No serious study of whether the earth is flat since 1493

January 4, 2009

A rather delightful satire on the way in which the proponents of pseudo-science claim scientific objectivity. The context here by the way is the WIkipedia page on NLP.

  • X’s paper on ‘scientific fallacies’ contains only passing reference to the ‘flat earth fallacy’. [[WP:NPOV]] says “Even with well-sourced material … if you use it out of context or to advance a position that is not ”’directly and explicitly”’ supported by the source used, you as an editor are engaging in original research.”
  • The flat-earth theory is not amenable to scientific approaches and methods.
  • Flat-earth theorists are pragmatic. They are not interested in what is ‘true’, they are interested in ‘what works’.
  • Scientist X, who claimed the flat-earth theory was nonsense, clearly had not read the literature on the flat-earth theory.
  • Scientist X was not trained in flat-earth theory, and therefore could not make an expert judgment.
  • The criticisms made by scientist X were valid only against Rosencrantz’ version of the flat-earth theory, long since outmoded. They fail to address Guildernstein’s improved version of the theory.
  • You must not say ‘the earth is not flat’ but ‘according to critics of the flat-earth theory, the earth is not flat’.
  • X Y and Z are hard-line skeptics about flat-earthism. They often publish in skeptics magazines and take a hard line with any approach to any theory which is not empirically verified.
  • There is no reliable source for the statement that ‘flat-earthism has entirely been ignored by reliable sources’#The statement ‘there is no scientific consensus for the flat-earth view’ has no scientific consensus.
  • X’s statement “Informal soundings amongst scientists revealed an almost total absence of awareness of the flat earth theory” is mere opinion. X is using personal experience as evidence. This is not a scientific evidence and is therefore mere opinion.
  • The statement ‘The earth is round’ has reliable sources in scientific literature. The statement ‘If the X is round, X is not flat’ is a valid inference that can be sourced from any reliable logic textbook. But ‘The earth is not flat’, while a conclusion validly yielded by these two reliably-sourced premisses, is a violation of [[WP:SYNTH]]: “Even if published by reliable sources, material must not be connected together in such a way that it constitutes original research”.
  • There has been no serious study of whether the earth is flat since 1493. Therefore we cannot claim in Wikipedia that earth is not flat, only that a study in 1493 came to this conclusion

Its not mine by the way. Original source here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

About the Cynefin Company

The Cynefin Company (formerly known as Cognitive Edge) was founded in 2005 by Dave Snowden. We believe in praxis and focus on building methods, tools and capability that apply the wisdom from Complex Adaptive Systems theory and other scientific disciplines in social systems. We are the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world.
ABOUT USSUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

Cognitive Edge Ltd. & Cognitive Edge Pte. trading as The Cynefin Company and The Cynefin Centre.

© COPYRIGHT 2024

< Prev

End of year report

At our Christmas party in Singapore a few weeks ago, Angelina put together a slide ...

More posts

Next >

I hate Mondays

Today started reasonably well. Woke up at 0630 and made first cup of coffee. A ...

More posts

linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram