A flat earther named Ayhan Dalgic recently posted a comment on another thread that was such a concise collection of classic flat earth fictions — a kind of flerfdom greatest hits — that I thought I would do a line-by-line debunk and get them all out of the way at once.

If he had read anything on this space, he would know that everything he said has been debunked thousands of times. But why not a 2001st — that’s what we’re here for, right?

His statements are in plain text. My comments are in bold.

• Since you asked, shortly the earth is flat. [No, it’s not, and we have known it is not since at least 300 B.C.E.]
• Gravity is just a theory. [In science there is no such thing as “just a theory.” A scientific theory is a coherent explanation for observed phenomena that can be tested empirically and used to make predictions that can themselves be tested empirically.]
• What we are experiencing is density and buoyancy. {Buoyancy is a function of gravity; it literally has gravity as part of its equation. And almost all the units we use to measure mass, which is part of the density equation, are defined in terms of Earth’s gravity.]
• This is a long subject, the indoctrination is so successful, it’s just so hard to explain it in single article. [Knowing the earth is round is not “indoctrination;” it is part of the sum total of thousands of years of observation and experimentation that has repeatedly confirmed it as a fact. If it were not, you would not be able to post your flat earth claims on this website, because the web depends on carefully, scientifically calibrated satellite transmissions.]
• Basically you need to research. [I have researched, a LOT in order to debunk claims like this; I have learned many fascinating things, but nowhere have I found remotely reliable evidence that the earth is flat.]
• It took me exactly 10 months to be sure that the earth is flat. [How nice for you. It has been at least 2,300 years that thinking people have been sure that the earth is round.]
• Never be fooled by the flat earth maps you see online, those are to keep you away from the subject. [Fear not, I am never fooled by the flat earth maps I see online. Mostly I just laugh at them until my sides ache.]
• According to Mainstream science curvature of earth is 8 inches per square mile. [Not exactly. Anyone who has had elementary algebra knows that x= 8″/mile^2 is the equation for a parabola, and that earth is a sphere. There are only 3 places on the parabola that converge exactly with the sphere, so it is only useful for relatively short distances. But the earth still curves.]
• We have been researching to see this curvature, so far no one has seen it. [Yes, we have seen it. I have seen it from 60,000 feet in the Concorde. Others on this space are jet pilots who have taken and posted pictures of the curvature. The horizon itself would not exist without curvature — it is the point beyond which objects are hidden behind the curve of the earth, and its distance changes with altitude.]
• You can also experiment this by yourself. Take a telescope or binocular and watch after a ship disappear on the horizon with a naked eye. We have been thought this is because of the curve and ships were disappearing behind the curve. With the help of a telescope you will see this is not true. [Why will a telescope help me see this is not true? A telescope will simply give me a clearer view of the ship disappearing hull first. I have also seen a palm tree rise top-first from behind the horizon on the open ocean as I moved towards it in a boat, finally revealing the island it was growing on. I then saw it sink back behind the horizon bottom first as I left.]
• On the other hand. 180 days apart, summer and winter night sky looks to a COMPLETELY different night sky. And yet we see the same stars.. [I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say here, or what it has to do with the horizon. But we see a somewhat different night sky in summer and winter because the globe earth’s axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbit around the sun, and also in one half of the year, as the earth orbits, the sun will be between us an certain constellations, making them impossible to see. A larger difference is that we see totally different stars in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, with the stars circling counter-clockwise around Polaris in the North, and clockwise around Sigma Octantis in the South. This would be impossible on a flat earth.]
• Pre 1600 World maps shows land down in south where Antarctica is. No ice down there at all, some maps ( Piri Reis Map) shows vegetation, animals and humans. Most maps shows it as UNKNOWN LAND. It is also named as Australia. And the Australia as we know used to be called New Holland. [Why would you consider maps from pre-1600, before Australia and Antarctica were discovered, to be more accurate than maps drawn up since those areas were explored? Of course it was UNKNOWN LAND, because it literally had not been found yet. Australia was called “New Holland” because a Dutch explorer was the first European to see it. New Holland (Australia) – Wikipedia So what? If you’re trying to deny that Antarctica exists, or that is a frozen wasteland, I’ll ask my brother to bring back some pictures for you — he’s going there next month.]
• NASA suppose to took pictures of earth over the years, but none of them are real. We used to download their pictures from their official site and check whether they are real or fake using software like photoshop. All are turned out to be fake. Since this flat earth thing is catching up online, NASA changed their picture format. You can ONLY view them, you cannot examine them with any software. [All of this is simply wrong. Here is a picture I just downloaded from the EPIC :: DSCOVR satellite taken January 3, 2022 – 2 days ago.