Is My Hoax Detector Malfunctioning?

Ok, so here's a link for you.  I strenuously suggest that you read this entire page.  An excerpt following a time lapse picture of the night sky directly "above" the north pole:

If you can do so for a few minutes, just lay aside the Copernican indoctrination that accompanies such pictures and take a good hard look at these photographs of something that really, really happens every single night.  Do you see what I see? I see all the visible stars in the northern skies going around the North Star in perfect circles. In other words, I see all the stars which these time exposures have recorded actually going around that navigational star that is there for we Earthlings in the Northern Hemisphere... This means that each star circles in one 24 hour day (i.e., 23 hours and 56 minutes). (The same thing is captured in circumpolar photos taken in the Southern Hemisphere....) [emph. orig.]

Yes, bizarrely enough, a time lapse photograph of the night sky shot along the earth's axis of rotation from the north pole resembles the corresponding photograph taken at the south pole.  This is because both all the stars directly "above" the earth and all the starts directly "below" the earth move in perfect circles centered on the north and south poles, respectively.  I'll <sarcasm> respectfully </end sarcasm> have to disagree.  This is clearly a case in which the simpler explanation is the better, although, of course, not merely because it's simpler.  He goes on to ask (rhetorically):

What will it be? Will you trust your eyes (and your camera!) to record the truth of the matter?

and answer:

Trust your eyes and your cameras! They have no reason to deceive you about whether the stars are going around nightly!

Frankly, I'm having a lot of difficulty getting this picture to work.  Let's take it for granted that the vantage points of the north and south poles should be privileged.  That is, it's the photographs we take at these special locations that enable us to know how the stars are moving.  (Why?  Who knows.  Maybe because they're the only spots on earth at which compasses spin freely?)  So given this picture, there are one or more planes of stars rotating around a point intersecting with the line defined by the two points known as the north and south poles?  And I know this because "the photographs obviously tell me so".  So what am I supposed to see when I look up at those stars from the equator?  And how are the stars lying on planes perpendicular with that plane supposed to be moving?

I'm very good at detecting hoaxes.  Nothing about this website suggests to me that it's a hoax.  Is my bullshit detector malfunctioning, or is this cat serious?  Here's another quote about modern scientific assumptions:

It must be assumed [by scientists] that the Sun is stationary in the "solar" system relevant [sic] to the Earth (and to the Moon) and that it has never traveled East to West daily across the sky as observed by everyone on Earth throughout all history. -link

Finally:

Given that the definition of "science" is derived from the Latin root scire which means "to know", and the definition of "assumption" is "to take for granted or to suppose", each person is free to determine whether the Helio or the Geo Model is true science.  Just remember: Every time you watch the Sun when it rises, when it is high noon, and when it sets, you must assume that it isn’t doing what your eyes tell you it is doing, but that it only appears to be moving because the Earth is allegedly turning under your feet at several hundred miles an hour. And when you see the Moon in all its phases come up in the east and set in the west, reject what you see. "Science" has trained you to assume that it is going precisely the opposite direction at about 2200 MPH. Then rejoice that you "know" that each assumption is correct because of the correctness of the other assumptions that each is based upon, and because everybody everywhere has learned of their correctness in school.

So, does he think knowledge is factive or not?

 

Comments

[don]

Scott,
The view from the equator looking at the north star is exactly the same as if you were standing at the north pole looking up at the north star. You just don't see the whole sky that the north pole viewer sees because part of the earth is in your way :-). However the important point is that the view of the stars circling the north star is precisely the same because of the enormous distance to that star and all the others circling it.

Imagine if you were standing facing north, and "joe" was 20 feet to your right and was also facing north. If Susan about 20 feet in front of you, facing you, Joe would see Susan from a different angle and his view of her would be different than your view. However, move Susan back about 200 feet and then your angle and Joe's angle are very similar and you both almost see the same view of Susan. Move her back a mile and your points of view are almost parallel and you see virtually the same exact angle view of Susan.

Since Earth is billions of miles from the north star and all the other stars appearing to circle it, a viewer at the equator looking directly at the star (by looking north) would have an almost perfectly parallel line of sight as a person standing at the north pole looking straight up at the north star. The difference in location between the two observers is so incredibly tiny when compared to the billions of miles to the star they are observing it is effectively the same angle. While the Earth's horizons are in different places, the sky surrounding the north star looks exactly the same to both observers.