steve v wrote:
Using the Flat Earth example again, the FES's
notions
are generally unclear in terms of whether they are
actually sincere (still), or that they might be
speaking metaphorically, or IMHO from the POV of human
experience. Thus it can rather ridiculous to talk in
terms of science, without explaining what their actual
point is, which might be something like:
'Thinking about the Earth as round is only a
conceptual construct which also requires thinking
along notions of complex relativity-- in real life, we
intrinsically think of the world as Euclidian, and
therefore, "flat." The FES might just be claiming that
the religious view that all souls be on the same
plane, or else that in personal terms, thinking in
global terms is just a waste of precious time.
IOW: While its easy to call such people stupid, its
hard to say exactly objectively what such group
actually represents. Skpeptical "science" (ie. science
POV) doesnt offer insight into this basic aspect. The
articles talk about FES "models" of the Earth,
assuming that models are the actual *point* of the
group--the physical descriptions may be quite
irrelevant.
The difficulty here with the FES POV is that we're not hearing it from
FES supporters. We have no evidence of what they still believe. It's
very easy to overcome such a group's arguments when the only ones they
have are the ones we have imputed to them.
Ec