I came across some videos on the “Flat-Earth” theory recently. I was watching some videos talking about it on YouTube, and I have to admit that some made very little sense. I did find one that I thought was pretty interesting. I’ll admit, the video is a little silly at times, and i don’t agree with all of their points, but the video made me start to question whether there is some truth to this theory. I have since started to do some more internet research. What are your thoughts on the Flat Earth? https://youtu.be/x3GkNqVY3VA
I would word it even more strongly. It’s completely deluded nonsense, and a waste of time to try to argue with the proponents, because they are willfully ignorant and immune to basic physics and math facts.
2 Likes
Include this in your research: Soundly Proving the Curvature of the Earth at Lake Pontchartrain | Metabunk
I do wonder how many are really serious, as opposed to the number of “flat -earthers” who have their tongue firmly pressed into their cheek.
4 Likes
Pretty sure that is a spoof. Who was responsible for the conspiracy before there was NASA? You need to find some real flat earth videos.
It seems to me that POE’s law is in play here. All fanatics look like parodies.
I for one cannot see any difference between flat-earthers and creationists. I cannot see how one is more willfully ignorant than the other.
The Bible never really gives any thought into the shape of the earth (even if it’s authors probably dido share the opinion of the day). Hence many crackpots use the Book of Enoch, which is rather explicit
2 Likes
Check out Rob Skiba’s YouTube channel for a good source of crazy. He’s a flat earther, and from what I can tell, he’s deadly serious. He takes the Bible hyperliterally, so believes the Amorites were 35ft tall, he also believesaid centaurs, Satyrs and minotaurs were real, and uses an 18th century hoax text as evidence
Flat-earth is nonsense. Just look at their model for the map of the Earth. If it were accurate, it would take forever to fly from Cape Town to Rio Gallegos. It doesn’t. You can literally disprove their model with Hotwire.com.
Another thing-- one realizes quickly after reading their literature/watching their YouTube videos that they aren’t concerned about discovering facts about nature. They say things like, “The other planets aren’t what NASA tells us they are.” or “I don’t know what the other planets are, but NASA is lying about them.”
What’s missing from this picture? Curiosity! It doesn’t bother me that they think NASA is telling lies so much as they have no desire to learn what the planets “actually are.” They are concerned with NASA’s supposed lies and nothing else.
If I disbelieved the accepted model of the solar system (which I obviously don’t-- but if I did) I’d want to find out what the planets really were. I’d try to construct a model that made predictions that the “globe” earth model couldn’t. No flat earther is doing any of that. They just give alternate explanations for stuff we’ve already figured out.
It’s hard to take someone’s claims about nature seriously when it’s obvious that they don’t care at all about having an accurate picture of the natural world. I have to agree with the “willful ignorance” assessment.
3 Likes
Agree with everyone else who has posted. I see the user is new, has made just the one post and has read all of one minute here. I haven’t looked at his recommended video. Absurd notion on the face of it.
1 Like
It is almost as though he made the post then fell off the edge of the earth.
9 Likes
Though I am not a flat earther (we have clearly been to the moon for one, even if I once did flirt with moon landing conspiracies), I will concede that many of the arguments we use against the flat earth are rather weak and in fact strawman the flat earth arguments. For example. no flat earther assumes other planets are flat (and this isn’t inconsistent either, since flat earthers do not believe the earth is a planet). Also no flat earther thinks universe is like this:
Also, the theory that the earth is covered by a dome is not simply an ad hoc theory, to explain why no one falls off the edge, as this article suggests, but (as most forum users probably know) actually a very ancient belief, found in the Bible and other texts.
Your description of Flat Earthers is backed by the absurd lines of argumentation they have to take because of their main conclusion.
For example, it is rather easy to call someone at midnight somewhere far away and ask them if the Sun is shining. In fact, two FE’s could send one person far away and talk to each other at certain times of the day/night to see what the conditions are. If the Earth is flat then it should either be bright or dark across the whole world . . . or so one would think. To get around this rather awkward fact they have proposed that the Sun has a lampshade around it which allows the Sun to act like a flashlight. I kid you not.
There is the other problem of a Flat Earth it has to have an edge. How do they get around this? They claim that there is a wall of mountains around the Flat Earth that deluded Round Earthers think is the South Pole. This wall of mountains is guarded by the world’s government to prevent the secret from getting out. Again, I kid you not.
If people are willing to swallow these stories whole, then I really don’t see how facts are going to sway them.
3 Likes
You’re not too drunk if you can hold onto the floor without falling off.
1 Like
Actually the the Earth IS flat.
Its just that space itself is curved.
No… not really. Space around the earth isn’t curved quite that much. How can you tell? When you fire a laser beam parallel to the surface, it goes off into space. Space can only be said to be curved like a sphere on the surface of the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole.
1 Like
Obviously it’s easy to point and laugh at people who genuinely believe the Earth is flat, but I enjoy watching their videos to get to the bottom of their reasoning. Watching them present their “proofs” of flat earth or “debunking” of the globe is fascinating, and I’ve learnt a lot.
Not from them, of course, but from doing my own research into the topics that they talk about to discover exactly how they’re misinterpreting things. Sometimes they might present an argument like (for example) “gyroscopes prove the earth is not spinning” or “gyroscopes in planes prove that they’re flying over a flat earth”. Looking into these claims caused me to learn a lot of really interesting stuff about how gyroscopes work that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, and in the process I learn exactly why flat earthers are wrong about them.
The whole “flat earth” phenomenon also inspired me to learn more about the history of how we humans figured out things like the shape of the Earth, our place in the solar system, etc. It’s really amazing stuff. For example, reading Galileo’s landmark book “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” (about geocentrism vs heliocentrism) is a great view into the past.
It’s definitely a tragedy of education that a not-insignificant number of people genuinely believe that the Earth is flat, space is all fake, etc in the 21st century, but I take a little bit of solace in the fact that their ignorance inspires an productive interest in the subject in some others. I think more people should appreciate how we came to arrive at these facts about reality instead of being perfectly content with simply being told “X is known.”
“How do we know the Earth is round?” is brilliant question! Adults shouldn’t be afraid of mockery for asking it. Obviously this doesn’t include the flat earthers who are arrogant and insulting in their surety about the Earth being flat - they don’t necessarily deserve to be treated in the same way as people who are genuinely interested in learning.
4 Likes
Great way to learn! @Reggie_O_Donoghue also had a good point on that. Thanks.
I remember my HS chemistry painstakingly explaining how people came to the conclusion of the atom, etc. I thought it was boring at first, but in retrospect was amazed at how it taught critical thinking.
Thanks for this excellent reminder. I love reading about things that are “known,” but you’re right, we do occasionally need to dig a little deeper than simply accepting it “because scientists say so.” There is nothing wrong with asking questions, and I think this especially applies to people who grew up believing pseudoscience. For some people, that’s simply their frame of reference. They need to give themselves permission to honestly question it.
A parable for those who have ears but do not listen?
1 Like
There’s a Spanish flat earther named Oliver Ibáñez who has a video (in Spanish) in which he mentions 30 Bible verses that talk about a flat earth.
This guy is REALLY crazy. He even had a discussion with Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque about the shape of our planet (this happened on Twitter). Oh, btw, he also denies evolution and the Big Bang.
2 Likes