We Have More Data Than Ever - So Why the Doubt?

"There is so much doubt and so many conspiracy theories, even though we have more data than ever before."

The amount of data is not the issue - the independence and reproducibility of the data is. One source, no matter how authoritative, can be wrong or biased. But when many independent groups - using different methods, in different countries, for different reasons - all measure the same thing and agree, the chance that they are all wrong in the same way becomes vanishingly small. The Earth's roundness is not established by one NASA photo; it is established by centuries of independent measurements (surveying, pendulums, satellite laser ranging, every GPS on Earth, every ship's navigation) that all agree. Good record-keeping - independent, reproducible, well-documented - is what makes data trustworthy, and it is exactly what the flat-Earth position cannot match.

The Earth's radius is known to better than a metre from satellite laser ranging alone; the same value comes from Eratosthenes' shadow (220 BC), from arc surveys, from the Foucault pendulum, from GPS, and from every ocean-crossing. Independent methods, different centuries, same number. That is corroboration - and it is the opposite of a conspiracy, which would require every independent group to be in on it.