The Earth is spherical in shape.

There are some issues my opponent has brought up in the past that weren't mentioned explicitly here so, at some points, I will refer to older content by Edl to fill in some blanks. I'm going to cover burdens, photographic evidence, gravity, and daylight cycles in that order. Burdens My opponent doesn't seem to have an issue with my burden being extreme likelihood over absolute proof, as he likely understands the epistemological limits of knowledge. He does, however, somewhat misstate my burden. I'm proving a *spherical earth* is extremely likely -- not that the earth is both spherical and spinning. While some would argue that proving a spinning earth is trivial, I'd point out that generally proving a spherical earth is also trivial. But in debates like these, such trivialities are not taken for granted. So again, I don't have any obligation to prove that the earth is spinning, nor will I attempt to. The opponent also makes a brief argument: If we went to space nearly 50 years ago, the average person should be able to buy a trip to the moon. First, it doesn't follow that what the government was capable of 50 years ago should be available to the public in the present. Generally speaking, hard things do get easier to do over time -- but traveling to the moon is still very hard to do. Secondly, such a trip would be enormously expensive. You need a rocket capable of reaching lunar orbit and capable of coming back. Such a cost is greater than most individuals can afford. 50 years doesn't significantly decrease the cost of rocket fuel and rocket fuel doesn't suddenly become more efficient as the decades pass. Photographic Evidence My opponent's response to this is an attempt to delegitimize NASA as an agency that is generally honest with the public. The evidence supporting this is in the form of video, which is somewhat ironic considering the opponent believes images and videos aren't to be trusted. While every bone in my body wants to tear apart these goofy videos as nonsensical, that would take the remainder of the round. Instead, I will merely look at the provided evidence of NASA trickery. Said evidence is a video in which there is a live stream from NASA talking to members of the ISS. The commentator asks a question, waits a few seconds, then notes that there should be an 11-second delay in transmission. Directly after saying there should be a delay, one astronaut smiles and they both nod their heads. The video argues that the astronauts are nodding their head in response to the commentator's statement, "11 seconds". This seems pretty damning. That is, until you go to the point in the video 11 seconds before the astronauts nod and smile. You'll note that the commentator just finished asking his question. From the perspective of the astronauts, they nod and smile directly after hearing the interviewer ask his question. This is evidently the reason for their reaction. Someone says, "Hi, looks like you're in space. How's orbit? ", you nod and smile, then answer their question. If you are trying to pull off trickery, it doesn't even make sense to nod and smile after the commentator notes that there is an 11-second delay. The remaining evidence is a link to another debate in which the opponent claims that NASA works with Disney to produce fake images and content and that all of this is somehow part of MK Ultra. Actually looking at the evidence linked, there seems to be exactly one source making the claim that any NASA image is fake and it's a guy who thinks he sees the word "sex" in a cloud formation. It looks more like "JFX" to me. Regardless, considering that cloud formations are largely random it is not unreasonable to call this as a coincidence. This is especially true when you consider that, if it was a shopped image, NASA would likely no longer have it on their website. (Why would NASA keep around an image containing a cloud structure that looked like English characters? Wouldn't that "give away" the hoax? ) In summary, the opponent has presented two pieces of evidence that NASA can't be trusted. One is a video interview in which the argument made is easily defeated and the second is a picture of some clouds that look somewhat like a collection of three letters. ------------- The opponent largely dismisses the main point of my argument, however. If Russia, China, or any other country had evidence that the Earth was flat, it would be in their political interest to publish said information. If Russia came out with proof that the US government has been lying to us for so many years about something so fundamental as the shape of the Earth, the entire US would entire into a riot. We would no longer trust our government and we would no longer trust scientists. But Russia hasn't done this, nor has any other space-faring country. When I asked for a political motivation to maintain an international hoax of this conspiracy, the opponent pointed me to Admiral Byrd's testimony. Importantly, the video interview linked provides *absolutely no explanation as to why countries would continue to maintain this hoax. * The only thing one can imagine is that my opponent is saying that the resources located in the south pole are reason enough for countries to collude and keep this secret. I've already addressed that point. All countries involved would still be deeply aware of the resources kept at the south pole. Keeping it from the public serves no purpose, as average citizens aren't going to go to the south pole in search of these resources anyway. It doesn't benefit any one government, as the governments would still need to compete with one another for said resources. An abundance of resources in the South Pole does nothing to demonstrate why an international conspiracy would be maintained. On the other hand, I have explained in detail the advantages of *not* maintaining said conspiracy. Gravity The opponent's response here is not strong, likely due to time restrictions. The opponent claims that I am "using a theory to support his burden, and this is pseudoscience". That argument doesn't make any sense. All scientific statements are theories. If you are attempting to use science to prove a claim, you necessarily must rely on preexisting scientific theory. The only way to prove a scientific fact is by using theory. If it is pseudoscience to use a scientific theory to justify a claim, then all of science is just pseudoscience. Perhaps the opponent really means that he believes I'm using an *incorrect* theory to fulfill my burden. I clearly demonstrated that there is some force which constantly acts on objects and that it has been experimentally verified that objects mutually attract one another. All that (the macroscopic) theory of gravity says is that things fall toward other things. Demonstrably proving that things fall literally proves gravity, because that's all that gravity claims. What we don't precisely know is *why* gravity happens. There are some macroscopic theories of gravitation that are explained (spacetime curvature) and some theories of quantum gravitation, but there doesn't yet exist a unified explanation of why gravity works. I don't claim to know why gravity works. What I do claim as that, though we don't know why it works, it's clear how it actually behaves. One can both not know how fire works, while simultaneously knowing that it's hot. My argument doesn't require that you know what causes gravity, merely that you know how gravity behaves. (Things fall. ) The opponent briefly claims that "things of higher density that are unsupported fall. No magical force is needed. " This can be restated to "things of higher density that are unsupported have a downward force enacted upon them. No force is necessary. " It's easy to see why this doesn't make sense. Things don't begin to move unless a force acts upon them. If an object is still, then starts moving -- some force has been acted upon it. If an object falls off a table, some force was acted upon it. A "magical" force *is* needed to explain this behavior. "Density" isn't the cause of this force, as density is a measurement of mass per cubed unit of space. It's merely a description of mass, not a force itself. 3 grams per cubic centimeter is no more a force than "1 inch" is a force. To summarize, I proved that there exists some force which acts on all objects and I called this force gravity. I further proved that the existence of gravity necessitates that the Earth is spherical in shape. Thus, I have fulfilled my burden. The opponent seems to claim that a force is not responsible for objects at rest becoming objects in motion. This is nonsense; objects at rest do not suddenly start moving. Some force has to cause them to move. Local Daylight patterns Again, I am nearly out of characters. Next round I will start with this argument and work in reverse, that way this gets its time -- as the opponent's response to this argument is likely his most ludicrous response to any argument made thus far. 1. Sunsets I'll demonstrate in the next round that atmospheric refraction implies the exact *opposite* result that the opponent claims it does. Atmospheric refraction makes objects appear higher in the sky, not lower in the sky. This can be proved mathematically, with the help of a few images. I'll do that next round. 2. No Local Lighting I argued that emitted light continues to travel in the direction of emission until it hits another object and that this demonstrates that a light cannot locally light something. The idea that light continues to move until it hits an object is not an assumption of the heliocentric model -- it's a property of light. 3. Small sun. Opponent: please explain. I'm out of room; will do arguments in reverse order next round.