Eric Dubay is very confused about elevation above sea level on a spherical Earth

Eric Dubay does not accept that the Earth is a sphere, but if he wants to debunk this idea he needs to properly understand scientist's explanations of how things work on a spherical Earth in order to point out where they are going wrong.

Unfortunately Dubay seems incapable of this.

This page details his confusion about what elevation is on a spherical Earth.




In his mind Dubay sees the curve of a spherical Earth and then treats it as if it is a hill on a flat Earth.

Imagine a line from one location on Earth to another.  In Dubay's mind he sees the mid point on spherical Earth as being a “hump” above the line.    Eric Dubay thinks that this hump is equivalent to elevation and that you would need to travel up hill as you move over the "hump".

This is not how elevation works.

Science maintains that gravity exerts a force towards the centre of mass which means that Earth’s gravity exerts its force towards the centre of the Earth.  This means that “Down” always points to the centre of the Earth.  To travel “Up”, i.e. rise in elevation you must travel further away from the centre of the Earth.

When a river travels over the “hump”, it is simply following the curve of the Earth, and remains at all times the same distance from the centre of the Earth. Therefore it remains horizontal.  It does not flow uphill at any point.

Similarly trains travelling between these two points will not need to climb up an incline.

So when Dubay claims that on a spherical Earth rivers would have to flow up hill, his logic only works if the Earth is flat and spherical at the same time.  Clear thinking is definitely not one of Eric Dubay's strong points.

Below are links to the individual "proofs" where Dubay repeatedly demonstrates his lack of understanding.

4. If Earth were sphere that would mean that some rivers are running uphill

“Rivers run down to sea-level finding the easiest course, North, South, East, West and all other intermediary directions over the Earth at the same time. If Earth were truly a spinning ball then many of these rivers would be impossibly flowing uphill, for example the Mississippi in its 3000 miles would have to ascend 11 miles before reaching the Gulf of Mexico.”

5. If Earth were sphere that would mean that the Nile would sometimes be running uphill

“One portion of the Nile River flows for a thousand miles with a fall of only one foot. Parts of the West African Congo, according to the supposed inclination and movement of the ball-Earth, would be sometimes running uphill and sometimes down. This would also be the case for the Parana, Paraguay and other long rivers.”

10. Following the curve of the Earth changes your elevation above sea level

“The London and Northwestern Railway forms a straight line 180 miles long between London and Liverpool. The railroad’s highest point, midway at Birmingham station, is only 240 feet above sea-level. If the world were actually a globe, however, curving 8 inches per mile squared, the 180 mile stretch of rail would form an arc with the center point at Birmingham raising over a mile, a full 5,400 feet above London and Liverpool.”

11. Railways can’t go over the “hump” caused by the curve of the Earth

“A surveyor and engineer of thirty years published in the Birmingham Weekly Mercury stated, “I am thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of civil engineering. However bigoted some of our professors may be in the theory of surveying according to the prescribed rules, yet it is well known amongst us that such theoretical measurements are INCAPABLE OF ANY PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION. All our locomotives are designed to run on what may be regarded as TRUE LEVELS or FLATS. There are, of course, partial inclines or gradients here and there, but they are always accurately defined and must be carefully traversed. But anything approaching to eight inches in the mile, increasing as the square of the distance, COULD NOT BE WORKED BY ANY ENGINE THAT WAS EVER YET CONSTRUCTED. Taking one station with another all over England and Scotland, it may be stated that all the platforms are ON THE SAME RELATIVE LEVEL. The distance between Eastern and Western coasts of England may be set down as 300 miles. If the prescribed curvature was indeed as represented, the central stations at Rugby or Warwick ought to be close upon three miles higher than a chord drawn from the two extremities. If such was the case there is not a driver or stoker within the Kingdom that would be found to take charge of the train. We can only laugh at those of your readers who seriously give us credit for such venturesome exploits, as running trains round spherical curves. Horizontal curves on levels are dangerous enough, vertical curves would be a thousand times worse, and with our rolling stock constructed as at present physically impossible.””

153. Dubay quotes Reverend Thomas Milner giving examples of really flat parts of the Earth

"Quoting Reverend Thomas Milner’s “Atlas of Physical Geography,” we find that, “ Vast areas exhibit a perfectly dead level, scarcely a rise existing through 1,500 miles from the Carpathians to the Urals. South of the Baltic the country is so flat that a prevailing north wind will drive the waters of the Stattiner Haf into the mouth of the Oder, and give the river a backward flow 30 or 40 miles. The plains of Venezuela and New Granada, in South America chiefly on the left of the Orinoco, are termed llanos, or level fields. Often in the space of 270 square miles the surface does not vary a single foot. The Amazon only falls 12 feet in the last 700 miles of its course; the La Plata has only a descent of one thirty-third of an inch a mile.”"