If you accept measurements, it seems to me there’s no way to save the flat-earth hypothesis except by supposing that our understanding of mathematics is wrong—which seems rather less likely than measurements being wrong.
The most likely way that flat-earth could be true is that all the information we’ve been told about measurements (including, for example, the photos of the spherical earth) is a lie.
(Since you were fond of the Knox case discussion, I’ll note that I have a similar view of the situation there: the most likely way that Knox and Sollecito could be guilty is that there is mundane but important information that has somehow never made it to the internet. In both cases, the most vulnerable beliefs underpinning the high-confidence conclusion are beliefs about the transmission of information among humans.)
If you accept measurements, it seems to me there’s no way to save the flat-earth hypothesis except by supposing that our understanding of mathematics is wrong—which seems rather less likely than measurements being wrong.
The most likely way that flat-earth could be true is that all the information we’ve been told about measurements (including, for example, the photos of the spherical earth) is a lie.
(Since you were fond of the Knox case discussion, I’ll note that I have a similar view of the situation there: the most likely way that Knox and Sollecito could be guilty is that there is mundane but important information that has somehow never made it to the internet. In both cases, the most vulnerable beliefs underpinning the high-confidence conclusion are beliefs about the transmission of information among humans.)