In Hereford, UK, there is a map (the Mappa Mundi) in a medieval church that shows Jesus holding a round earth. The ancients never believed in a flat earth. The flat earth was a myth created by a modern american science journalist, and now, sadly, is taken as fact.
The irony is that the earth was always flat. All the instruments showed it, and for a scientist evidence is all-important. There were, however, indications of curvature which the ancients unscientifically took to be evidence for a round earth. But it was flat of course.
Sure, I’m happy too. I’ll start by putting the original post in as simple of a nutshell as I can, and then I’ll say a few words about how it’s presented.
The basic point is that scientific “instrumentation” (as JJ says)—or just empirical methods, if you prefer—can lead us into major, calamatous, and absurd errors. There was a time when the ancients thought that all starry bodies had to be round, because a circle was the most perfect shape, basically. It was a judgement made about the outside world based on little more than an inner value judgement. And comparatively speaking, they were right. I mean, compared to the idea that the earth was generally flat, which all evidence confirmed—particularly when you just look around.
What’s potentially confusing about the original post is how JJ presents it. He’s being ironic and using a style of indirect communication (ala Kierkegaard). --And this fits pretty well with the point of the thread. I’ll explain…
Why should we doubt that what happened in ancient times still happens today? If there’s a moral of the post, it’s that you don’t want to take anything on blind faith—not even what scientists say. What’s interesting is that JJ writes ironically here, to sever the presumed honesty between speaker and audience (in keeping with the moral)----particularly when he tells you that the “earth is still flat”. JJ is exemplifying what you need to watch out for.
What can I say?—JJ has a bone to pick with science. That’s pretty much it. Unfortunately, people (not you, Old Gobbo) respond with snotty, thoughtless sarcasm—which indicates only that they didn’t “get it”, and didn’t have the decency to ask.
Yes, a full assessment. I also wanted to exemplify the fact that medievals and moderns share the same pragmatic approach in their sciences. Nothing wrong with that. But a science that betrays its common, working heritage betrays honesty and so betrays science. The science of the ancients was, or seems to be - as far as I have read any, honest.
There is something else. I would not want to say that, as you put it,
“empirical methods, if you prefer—can lead us into major, calamatous, and absurd errors”.
I would not agree to “absurd” - for this presumes the idea of an empirically independent object, yet still, somehow, an object of science. After all, there is no such - no possible - object that we can claim to have an absurd picture of. Our picture is the whole object and not absurd, but quite at ease.
Evidence (throgh the instruments of science) had shown that the earth was flat in one epoch, and round in another. Both were true because evidence dictates the truth status of facts.
Oh, I just caught your mistake there. You forgot that there are a number of theories of truth, and that the proposition “‘truth’ is what corresponds to reality” may not be true.