On Apr 28, 9:13*am, oriel36 wrote:
I refuse to believe
that people would knowingly accept an embarrassing error rather than
deal with it regardless of what position they took previously.

Yes, people won't knowingly attempt to maintain a position that can be
clearly seen as untrue, even if the alternative is admitting a
previous error. There is no point; no one would be fooled by this.

There are exceptions; dictators who need to maintain their image of
infallibility to maintain their hold on power, for example.

You yourself acknowledge that the natural noon cycle is unequal, while
the return of a star bypasses that inequality. This is why we deem the
rotation of the Earth to have the period of the return of a star.
Doing so doesn't prevent us from determining longitude with a clock.

I'm sorry if that seems silly to you, but we will not knowingly adopt
an error because it seems right to you, however earnest your rhetoric.

John Savard