"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
LDosser wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Doug Miller wrote:

And you must be restricting your viewpoint to Europe only. :-)
Mariners knew
for a long time that the surface of the earth is curved -- what
other explanation can there be for the fact that you can see the
masts of a distant
ship long before you can see the hull? Non-sea-faring cultures,
though, had no
such reference points -- the earth is "obviously" flat, right?

The answer to the ship-mast question can easily be answered by
positing a hill (of water) between the ships.

As to the conclusion "what other explanation can there be,"
ignorance of any other possibility is not a proof. Sherlock Holmes
said: "If you eliminate all other possibilities, whatever is left
must be the answer" is correct as far as it goes. The fact remains
that one cannot eliminate all other possibilities. There always
remain the cases of miracles, hallucination, lies, mistakes, and a
host of others. Absence of evidence is not evidence of anything.

As for the earth being flat, it is if you're building a house,
surveying a lot, plowing a field, laying out a road, building a
railroad (except for the hills), and so on. Just like Newtonian
mechanics are the ultimate truths for bowling, billiards, or
shooting a scrot who breaks into your shed.




Measuring the universe. For all practical purposes, the universe is
Flat.

The planet Mercury appears to be blissfully unaware of this.


But Cosmologists have decreed it so. And offered mathematical proofs.