Answering Dan Olson on The Principle

How it ran

1. 0:07How the rebuttal is set up
2. 2:37Whether the scientists were tricked
3. 11:08Kate Mulgrew and the narration
4. 15:36The press campaign before anyone had seen the film
5. 20:47Degrees and the charge of a fake university
6. 24:13Appearing in your own documentary
7. 29:49Stellar parallax in both models
8. 32:01Lagrange points
9. 34:16What holds the sun at 93 million miles
10. 49:19Black holes as evidence
11. 51:27The cosmic microwave background alignments
12. 1:03:55Whether geocentrism throws out modern physics
13. 1:16:26Michio Kaku on questioning the Copernican principle

The key exchanges

Each claim first, then Robert's answer. The time jumps to that moment in the video.

1. 2:37

   1. Were the physicists tricked

   Olson claims that the filmmakers tricked a number of astrophysicists into appearing in a documentary arguing that the earth is the center of the universe.

   Robert answers that everyone was told it was a scientific documentary about cosmology including alternative views, and that geocentrism was left out of the contract exactly as the big bang, the multiverse, string theory, and the rest were, so that each participant would react to the ideas during the interview rather than to a label beforehand.

   “Let us say categorically no one was tricked. Everyone was told it was a scientific documentary about cosmology, including alternative views of cosmology.”

2. 11:08

   2. The narrator Kate Mulgrew

   Olson says the filmmakers tricked people into being in the movie, which Robert takes to include the narrator, Kate Mulgrew.

   Robert answers that Mulgrew read the script, approved it, and signed her contract weeks before recording, and that after the session she asked for a separate interview, which her contract did not require, so she could say on camera how much she liked the material.

   “Ms. Mulgrew read the script and approved it and then signed the contract on May 6, 2013.”

3. 20:47

   3. A doctorate from a fake university

   Olson claims that the film's executive producer holds a doctorate from a fake university.

   Robert answers that he holds two accredited United States degrees, a bachelor's from George Washington University and a master's from Westminster Theological Seminary, and that Calamus International University is authorized by the country of Vanuatu, which permits such degrees, although it has never sought United States accreditation.

   “A fake university is one that is not real, or one that advertises false information, or that pretends to be something that it is not.”

4. 24:13

   4. Interviewing yourself

   Olson claims that the producer effectively interviewed himself in his own movie in order to look like an expert.

   Robert answers that Olson interviews himself for most of his own film, that many directors appear in their own documentaries, and that his own appearance runs six minutes of a ninety minute film. He adds that Olson never mentions his book against the flat earth view.

   “Robert appears for only six minutes in his 90 minute film, hardly what anyone would call stealing the show.”

5. 29:49

   5. Stellar parallax

   Olson claims that stellar parallax, first measured in the 1830s and refined ever since, demonstrates that the earth orbits the sun.

   Robert answers that the same shift appears in the geocentric model, where the star field led by the sun swings from one side of the earth to the other over six months on the same radius, and he quotes a University of Illinois physics lecture saying parallax does not decide between the two pictures.

   “The presence or absence of parallax doesn't force the choice of one type of model over the other.”

6. 32:01

   6. Lagrange point satellites

   Olson claims that satellites at the Lagrange points behave as they do because we understand correctly how gravity works on celestial bodies.

   Robert answers that both models produce the same five neutral gravitational points, since the two are mirror images that differ only in which body sits at the center, so the Lagrange points settle nothing either way.

   “Whether one is in the geocentric or heliocentric model, both are going to have the same Lagrange points around the earth.”

7. 49:19

   7. Black holes

   Olson points to the 23 year time lapse of the star S2 orbiting the black hole Sagittarius A as showing how well we understand gravity.

   Robert answers that Olson never says how a black hole observation bears on the question, and that modern geocentrism uses ordinary gravity rather than rejecting it, unlike the flat earth writers Olson has been dealing with.

   “How does this picture of a black hole prove heliocentrism and disprove geocentrism?”

8. 51:27

   8. The cosmic microwave alignments

   Olson claims that the film's central point, that the cosmic microwave background marks out an axis running through the earth, is not true, and that the data was massaged to look sharper than it is.

   Robert answers that Olson cites no scientist for this, and quotes Joao Magueijo, Michael Longo, Dragan Huterer, Ashok Singal, and Lawrence Krauss, who describe alignments with the ecliptic and the equinoxes and say the Copernican principle looks to be in trouble.

   “Another way to create a preferred direction would be to have a rotating universe, because this singles out the axis of rotation as different from all other directions.”

9. 1:07:13

   9. Physics that applies only here

   Olson claims that geocentrism needs a universe in which consistent physical principles apply to everything we can see except ourselves.

   Robert answers that the same principles and equations apply to the earth and to the rest of the universe, that gravity applies everywhere, and that the earth stays put because it is the center of mass of the system, which by definition does not move.

   “The principles and equations used in geocentrism apply both to the earth and the rest of the universe.”

10. 1:13:00

    10. Absurd stellar speeds

    Olson claims that if the earth is the fulcrum of the universe then the star field would have to move at absurd relativistic speeds to circle it each day, so relativity would have to be discarded.

    Robert answers that general relativity is what allows those speeds, because a rotating universe is a non-inertial frame, and he quotes William Rosser to the effect that with strong gravitational fields the speeds of bodies and of light are not held to the usual limit.

    “If gravitational fields exist, the velocities of either material bodies or of light can assume any numerical value depending on the strength of the gravitational field.”