The Earth exists as an oblate spheroid

Notes: 1. It has come to my attention that Con is most likely female and I have been using masculine pronouns to refer to Con. I will continue to do so for the sake of consistency and brevity. 2. Con has not specified the degree of certainty to which I must demonstrate that the earth is approximately an oblate spheroid. I suggested in Round 1 that clear and convincing evidence should be sufficient. Con has not made any objection to this. Clear and convincing evidence generally means that you, as a voter, must be persuaded that it is highly probable that the fact is true based upon the evidence shown. (See, e.g. CACI 201 http://www.courts.ca.gov... - page 118) Rebuttals – Con again asserts that my argument from authority is fallacious – “I stick by with my idea that just giving me a source and saying ‘NASA says so’ is a logical fallacy” Con then appears to backpedal on this position – “I’m sorry for saying that you used an appeal to authority logical fallacy, I understand now that this is false.” Disregarding Con’s lack of clarity on this for the moment, I will respond to Con’s reasoning: “Just because someone may say something is true does not immediately prove that something is true, especially if the content which the source says is false.” An argument from authority is not a deductive argument that asserts the truth of the matter with absolute certainty. It’s an inductive argument which concludes that the proposition is most likely true provided that the authority actually is an authority on the subject and can be trusted to tell the truth about the subject. In any event, the allegedly false content of the article that Con is referring to is imaginary. Con asserts that the NASA article - - states “that climactic cells prove that the earth is spherical.” Con is mistaken. The claim that climactic cells prove the earth is spherical is not made by the article. I don’t understand why Con seems to believe that the article makes that claim. Con then speculates, without any reasonable basis, that NASA may be lying to us: “who is to say that NASA is not lying to us all? A lot of people do believe that the moon landing was faked (and there is some validity to those claims, let"s be honest)... who is to say that they are not going out to "space" as a lie to keep us believing in their claims” Setting aside the debate over the moon landing, there is a difference between that subject and the subject of this debate. NASA is an arm of the United States government and the United States was involved in a competitive “space race” with the Soviet Union during the time of the (alleged) moon landings. The United States would win the space race by landing on the moon. NASA had an obvious reason to lie about that subject, and couldn’t necessarily be trusted to tell the truth. In contrast, NASA has no reason to lie about the shape of the earth. Con merely speculates that NASA could be lying, but this is insufficient to impeach NASA. Con then asserts that NASA “has to actually prove the claim that you are making and must be free from attack.” This isn’t true at all. An argument from authority is a reasonable method of discerning what is most likely true based on trust and credibility as opposed to an independent inquiry in to the supporting evidence. Furthermore, simply because an argument is attacked doesn’t mean that it’s a bad argument. Con’s explanation for the movement of the sun in his model is not satisfactory. Con speculates baselessly “that the sun was pushed by some sort of force that made it have a major spin going to the left, which would make it go around the earth.” This explanation is not consistent with Newton’s first law of motion. A constant change in direction would require the application of a constant force as opposed to an initial push. Con’s argues that the errors found within his map are to be expected because his map is “just an estimated map.” Con then uses an appeal to hypocrisy fallacy “you are probably in favor of a lot of 2D maps that do not show everything to scale.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org... ) Obviously, the use of flat maps is expedient because paper is flat. I am “in favor of a lot of 2D maps” but that doesn’t mean that I believe that they accurately depict the shapes of the continents. The fact that there are substantial distortions of the shapes of the continents on 2D maps, particularly at extreme latitudes, is supportive of the notion that the earth is spherical. If the earth were flat, as Con suggests, then there wouldn’t be so many distortions on 2D maps. Con then asserts that simply because we haven’t discovered the edge of the earth doesn’t mean that the edge doesn’t exist. Con compares this to our acceptance of the existence of Jupiter. First, Jupiter is visible with the naked eye. Second, if a reasonably thorough search is undertaken for a particular thing and the thing in question is not discovered, then it is reasonable to conclude that the particular thing does not exist. The earth has been thoroughly explored and no “edge” has ever been discovered. Con attempts to explain the photos and videos I cited by asserting that he has a "reasonable basis for saying that the images and videos that [Pro] cited are faked." Con's allegedly reasonable basis is that some of the photos were edited. This isn't a reasonable basis. Simply because an image is edited doesn't mean that the image is faked or doctored. Deceit is required for that, and there isn't any. NASA doesn't try to trick us by claiming that the "four earths picture" is a single image. Rather, NASA states unequivocally that picture is a composite of four separate images: "Each of these images is a color composite, made up using images taken through red, green, and violet filters. The four images are part of the Galileo Earth spin movie, a 256-frame time-lapse motion picture that shows a 25-hour period of Earth's rotation and atmospheric dynamics." http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov... RE: Milky Way I believe Con when he says that he made an honest mistake. However, I have trouble believing the following: “I remember being a kid and seeing many posters that had pictures of the Milky Way galaxy that had NASA as the source for the photos at the bottom. I cannot find any at this time, but they do exist.” I do not accept Con’s claim that NASA was the source for the remembered poster. Obviously, Con has a reason to lie – The evidence would be in his favor. Perhaps Con is again mistaken and remembers things incorrectly. Perhaps Con saw an artist’s rendition of the milky way and not an actual photo. NASA does publish these, e.g.: Of this image, NASA states the following - “Artist's concept of the Milky Way Galaxy” http://www.nasa.gov... In any event, I am under no obligation to explain Con’s memories. There’s an obvious conflict of interest whenever a debater uses personal memories as evidence. Note: Con also claims that NASA claims “to never have been past Pluto.” NASA doesn’t claim that. Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and other probes (e.g. Pioneer 10) are all further away from the sun than Pluto. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov...; http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov... RE: Radius I'm not going to attempt to decipher what Con is saying with all of the equations. They mean nothing to me. RE: Astronomer as a relevant authority on the shape of the earth For some reason, Con asserts that astronomers do not study the earth. Astronomers do study the earth as a celestial body. I don't have much more to say about this beyond what I said in the prior round.