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And even when experts butt in a projected futures "nobody can predict the future"
Sure, sure, let's throw all the modelling we use for complex projects / the NHS out of the window too.
But in a way it is an educational issue, nothing in life can be predicted to 100% certainty, and most people don't accept that a shifting model with 80% accuracy assuming 60% of things stay the same is not exactly the same as somebody pulling hot air out of their ass.
But you don't get that stuff as school either.
JWestland-
But you don't get that stuff as school either.
Why would you say this?
A gammonesque comment if I ever saw one.
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But in a way it is an educational issue, nothing in life can be predicted to 100% certainty, and most people don't accept that a shifting model with 80% accuracy assuming 60% of things stay the same is not exactly the same as somebody pulling hot air out of their ass.
Oh god yes, this kind of thing regularly drives me up the walls. Especially when it's applied to science-based stuff. E.g. on the 'hyperloop' topic, engineers say "Yeah maintaining a huge vacuum is going to be an issue for these reasons", and then some idiots come along and go "oh but people in 1800 thought it was impossible to fly, so what you just said isn't worth anything, and everything is possible". Like, yeah, people have been wrong before, but it comes in different 'intensities', you know? A text on that I would always recommend is "The relativity of wrong" by Isaac Asimov (the scifi author, 'Foundation' etc. - but he also wrote 'science-y' books and other stuff).
mashton
SwissChap
Well as you can imagine, the data on plans from the 18th century is a bit... unreliable. For example, they seem to have often built the actual ships slightly different from what the plans would indicate, or they changed something later on but didn't document it, etc.
Oh, and the measurements will have been in some semi-antique 'ell' measurement, which differed by 10% easily between countries, without it always being super clear which one was being used...
(Btw: this is the kind of level of detail to which those models were built, it takes a certain kind of person to persevere with that... the kind that will not accept 25m as a possible length when they're convinced it's 21.5m. ;)
In any case, you raise a good point: the positions are extra irreconcilable as they're not even starting off from the same plane of reality, because it's based on projected future and opinions rather than stuff that is actually there.