Is the Earth Flat? Iraqi TV Debate.

[Knobbyboy88]

I'm sorry, but this guy makes the proponents of fundamentalist Christian Creationism look downright rational by way of comparison. "Spaceships?" "What spaceships?" "THERE ARE NO SPACESHIPS IN THE QUR'AN, THEREFORE THEY CANNOT EXIST!!!"

I'm sorry if this has been posted before. I did a search and didn't find anything.

GHETTO EDIT: Does anyone here know Arabic? This isn't some kind of elaborate hoax, is it?

[Kuroneko]

His underlying principle is that reality should conform to the Koran. But since the Earth is conformally flat, clearly he is correct.

But I'm not at all surprised at the Islamic fundamentalist here, or even that that the whole debate is apparently newsworthy in Iraq. What I'm more disappointed in is the physicist getting his facts wrong--and not in factual details, which would be somewhat understandable when one's opponent spews so much nonsense, but in elementary physical reasoning.

Although what kind position is "Iraqi Researcher on Astronomy", anyway?

[Akkleptos]

What I'm more disappointed in is the physicist getting his facts wrong--and not in factual details, which would be somewhat understandable when one's opponent spews so much nonsense, but in elementary physical reasoning.

Something like this also happened in Mexico, albeit not in such a gruesomely antiscientific way, back in the 1990's. Talkshows (some of you probably remember how big they were back then) would have "UFO researchers" to talk about alleged UFO reports (but not what you and I understand as UFO -Unidentified Flying Object- but rather downright spaceships with aliens). Then they would have this "token sceptic" ("skeptic" for our US blokes) who presumably had been selected so that a) his views so overwhelmingly dismissed alien spaceships visiting Earth as something that can only merit derision, thus marking him as as intolerant; or b) someone who was not competent enough or polite enough to conduct a rational debate (actually, I wonder now if some of those were just paid actors).

That way, you're sure to please the mostly-believing -or prone-to-believe- audience while at the same time maintaining some semblance of a balanced, rational debate.

But it's all ultimately about pleasing a TV audience. We do know what most of TV audiences are like when it comes to objectivity and knowledge of science, everywhere, except perhaps in Scandinavia.

[wolveraptor]

His underlying principle is that reality should conform to the Koran. But since the Earth is conformally flat, clearly he is correct.

But I'm not at all surprised at the Islamic fundamentalist here, or even that that the whole debate is apparently newsworthy in Iraq. What I'm more disappointed in is the physicist getting his facts wrong--and not in factual details, which would be somewhat understandable when one's opponent spews so much nonsense, but in elementary physical reasoning.

Although what kind position is "Iraqi Researcher on Astronomy", anyway?

Am I missing something? What mistakes in reasoning did they make?

[Akkleptos]

Although what kind position is "Iraqi Researcher on Astronomy", anyway?

Precisely... How can we expect that person was not selected in such just a way that he would be an uneven match for the "guest expert"?

This is television, everybody... Iraqi television, at that, in case you were considering æthical rules that these guys aren't too likely to apply, especially in a country ridden by Shia-Shiite civil internal wars.

[Kuroneko]

Am I missing something? What mistakes in reasoning did they make?

That the moon having 1/6th the mass explains why objects have 1/6th the weight while on it. Well, I suppose it would if the Moon is supposed to have the same size as the Earth, but even the flat-Earther knew it was smaller, so that's no excuse, and lacking that (completely wrong) assumption, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise (which is actually also incorrect itself).

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, though in any case it's clear that the physicist was woefully unprepared for this debate, and likely just a token sceptic, as Akkleptos suggests.

Edit:

Precisely... How can we expect that person was not selected in such just a way that he would be an uneven match for the "guest expert"?

No, the flat-Earther was the "Researcher on Astronomy". The primary person arguing against him was labeled "physicist". This raises the question as to whether "Researcher on Astronomy" is an academic title in Iraq, or just some "think-tank" label.

[wolveraptor]

That the moon having 1/6th the mass explains why objects have 1/6th the weight while on it. Well, I suppose it would if the Moon is supposed to have the same size as the Earth, but even the flat-Earther knew it was smaller, so that's no excuse, and lacking that (completely wrong) assumption, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise (which is actually also incorrect itself).

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, though in any case it's clear that the physicist was woefully unprepared for this debate, and likely just a token sceptic, as Akkleptos suggests.

No, you're absolutely right, it was a brain-fart on my part. I don't know the mass of the Moon offhand, but it obviously can't be that ridiculously massive compared to the Earth. That would be like a binary planet system.

[Xuenay]

GHETTO EDIT: Does anyone here know Arabic? This isn't some kind of elaborate hoax, is it?

It might be genuine, but the 0:40 to 0:55 bit is a tad weird. He's holding a book that has big letters on the cover saying (in English!) 'SCIENCE'? It might be part of their "knock-down skeptic" approach, and they might as well have given him test tube to mark him as a stereotypical (Western-leaning?) scientist, but it still seems strange.

[wautd]

I think it was a hoax, but with fundies you can never be sure offcourse. What with Poe's Law and all.

[bz249]

Of course the earth is flat, the direction of the gravity is perpendicular to the surface on average. Thus in this metric it is perfectly valid to call it flat. There maybe some counter-evidence to this (like ships sinking below the horizon) but that´s just a different metric. Also it is possible to make the earth cylindrical (Mercator-projection) and for navigational issues this is still in use. Or any other shape... this is all just the selection of the right metric.

[charlemagne]

You know, it would be really amusing to take ignorant people like that, pack them onto the next space shuttle and let them see for themselves. The problem with that might be, without the least bit of understanding of "heretical science taught in schools" a guy like that might not even understand what he sees.

[SCRawl]

Am I missing something? What mistakes in reasoning did they make?

That the moon having 1/6th the mass explains why objects have 1/6th the weight while on it. Well, I suppose it would if the Moon is supposed to have the same size as the Earth, but even the flat-Earther knew it was smaller, so that's no excuse, and lacking that (completely wrong) assumption, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise (which is actually also incorrect itself).

I caught that too, but I just assumed that he was dumbing down his explanations to the level of his audience. After all, if people were going to tune in to listen to an expert on "Koranic Science", there's no sense in getting overly technical. I'm also not quite sure why it was necessary to bring up the Moon at all, but given that that clip seemed to be heavily edited already I just assumed that some of the points made were out of context.

[Kuroneko]

Perhaps, though it doesn't really make sense as a case of dumbing down the subject for the audience. It's not difficult to make the same point--apparently that scientists have calculated the mass of the moon from its orbit and predicted the correct value of surface gravity--without discussing the actual mass of the moon at all. Sometimes, erroneous reasoning can still increase understanding, but it's hard to see how this case did anyone any favors.

[TheManWithNoName]

GHETTO EDIT: Does anyone here know Arabic? This isn't some kind of elaborate hoax, is it?

I can understand Arabic fairly well, and that translation was accurate.

[Molyneux]

Honestly, if there were any real question of impartiality in that clip the man-shaped bag of crazy's mike would have been cut off as soon as he claimed that no-one understands how the eye works.

[LaCroix]

I was cringing in my seat when he stated the moon being half the size of the sun, and both being 2.4 and 1.22 million km in diameter, respectively.

And doubly so when the 'scientist' replied that the moon weights only a sixth of the earth. Hey, what about telling them the MEASURED sizes of the moon and the sun?

[Crossroads Inc.]

I like how the religious guy failed to ever try and counter the claims about Spaceships and satellites..
equally I love how the "science" guy holds up, as way of proof.. a big book with "SCIENCE!" on it

[Molyneux]

Here's something that was too freaking obvious for me to realize it until this morning:
"Nothing that is not in the Koran is true", he says. He says that on television. In a room lit by electric lightbulbs. WHILE WEARING A WRISTWATCH.

I'd love to see him try to squirm out of the basic physics proving the Earth is round if it's pointed out that all three of those rely on the same damn principles...and wouldn't work under his idiocy.