I understand what the individual concepts are but...

Without digging through a bunch of badly put together websites to find the answer, what exactly are people on about when they rail about the "conspiracy" of Heliocentrism? Do these people actually not grasp or flat out refuse to believe that the earth and other planets do, in fact, revolve around the sun?

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I'm a Christian.
I believe the world is billions of years old. Why? Because God gave me COMMON SENSE!

I really doubt that they would actually think that, but I could be wrong.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

The mentality of these and other conspiracy theorists, Moon-landing deniers, Flat-Earthers, Hollow Earthers, and the people who make websites and videos about these and other outrageous claims is hard to analyze. Sometimes they simply want so badly to control some aspect of an environment in which they feel powerless that they reject what is accepted by others and latch onto aspects of a fantasy reality. Some just want to feel special, so they imagine that they have special "knowledge" that puts them "in the know" above the common "sheeple". And some are truly delusional and/or paranoid, some no doubt are just ignorant and don't know any better.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

This might be a good place to start TRYING to understand how some people try to rationalize away common sense:

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fe-scidi.htm

tbm

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Paddle faster!! I hear banjo music!!

This is a board devoted to promoting mainstream science. It may just be the place to analyze rationalisation vs common sense.

First many of these 'believers' simply can't word an idea in a way that can be understood, at least by well trained scientific minds.

Second there is a tendency for these people to post a hit and run idea and most annoyingly leave out words that might give a clue to their thinking.

So I ask in fairness do you really want contact with people that either do not try or simply can't explain their ideas. You may not be aware but I tried to post some sort of what's'centric idea around the proton as the boundary of the universe. I say this as an example only because it is neither 'helio or geo' although I felt it allowed for centricity (and flow).

I think a lot of people come here for help but like me just can't find the words to convey an idea properly. Some do try to explain the ideas but it is so hard when they are not received. To the centrist geo or helio their ideas are their pearls, it must be hard for them to see their oyster offerings accepted as nanny goat droppings

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"Nature is obliged to let reality determine its laws, whereas mathematics is under no such constraint."

That is about the wierdiest, funniest, and saddest thing I've read in a while.

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Let's put together the pieces of The Grand Puzzle . (website)

"Let's define another operator, Sz, which we won't pay any attention to."
"This transformation will automatically make zero equal zero."
"It may be true that zero equals zero -- and that is certainly an equality -- but I don't want to go into the details at this time."

Perhaps but did you note just how serene the gentleman was with his philosophy?

In many ways all of humanity has some form of centricity. The more extreme ones have tried to rationalise the idea to the scornful delight of others. But we are in a solar system and our galaxy is central to our existence and perception of the wider universe.

Maybe some just can't expand their ideas to think further outwards. What if it is everything connected centric or could be described as a totally eccentric universe applied?

I was looking at the Wiki regarding John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
What is the most stable known matter in the known universe? My vote of course goes to the proton. Now what if everything we know was based on an inversion and not an explosion making our central connection our closest link to that boundary?

There is some centric rationalisation for you. I look at some of the most intolerant firebrands ... those who go to the funerals to shout their hatred and abuse. What if through that connection the thing most deeply connected in their lives was in fact the very act or thing they most openly and outwardly profess to hate ... that indeed would be a queer state of existence

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"Nature is obliged to let reality determine its laws, whereas mathematics is under no such constraint."

So when they did this experiment


What was the error they made to give them a "Flat Earth" result.

I much prefer the experiment by that Greek measuring shadows to give the diameter of the Earth. Now who was that?

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

I'm wondering if they weren't simply looking across too narrow a section of lake, or if they were too high above it. Last April I was standing on the shore of Lake Taupo in New Zealand. Looking across the water 20km, I could clearly see that there was a horizon on the water, above which the far hills rose. Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea are both comparable in size to Lake Taupo, but the likely shoreline vantage points look out across ~12km stretches of water.

Incidentally, the towers of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge are 1 5/8th inches further apart at the top than they are at the bottom, because of the curvature of the Earth.


Eratosthanese (sp?).

That experiment is even easier to do now that we can communicate with fellow observers hundreds or thousands of miles away via telephone.

Of course, to me the clearest evidence of a spherical Earth comes from watching multiple lunar eclipses. No matter where in the sky the Moon is, the Earth's shadow on it is always circular. You can only get such a shadow from a sphere.

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

I believe the OP is more about why do people have heliocentric or geocentric ideas. It is fairly easy to discount their methods of proving the idea.

What is really wanted is why do people need to be central anyway.

Besides when I offered my idea (as the only centric one I can give you to attack ... the flat earthers and posters of hit and run ----isms are less contactable ... first it is because I can't be proven wrong, along the lines of the invisible pink unicorn but secondly) ... it is as to why people seem to feel the need to have a "logical or illogical" explanation to rationalise existence.

So is it a case of mental deficiencies or an innate human need and also it is an attempt not to have to endlessly trawl through a bunch of websites for a lot of poorly constructed arguments (we have more than enough here to work with ).

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"Nature is obliged to let reality determine its laws, whereas mathematics is under no such constraint."

Question: From your signature you believe the "world" to be millions of years old. But you don't believe the "world" (Earth or the Universe) is billions of years old?

To distinguish long billions (million times million) vs. short billions (million times thousand) perhaps?

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I know the different definitions of billion. I wasn't aware there were different definitions of million.

There aren't, but billions automatically includes millions, it's inclusive rather than exclusive.

It's like someone saying there are "dozens" of something, and another saying "there's over a hundred!" Both are technically correct.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Wrong. Billion can be:

1. denoting a quantity consisting of one thousand million items or units in the United States
2. denoting a quantity consisting of one million million items or units in Great Britain

This is why Geologists use a measure of my (million years) to keep from confusing each other.

My original question for Bill S. still stands.

Noclevername meant that there are no different definitions for million. D'oh.

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I asked Bill S. a question. Do you also want to answer for him too?