Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions
Flat-Earthers often commit the fallacy of moving the goalposts. When their claim has been proven wrong, they would revise their claim and demand another evidence that is harder to fulfil. They would do this repeatedly until they present an unfalsifiable claim, a claim that is impossible to prove.
Flat-Earthers often commit the fallacy of ‘hasty generalization’. They would draw the conclusion from limited sample that fail to represent the entire population. Sometimes they would even draw the conclusion from a single case, and it becomes the fallacy of ‘lonely fact’.
Furthermore, they would deliberately cherry-pick cases that support their position, and use those to disprove the other cases that are against their position.
Continue reading “Flat-Earth Ideology and The Fallacy of Lonely Fact”
Another CGI related fallacy regularly committed by flat-Earthers has the general form of:
This is invalid for two reasons:
A logical fallacy commonly committed by the victims of the flat-Earth ideology is CGI related. CGI —or computer graphics imagery— is the use of computers to produce realistic images or videos.
Because this fallacy is very common within the flat-Earth circles, let’s give it the name ‘appeal to CGI’. Its argument has the general form of:
This is a fallacy because it is definitely possible to create a CGI image or video of a real-world object.
When a photo of spherical Earth is pointed out to flat-earthers, they will dismiss it as CGI in the blink of an eye; even if they haven’t done any analysis at all. They do this because their belief in flat-Earth is not evidence-based, and any evidence contrary to their beliefs needs to be invalidated no matter how.
They are so used to doing it, and sometimes they become confused by it themselves, to the point that they would take the slightest hint of digital manipulation of any picture of the Earth as evidence of the flat Earth.