The term “flat earthier” or “the Flat Earth Society” has become synonymous with any idea which is so backward, so obviously flawed and so absolutely boneheaded that it goes beyond illogical to the point of being just plain absurd. There are, however flat-earth believers – yes, still, even today. No, it’s not a joke, at least not to all of them. Much as it seems that the belief in a flat earth must be some kind of joke or hoax, there are those who whole-heartedly support the notion and believe that the truth is not only obvious, but has been suppressed for hundreds of years.

This was recently profiled in an article of the BBC UK magazine which interviewed a few pillars of the extremely small movement. The explainations from the flat-earth theorists on the nature of the earth and celestial bodies varies. Many claim that the earth is a disc with the north pole in the center. The edge of the earth is in Antarctica, an area where few venture to see the truth for themselves, thus circumnavigation of the world is simply making a single enormous circle. Others have claimed that the earth is infinite in surface area and that upon reaching Antarctica, a traveler will continue indefinitely through the tundra. Others claim that the edge of the earth is surrounded by “anti-space,” a kind of wormhole that will immediately send a traveler to the other end of the earth when they cross the edge, thus allowing for circumnavigation, much like how in old PacMan games, if the character wanders off the left side of the screen it will come out on the right side.

The notion that the earth is round (not perfectly spherical, but round) is about as proven and absolutely undoubtedly as any scientific concept can get. The evidence is so extremely compelling, so varied, so easily observable, so indisputable and so complete that it is the quintessential example of a concept beyond reasonable discourse. Yet, to flat-earthers, the belief in a round earth is nothing but blind faith and they are the true believers.

The article quotes one:

Mr Davis, a 25-year-old computer scientist originally from Canada, first became interested in flat earth theory after “coming across some literature from the Flat Earth Society a few years ago”.

“I came to realise how much we take at face value,” he says. “We humans seem to be pleased with just accepting what we are told, no matter how much it goes against our senses.”

Mr Davis now believes “the Earth is flat and horizontally infinite – it stretches horizontally forever”.

“And it is at least 9,000 kilometres deep”, he adds.

For those who feel the need to go out and verify the roundness of the earth, the list bellow contains only a few of the pieces of evidence that show the world is round. No doubt readers will be able to come up with hundreds more. Many of these are directly verifiable by any casual observer. Others have been disputed by the flat-earthers who claim that the space program is a conspiracy to further the notion of a round earth and thus photographs of the globe are forgeries.

Proof that the world is and revolves on its axis while orbiting the sun:

• It is possible to travel around the world
• Photographs from Outer Space
• The curvature is visible from high altitude aircraft
• Well established Newtonian physics necessitates it
• Attempts to map the earth on flat surfaces inevitably lead to distortions
• Satellites orbit the earth (observable optically and GPS, Television or other receivers)
• Gyroscopic compasses use the earth’s rotation
• A sufficiently long pendulum will demonstrate the earth’s rotation
• The Coriolis Effect
• Precision scales can show a mass difference at latitudes due to rotational forces
• Atomic clocks can measure time dilation due to the rotation of the earth
• The sun centered model accurately predicts planetary motion
• It is possible to determine the distance to the moon by radar or a laser beam
• The angle of the sun varies by latitude
• Radio signals cannot be sent to the other side of the earth without reflecting off of something
• Parallax of local stars can be observed even at modestly equipped optical observatories
• The top of objects is the first part seen when approaching from over the horizon
• Probes have navigated the solar system, a task which would be impossible without an understanding of the location of planets. It is possible to track these probes with relatively modest equipment. This has been successfully demonstrated by advanced amateurs.
• The tides, the seasons and the path of the sun through time zones are consistent with the round earth model.
• Extremely large structures such as suspension bridges have a measurable tilt due to the curvature of the earth
• Other planets are easily observable with the most modest telescopes and are clearly round with orbiting satellites

Needless to say, if the Flat Earth Society’s claims are true nearly all the known scientific knowledge of the world must be thrown away. If satellites manage to stay up over a flat earth and gravity does not force the planet to take a round shape, then Newtonian physics goes out the door. If the sun is as small and close as is claimed and other celestial bodies are of similar distances then so does the speed of light. If parallax exists without revolving around the sun, then the basics of geometry must be wrong. If the sun is so small and close then everything from thermodynamics to nuclear fusion must be wrong.

The belief is defended by the claim that the round-earth, and presumably all of modern science, is actually the biggest conspiracy to mislead the public in history. It would certainly have to be, because the understanding of the earth to be a round, relatively spherical shape is nearly as old as recorded history. Despite the common myth that Christopher Columbus was the first to propose a round earth, in defiance of the common claim that it was flat, most societies had an understanding of the earth’s shape long before Columbus came along.

The ancient Greeks accepted the notion of a round earth as fact. The philosopher Aristotle noted that the earth’s shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always round and that the masts of ships are the first part to appear on the horizon. He also stated “there are stars seen in Egypt and Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions.” Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the earth with surprising accuracy in a famous experiment in 200 BC after noting that the lack of shadows from the sun at a well near Alexandria on the summer solstice. For over a thousand years, the fact that the earth has been round has been common knowledge amounts the educated of Western society. The Indians and Chinese may have been aware of this even further back.

The Conspiracy:

If you’re going to go around saying the Earth is flat, then it’s not really a small jump to assume that the Apollo moon landings were faked. Presumably a flat earther would say the same about most space activity and and for that matter, nearly all the information put out by every major governmental body and large organization since antiquity. McIntyre, the flat-earther quoted earlier said of space photographs “The space agencies of the world are involved in an international conspiracy to dupe the public for vast profit.” Right… profit.

The belief in the flat earth is actually more modern than one might think. The movement traces its roots to the late 1800’s and is generally considered to be rooted in a strict interpretation of the Bible which describes “the four corners” of the world, implying flatness as well as making numerous other statements implying that the earth is flat. Many of the claims of a flat earth are rooted in biblical interpretation or in religious philosophy. This generally is also the root of the conspiracy theories of how the governments of the world, the church itself or others want to oppress the “truth” of god’s word. Some claims include that the UN flag is really a flag-earth map and a hidden clue to the truth hidden in plain sight (just like the Freemasons put clues on the US dollar bill and that kind of thing.)

Other claims are appeals to narrow thinking and general ignorance. It is pointed out that the world doesn’t really seem round from the surface, that we can feel the motion of a car or most other vehicles yet we have no sensation of motion of the earth. The movement reached its climax around the turn of the century and into the 1930’s, although it continued into the 1950’s when, in 1956, the The International Flat Earth Society was founded with the following position statement:

The International Flat Earth Sociey has been established to prove by sound reasoning and factual evidence that the present accepted theory that the Earth is a globe spinning on its axis every 24 hours and at the same time describing an orbit round the Sun at a speed of 66,000 m.p.h, is contrary to all experience and to sound common-sense.

In ancient times the Earh was regarded as plane, and this is expressed in all literature up to a few hundred of years ago. The theory has fallen into disfavour, owing mainly to the dogmatism of modern science and popular education in schools, which leads to prejudice in favour of the globular theory from the start.

The founder of the society was Samuel Shenton, who managed to acquire a fairly large following and remained the president of the society until his death in 1971. When the first photographs of the earth were published early in the early years of spaceflight, Shelton dismissed them as an optical illusion caused by a wide-angel lens which made the earth seem curved when it was not. Later he would dismiss all the photos as fakes along with the entire space program.

After Shenton’s death, the Charles K. Johnson became the president of the society. He was interviewed in 1980 by Scientific Digest. Here is a short excerpt:

“You can’t orbit a flat earth,” says Mr. Johnson. “The Space Shuttle is a joke—and a very ludicrous joke.”

His soft voice carries conviction, for Charles Johnson is on the level. He believes that the main purpose of the space program is to prop up a dying myth—the myth that the earth is a globe.

“Nobody knows anything about the true shape of the world,” he contends. “The known, inhabited world is flat. Just as a guess, I’d say that the dome of heaven is about 4,000 miles away, and the stars are about as far as San Francisco is from Boston.”

Some flat earthers accept the existence of satellites but claim that they simply travel in circles, the mechanism by when they are kept aloft they do not say, but the flat earth society does not accept the existence of gravity as it is understood by physics, so it would seem that all be. Johnson claimed that gravity was fictitious and no explanation was needed to describe its effects because objects simply fall downward. He quoted his Australian wife as more proof of the flat earth saying “She’s sworn out an affidavit that she never hung by her feet in Australia. She sailed a ship over here, and she did not get on it upside down and she did not sail straight up. She sailed right straight across the ocean. We consider that a very important proof that the world is flat.”

The society continues to exist into the 1990’s, but in 1995 a fire destroyed the home Charles Johnson, along with most of the society’s library and other material. Johnson vowed to rebuild the society but died in 2001 before the society’s newsletter or meetings were able to resume. Today there remain a handful of dedicated followers who form a small online community that remains active.

Also, they consider themselves “skeptics” and questioners or illogical and unsupported claims. Right… Sometimes people confuse the idea that it’s good to question things with the idea that it’s good to continue to question them and even presume they are wrong, even after ample amounts of supporting evidence are provided.

A major competitor of the Flat Earth claim is The Hollow/Convex Earth

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 5:28 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, History, Just LAME, Not Even Wrong, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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