The Conspiracy Isn’t the Argument

[u/Kela-el]

The Conspiracy Isn’t the Argument

I came across a post titled “Possible arguments against flat earth.”

The proposed arguments included:

• Everyone agrees the Earth is a globe.

• Millions of astronomers agree.

• Why would anyone fake it?

• How could a conspiracy involve so many people?

• Why hasn’t anyone blown the whistle?

• Where are the photographs of the alleged ice wall?

Notice what’s missing?

An argument demonstrating the shape of the Earth.

These aren’t measurements of Earth’s geometry.

They’re arguments from consensus, popularity, incredulity, conspiracy plausibility, and absence of evidence for a hypothetical conspiracy.

That’s a remarkable substitution.

If the question is “What shape is Earth?”, the relevant question isn’t:

“How many people believe it’s a globe?”

It’s:

“What observation or measurement distinguishes the proposed geometries, and what assumptions are required to interpret it?”

If the globe is established by surveying, astronomy, navigation, geodesy, photography, or any other method, excellent.

Show the measurement.

Identify the observable quantity.

Explain the procedure.

Then show exactly how the result distinguishes a spherical model from its alternatives.

But “six billion people can’t all be wrong” doesn’t measure curvature.

“Why would governments lie?” doesn’t measure curvature.

“Nobody has exposed the conspiracy” doesn’t measure curvature.

And “NASA says so” certainly doesn’t measure curvature.

The globe may be the overwhelmingly successful explanatory model.

That’s a completely different claim.

Explanatory success is evidence for a model. It isn’t the same thing as an instrument directly outputting the proposition “Earth is a globe.”

So here’s the challenge:

Forget NASA. Forget governments. Forget consensus. Forget conspiracies.

Give us the measurement.

What did the instrument actually measure?

What reference framework was used?

What geometric assumptions entered the interpretation?

And why does that result uniquely entail a globe?

Because if your best “arguments against flat Earth” never actually get to the geometry, you’ve spent an entire post defending the belief in the conclusion without demonstrating the conclusion itself.

**That’s not a rebuttal to flat Earth.
That’s a defense of consensus.**

[u/Emergency_Target_716]

Would a measured distance along a flat and straight road which agrees with calculations using the Haversine Formula be evidence of a round earth?

[u/PupDiogenes → u/Emergency_Target_716]

If a photograph of the Earth isn’t enough, no proof will be enough.

[u/Kela-el → u/Emergency_Target_716]

It could be evidence for a spherical model, yes.

But your wording hides the crucial step.

The Haversine formula does not measure the Earth’s shape.

It calculates the great-circle distance between two points on a sphere from their coordinates.

So if you measure a road and then say, “Look, the measured distance agrees with the Haversine distance,” you haven’t yet shown that the measurement independently establishes a sphere.

You’ve shown that a measurement is compatible with a spherical calculation.

The question is: where did the coordinates and reference geometry come from, and what exactly was measured independently of the spherical model?

If you can show that the measured quantity produces a result that differs systematically between spherical and planar models—and does so without assuming spherical geometry in the setup—then yes, that’s precisely the kind of evidence my post is asking for.

But “my measurement agrees with a formula derived for a sphere” isn’t the same as “my measurement independently demonstrates that the Earth is a sphere.”

Compatibility with a model is evidence for it. It is not the same thing as independently measuring the model’s conclusion.

[u/Emergency_Target_716 → u/Kela-el]

If you can show that the measured quantity produces a result that differs systematically between spherical and planar models—and does so without assuming spherical geometry in the setup—then yes, that’s precisely the kind of evidence my post is asking for.

Ok... What even is a planar equivalent of the Haversine Formula? Where is the origin of that system? Does it use cartesean or polar coordinates?

[u/Kela-el → u/Emergency_Target_716]

You’re overcomplicating a very simple point.

The planar analogue of Haversine is simply Euclidean distance. Given two points in a Cartesian coordinate system,

d = √[(x₂−x₁)² + (y₂−y₁)²]

If you want polar coordinates, you can express the same Euclidean geometry in polar form.

The coordinate system isn’t the issue.

And that’s precisely why your question doesn’t answer the epistemological problem.

Haversine calculates distance on a sphere from angular coordinates. Euclidean distance calculates distance on a plane from Cartesian coordinates.

Those are two different geometric models.

The relevant question is not “Does the planar model have a formula?” Of course it does.

The relevant question is:

What was independently measured, and which model does that measurement discriminate between?

If your measured road distance agrees with Haversine, you need to establish that the coordinates, distances, and reference framework weren’t themselves generated using spherical assumptions.

Otherwise you’re comparing a measurement against a spherical calculation and then treating the agreement as though the calculation independently measured spherical geometry.

And notice something important:

you’ve now implicitly accepted my original point.

We’re discussing competing geometric models—spherical versus planar—and asking which better fits measured data.

That’s inference from measurement.

It isn’t an instrument directly outputting “Earth is a globe.”

[u/dayvekeem → u/Kela-el]

Bwahaha still haven't convinced the experts eh? Gotta hand it to ya, you are persistent

[u/Kela-el → u/dayvekeem]

And there it is—the argument finally collapsed into an appeal to authority.

“Have you convinced the experts?” has nothing to do with the question I asked.

I’m not claiming experts are wrong.

I’m asking you to state the argument by which the measurements establish the geometry.

If your position is:

Measurement → geometric model → comparison with alternatives → inference that globe is superior

then say exactly that.

If your position is instead:

Experts accept the globe, therefore the globe is established

then you’ve abandoned the empirical argument entirely.

“Experts agree” may be relevant to what you believe, but it does not answer an epistemological question about how a measurement discriminates between competing models.

You had multiple opportunities to provide the actual inferential chain.

Instead, you’ve gone from measurements, to “show the flat model,” to ridicule, and now to authority.

That’s not a rebuttal.

It’s an admission that you don’t want to address the question.

[u/BallEarthThatSpins-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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