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And the riverside. Annual Chinese. On Friday September 20. 8th 193. Rivers. Which is also known as the mid autumn. Celebration dates back to the Tang dynasty. That is celebrated every year on the 15th day of the lunar. This is when the moon is at its Willis and brightest in the year. Traditionally it is a holiday when families gathered last a full moon rise and enjoy pastries made specifically for the event called moon cakes. At this event there will be opportunities to learn about the Hudson overbroad. And Chinese calligraphy. Enjoy games and crafts the lion dance performance with new kids and keep. The museums collections of artifacts and photographs from the city's earliest Chinese immigrants will also be on display. Attendees will also be able to view boom with high powered postscript. The festival is done in partnership with the riverside. Chinese school and the riverside Astronomical Society. Once more and the city of Riverside and the riverside Metropolitan Museum present annual Chinese Moon Festival on Friday September 13th 21000 from 6 to 8 pm at the historic heritage house. For more information please visit Riverside see a doc. That's Riverside a Dhaka. If you can't believe your eyes and ears ask your fingers This is Sandra ting love with the lowdown on science as toddlers we learn about our world through seeing hearing and touching and we learn fast hot stove Ouch By can our sense of touch step up to help if we can't see or hear Costanza pop on y'all and colleagues from the University of Milan a b. Coca in Italy wondered volunteers who are either blind deaf deaf blind or non-disabled were tested on their sense of touch while blindfolded they felt rough and smooth square patterns on checkerboards next they attempted to remake. Patterns themselves how they do deaf and blind participants reproduced more of the patterns correctly than the non-disabled the researchers believe that the brain areas that usually rely on eyes and ears need hand so instead they kept on intel from those that interpret through touch deaf blind individuals did slightly worse than the non-disabled This suggests that to get the entire picture the brain may need input from at least 2 senses good to know that in a pinch we can let our fingers do the walking and talking. Science is produced by l d o s Media Lab in partnership with the University of California Irvine science communication and 89.3 k. P.c.c. And made possible with the generous support of the use Family Foundation I wanted to build out but I've been down to a bit of thought I'm listening to Cape Cod. Ok imagine this simple experiment I place a stick in the ground here when the sun's as high as it's going to get at the same time a friend 800 miles north in Seattle also puts a stick of the same length in the ground I measured the length of the shadow from my stick and asked my friend for the length of the shadow of hers they won't be the same length if the earth is around there are more complicated ways to establish the shape of the earth but this experiment a success about everyone yet some people dispute the results they insist that Earth shape is not that of a basketball but rather more like a Frisbee and their ideas are catching on I'm Seth Shostak I'm Molly Bentley welcome to Big Picture science produced at the SETI Institute where researchers investigate the nature and origin of life I'm big picture science we give you the wide angle view on science and technology and devote one episode. A month to critical thinking skeptic check for centuries the scientific method has been the path not only to knowledge but to power those who could measure the circumference of the earth determine the orbit of the planets around the sun electrons around a nucleus or use high tech tools to decode the human genome have had extraordinary access to knowledge scientists have a deciding vote in determining what we accept as true but the rise in the number of people who reject these truth suggests a backlash to this process in this episode the growing flat earth movement who decide scientific truth and investigating extraordinary claims using approaches that feel like science but aren't its skeptic check the latter. When it comes to well established cosmic facts our ground earth is on solid spiritual ground the ancient Greeks who like to study clips isn't intended geometry determines our planet shape pretty quickly but hey I take 2200 years of careful observation at face value I'm Jim underdone executive director of the Center for Inquiry in Los Angeles and of the independent investigations group and we are on our way to the Salton Sea the sea of the Earth is actually round Knowing Jim for as long as we have means hearing him reiterate his personal motto that time is your most valuable commodity use it wisely so why then would our time conscious colleague drive 3 hours into the hot California desert to test an idea that doesn't need testing and that can be settled with a 2 2nd image search Well here's a clue my name is out to shock us and I attended the 1st flat earth convention in the u.k. Reporter Alex most shocking us has learned 1st hand what's old is. New again which will eventually bring us back to Jim Salton Sea experiment the retro idea that's back in vogue our understanding of the shape of the earth prior to the Greeks Yes the flat earth there is have gone all pre era Toscanini's on us questioning our more than 2 millennia long understanding of the planet's roundness the group projects verifiable scientific evidence that apparently has tricked teachers into outfitting their classrooms with models of the earth shaped like grapefruits instead of omelettes Now it may be natural to dismiss the movement as off the rails but its roots suggest a deep discomfort with the established idea of who has the authority to determine truth with group names like the infinite plain society ideas about a flat earth of spread wildly mainly over the Internet on youtube and are given a public boost by celebrities the youtube videos have millions of hits which means at least a growing curiosity about the movement but the on line community is now going offline to meet in person the 1st ever flat earth conference held in the us in the fall of 2017 was followed up a few months later by the 1st meeting of flat earth hers in the u.k. Journalist Alex Michel wrote about the Birmingham conference for The Guardian We reached him by Skype fittingly enough in a land where some of the 1st measurements of the shadow of the Earth during a lunar eclipse took place Greece All right Alex you attended this convention describe the feeling of walking into this room how many people what the energy was like What was it like to attend this conference we actual convention was not unlike a lot of other conventions that I painted I mean it was in a nephew rooms in a central But I mean hotel seats in rows a small stage at the end and if it will cost and not knowing what was going on it would have kind of looked very normal and it's only when I walked into the room and host some of the conversations going on that you really kind of you. Realized that something different maybe was being believed that was part of these people so that we're clear on this they do not believe at least a majority of them some of them are still figuring it out but they do not believe that the Earth is a Globe What shape do they believe that the earth is correct I think most people are still workin out so the universal theory is that it's definitely a not a globe but people have very different views on what exact shape it is so some people I think the general view is a b. Earth is pancake shaped and the Arctic is right in the middle in the Antarctic surrounds the earth at its edges and there's this big wall of ice but others of the convention were presenting other hypotheses one speaker suggested that the earth was diamond shaped and supported by huge columns and that if you walked off one edge chute appear on the other side like a game of Pac-Man So people are yet to agree on one single idea and I think a lot of people are trying to get their own theories into the limelight as much as possible and if you were to walk off this pancake shaped earth you'd still end up on the other side of it or would you fall off the edge of the earth so in that theory you definitely would drop off the edge but because there's such a high wall of of ice you're not going to be able to get past that and a few people at the convention actually said to me as well that the NASA and other government agencies are actually monitoring that wall of ice anyway so if you made it up to the top you'd be sent packing immediately but find you now according to them is the Earth moving in space is it in orbit around the sun No So it's definitely not moving in space it's rooted somehow and the earth in these places very much the center of the universe so the sun the moon is rotating around our playing and that's quite crucial to many beliefs that we are very much the center of the universe do the flatter through except that the moon is round or that the other planets in our solar system around roundish it depends on the belief some people very much think that the moon is round and yet believe that. It's our earth is flat out putting aside the centuries a science and the expeditions that circum navigated the globe. How do they the flat earth believers how do they interpret the photos of Earth from space and evidence with their own eyes such as the shadow of the earth across the moon during an eclipse what do they make of that so in the eyes and flat surface it's all faked and who it's fate by causes some arguments most people believe that NASA is completely fabricated as an agency and every document of NASA put sound the world has been fabricated and is fake so every image that NASA has put our is Photo Shopped according to flat earth us and nothing can be trusted lots of people think that we've never been into space in fact some plant or space doesn't actually exist and the more you ask latter there's about this evidence the more you bring up the more they'll say look this is a piece of evidence that has been planted by a government agency when the late for those trying to make us believe that the Earth is a globe now a woman that you spoke with said early she heard her say this if if they lied about this if they lied they being the elite NASA the government officials lied about the shape of the earth what else are they lying about and the idea is that the notion that the earth is round is just one lie that officials are putting forth but there are many other conspiracies and one of the other conspiracies that they believe that this isn't tangled with. You are correct so what I found was that if people are believing or subscribing to the flat earth movement and are often subscribing to other conspiracy theory movement so someone who believes the earth is flat who believe that the moon landings were faked all kinds of conspiracy theories a lot of people who believe in class or folks on who aren't you access and will prevent children from behaving vaccinations that are very important and will dismiss conventional medicine and that's where it gets a bit dangerous when you ask the question why these conspiracies exist in why anyone would go to these lengths to create false evidence like this photoshop images of the earth for example you couldn't get a satisfactory answer no one could explain to you why these conspiracies exist no one person did say that he thought he considered it cheaper to fabricate evidence of there being a moon landing than it would be to actually fund a government mission to the moon for example but no one else could really explain why this would all take place now did you find yourself Alex wanting to argue and throw more and more examples of the earth being round at these believers or did you find yourself able to be open and listen to what they have to say it must have been quite surreal. It is surreal but it was really I mean I was there with an open mind basically Anna and I was very much listening to what people were saying and it was it was very very interesting to hear what I have to stress is that everybody there was absolutely lovely there was a woman at this convention and there was a real sense of community there and so difficult to kind of take this position of antagonist and question people over and over again because they were just so genuinely nice Many of these members of the flat earth movement only have known each other online and you say that this was a chance for them all to come together and meet each other in person there were lectures there were workshops at this convention what were the presentations like and did it have the trappings of scientific argument the talks were in a really interesting way I mean from a watch and they were completely baffling I spoke to a couple of speakers after they spoke and they said they would perhaps pitch talks at flatter those who were already very much aware of the moment and who had committed hundreds of hours to research but still to me I think even if you had that foundational is with that movement they would be very difficult to understand they weren't in many ways scientific although they did borrow a language of science and definitely visual element of scientific presentations that gave them the appearance of being legitimate but when you kind of listen very carefully as as a lot of people were doing you could see through the cracks fairly easily one of the most fascinating elements of the article that you wrote for The Guardian was when people described to the moment when they had an epiphany about what was really true and many of the people had science at school and at some point they rejected it they had this moment and they decided to embrace other ideas and it's not as though you were able to pinpoint a theme as to when that epiphany came and. The flat earth idea was embraced along with a number of other conspiratorial ideas and and what was that moment for many of these people. Here flat earth is called an awakening and that's when being down the rabbit hole of the You Tube algorithm and discovered that the earth is flat and which has led on to other conspiracy theorists the people I talked to and I spoke to 2030 people at the convention so not too many people but a sizeable number who were there a lot of people in conversation told me of a kind of personal crisis that they'd been through that had led to them coming to believe in this conspiracy theory now this is not scientific and anyway but people mentioned the breakdown of the marriage or the breakdown of the relationship while some other kind of personal crisis that left them kind of open to listening to views that they perhaps would have rejected Well finally Alex I wonder if there's any piece of evidence that you think would convince the flat earth believers that they're wrong or that the earth is indeed round and in a moment we're going to hear of an experiment that a gentleman and his team are doing at the salt sea to demonstrate that the earth is round but I'm getting the sense from what you said that no matter what his results are the people that you met are going to buy it no I don't think they will genuinely believe that there will be no evidence that will convince them that the Earth is a globe and interesting point is I spoke to one of the speakers and said What happens if you receive proof that the earth is glowing He said I'm not worried about that while I'm more worried about this car I receive proof that the earth is flat because then what am I going to do. Alex my Shaka is a reporter he writes for The Observer The Guardian and Esquire and his article about the flat earth convention in the u.k. Appeared in The Observer Alex thank you so much for speaking to us about this thank you guys My pleasure. Harry Dyer a lecturer in education at the University of East Anglia also attended the flatterers convention and wrote about it providing insight into what might be driving the movement when you told him when you hear them speak they're very engaged with science the varying kase we've the ideas of exploring the world they just come at it through a different lens a radical lens they spend a lot of the weekend planning their scientific experiments they want to do to go in you know work out which version of the flat is correct it's just and that floating in the middle of nowhere or has a time or it's inside of an egg or if there's something underneath and on top they do seem to love science where they don't love as scientists they seem to distrust scientists so it sounds like it's kind of a referendum on science and knowledge it may be growing out of a frustration that scientists seem to have a monopoly on the last word when it comes to the truth about how nature works I think so something that was said for out the convention was that scientists aren't doing a great job of explaining themselves and communicating with the general public they seem to want to like you say a referendum to separate science from scientists to separate knowledge and power to suggest the old palace trudges that have kept a grasp on what we think is real and isn't real for so long need to be challenge to on the Sunday night for example there was a debate between 3 physics Ph d. Students and 4th lattices where there was this friendly and quite jovial backwards and forwards between them all but the flat earth isn't quite on power. They use a science to scientist they do say most very resistant to knowledge when there was a debate with the Ph d. Physicists the physicists very diligently oncet all the questions about how the world would work in a model and they just rejected that because it didn't fit their model said then not very open to hearing what we're trying to divide is so it's the authority of the scientists that they're rebelling against at least it sounds that way obviously they're not the 1st in the history of human kind to rebel against authority you know not so long ago all of already resided with the theologians right with religion they knew what the facts of the world were and you know that was unchallengeable But today it seems to be the scientists so these people sound like you know heretics of 500 years ago right and in many ways that's how they see themselves as you know pushing the conversation forward away from well actually maybe back towards religious beliefs a lot of the weekend was spent talking about the 4 pillars of the earth and talking about Bible readings and those undertones old religion the entire time it did seem to be in there in a way that we moved away from church and secular beliefs we seem to be moving more towards science and I think with the Internet and with these sorts of meetings maybe we're meeting back towards different belief structures I don't have a hard time explaining this and policy exactly where we are going as a society and you know just how much that can tell us about the world but I do think it suggests that we're meeting away from a trust in science in the u.k. Around the BRICs if we had a lot of talk around being fed up with experts and experts who are talking about the economy and the future of the u.n. It became a discussion around emotions and around feelings and around beliefs into what was best for the year and I know in the American election a lot of it was around emotion and seems to be the fly. It's a touching to this populism this rise towards emotions and try and understand and make sent to the world they live in and less trust in science itself very dire thanks very much for talking with us little to thank you Harry Dyer is a lecturer in education at the University of East Anglia you can find a link to his online article I watched an entire flat earth convention from my research here is what I learned on our