what the purpose of the supposed firmament is? To keep the air in. Seriously.

That’s very correct, but also for what we like to call religiflerfs it helps them abuse the Bible.

Because the King James Version translated the Hebrew word “raqia” as “firmament” (via Greek “stereoma”), instead of “expanse” as it should be translated. Flerfs read that, recognize the root “firm,” and go nuts.

There is also a complex mess of confusion by their misunderstanding of secular scholarship. For example in the Gesenius Hebrew lexicons, of Raqia it says “considered by Hebrews as solid.” (This idea is echoed in the Complete Jewish Bible which translates “Raqia” as “dome.”)

Of course, for any ancient person who might have believed in a solid dome, they still recognized sunset and had a flat earth model where the sun went down. Modern Flerfs do not; so no matter what we make of the Hebrew text or its wider cultural context (whether we accept or reject higher criticism, etc.) there is still absolutely no way it supports Rowbothamism—which is basically sunset denial.

I made a whole video on this subject here:

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[Retro]

Crikey Peter, you've gone deep there!

The depths of their delusions know no bounds. I'll watch your video on this. Why am I not surprised that they'd take the smallest mistranslation and twist it to such enormous proportions?

 

[petermarkley]

Crikey Peter, you've gone deep there!

As a Christian, I confess I take it rather personally when people abuse my Holy Text … especially for something so mind-numbingly stupid

 

[Tiffany]

Thanks for the science information on firmament. I'm sure I learned about that in science classes at some point, but that was a very long time ago.

Flerfs come up with all kinds of reasons the earth is flat, don't they? I'm sure they are really hard to have a discussion with, likely have very little patience to debate and get really uptight when they can't convert you to their ideology. Sunset denial is also brand new to me. The earth rotates on it's axis and it's clearly dark on one side and light on the other, hence the sun rises and sets as the earth continues it's cyclical rotation, duh.

Flerfs should YouTube some space station videos and experience the round earth from space, but then if they did they wouldn't have anything to argue about and people to annoy with their claims.

Do flerfs believe in the solar system?

 

[petermarkley]

Do flerfs believe in the solar system?

In my experience, generally no they don’t

 

[Retro]

Do flerfs believe in the solar system?

The moon is a projection, don't you know? Projected against the transparent firmament, I believe. Yup, and others say that it spins above the earth opposite to the sun and is the same size cuz they look the same size, innit?

Oh and meteors don't exist.

It just goes further down the rabbit hole. Believe me.

In my experience, generally no they don’t

Don't some of them believe that the solar system exists and that those other planets are spheres? But of course, ours remains a special kind of flatty. Not sure now.

 

[petermarkley]

Don't some of them believe that the solar system exists and that those other planets are spheres?

I’ve heard of that type of flerf, but I’ve never met or spoken to one. Might be a demographics thing, me being in America and mostly on YouTube/TikTok or something … I dunno

 

[petermarkley]

As a bonus on top of observing the 24-hour sun, the Final Experiment people asked their audience to help by taking regular photos of the sun & moon between December 10th and 20th.

The results are slowly being compiled here:

• Sun photos
• Moon photos

I didn’t have a great lens or telescope for this, and could only get about 300px of resolution on the sun or moon. But Will Duffy said I should participate anyway, and I’m glad I did.

Here are all the photos I took:


I’m tempted to keep taking photos of the moon until it’s been a whole month, so I can get my own time lapse of its libration like this:


But it was cloudy yesterday so I didn’t get a moon pic that day. We’ll see if it pans out

 

[petermarkley]

I’m tempted to keep taking photos of the moon until it’s been a whole month, so I can get my own time lapse of its libration

I’ve been very lax and at this point have missed at least 4 days in a row … not the way to capture a great time lapse. Weather played a roll for sure (one day I woke up and heard rain, so instantly knew it was too cloudy) but I also lacked the required energy/enthusiasm to vigilantly watch for gaps in the clouds like I did during the TFE Antarctica trip.

It’s entirely likely that some slight lunar libration will be visible just in the photos I’ve already captured.

This might be a case of paralysis from perfectionism. Or just holiday fatigue.

I’ll try to share here whatever ultimately comes to fruition, but it won’t be the full time lapse I envisioned. (I only ever had 300 pixels of resolution during this project anyway. Our actual telescope is in storage.)

 

[Retro]

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself tbh as it's winter so hardly optimal viewing conditions. Plus, it sounds like it's quite labour intensive, so the last thing you want is to make all that effort only to have it wasted by things you can't control. Perhaps try again in the spring or summer?

Would be interesting to see the results you do have, on here, or a YouTube video perhaps, as you see fit.

btw, I can confirm the earth is flat in another way now: I drove 150 miles across the country the other day and I didn't see no stinkin' curve! If there was was a curve, the faraway cars from my home would have all been at a bit of a funny angle when I was near them. <Retro feels really smug and clever>

 

[petermarkley]

Would be interesting to see the results you do have, on here, or a YouTube video perhaps, as you see fit.

Will do!

If there was was a curve, the faraway cars from my home would have all been at a bit of a funny angle when I was near them.

lol You joke, but I have heard flat earthers unironically say this about buildings and mountains seen through telescopes. I kid you not.

It’s like they lack the skills to judge quantities, period. Just any quantities, in any type of mathematical way at all. It might be a genuine disability, except you don’t see cripples stumping around on bloodied legs telling everyone else to use wheelchairs because cripples are the only ones who can walk.

Flat earthers flip the script like that, and then say globers flip the script. It’s the worst case of Dunning-Kruger and projection coping and gaslighting I have ever seen. It’s so thorough and forceful it’s like talking to an “infinite mirror” glitch instead of a human being. Really throws you for a loop if you’re not prepared.

I like to call it an “event horizon.” Just like black holes are the most extreme things in nature where all the normal rules break down, flat earthers are the most extreme thing in society where all the normal rules break down.

 

[Retro]

lol You joke, but I have heard flat earthers unironically say this about buildings and mountains seen through telescopes. I kid you not.

Oh, I believe that. Seriously, I do.

It’s like they lack the skills to judge quantities, period. Just any quantities, in any type of mathematical way at all. It might be a genuine disability, except you don’t see cripples stumping around on bloodied legs telling everyone else to use wheelchairs because cripples are the only ones who can walk.

Flat earthers flip the script like that, and then say globers flip the script. It’s the worst case of Dunning-Kruger and projection coping and gaslighting I have ever seen. It’s so thorough and forceful it’s like talking to an “infinite mirror” glitch instead of a human being. Really throws you for a loop if you’re not prepared.

I like to call it an “event horizon.” Just like black holes are the most extreme things in nature where all the normal rules break down, flat earthers are the most extreme thing in society where all the normal rules break down.

There's a complete disconnect there, full cognitive dissonance going on with the cherry on top. And the flipping and gaslighting is complete and total: infuriating.

I do potentially disagree that they're the most extreme thing though: Trump is. Maybe, anyway. I mean, what kind of a travesty happened back in November? One for debate, lol.


I'm thinking of starting a thread on people giving the dumbest reasons why they "know" that the earth is flat, like I've been saying in jest to make everybody facepalm with the most cringeworthy joke. Would be great to see what kind of whoppers people can come up with, lol. The more retarded the better.

 

[petermarkley]

I do potentially disagree that they're the most extreme thing though: Trump is.

I would say you have a good point, except in my experience there is nearly 100% overlap between the two groups (as a subset; not all Trumpers are flerfs, but nearly all flerfs are Trumpers) … So make of that what you will

 

[petermarkley]

Oh, and Neo-Nazis also. Most of the top flerfs are Neo-Nazis / Hitler fans / Holocaust deniers.

Since they believe the globe is a huge conspiracy by world elites, that necessarily requires someone to be that “world elites” group. And the most popular scapegoat are Jews.

Flerfs are truly awful people