Being Skeptical is the trend and they’re not afraid to doubt the most obvious things.
Skeptical : What can you still count on them today? In any case, everyone is corrupt, self-interested and involved in large-scale intrigues – so it whispers through social networks. Descartes’ defense of methodological skepticism flourishes. And we are not ashamed of facts that seem nothing suspicious to us. The spherical shape of the Earth, for example, whose existence is being questioned by an entire movement, the Flat Earth Society – a society that, according to a post shared on Facebook, prides itself on having followers “all over the world”. The validity of this revealing statement can be questioned. But Globus skeptics do not exist.
One of them, the American Mike Hogg, decided on his own to clarify the question of the shape of the Earth last weekend and made the first test flight with a homemade rocket in the Mojave desert, in California, to see the Earth from above. Its height reached almost 600 meters. Apparently, not enough to finally show what Earth is like – follow-up missions are already planned. But what do you expect from them? After all, Hughes also has a very specific agenda. An unbiased test looks different.
On the other hand, the astronomical observation that took place last week can also be cited as an excellent example of unbiased empiricism. South African cosmologist Peter Donsby reported an unusual celestial phenomenon in “Astronomer’s Telegram”, an online portal for announcing astrologically relevant events. At 1:00 UTC on March 20, an extremely bright and elusive object appeared in the region between the Lake and the Trifid Nebula. This source was missing from earlier recordings of this part of the sky. “Further observations are highly recommended to clarify the nature of this organism,” Dansby told his colleagues.
Follow the call. And it secured a quick solution to the case: as it turned out, Donsby discovered Mars. Not the first, but still quite independent. Cognitively speaking, this has great persuasive power. Dansby remains uncomfortable with the incident: “Today’s lesson: check, check, check three times and check again,” he said on Twitter. But the rapid launch also had a good thing: at least we could no longer doubt the existence of Mars with the best will in the world.