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Modern flat Earth beliefs

January 01, 1970

This article is about modern-day beliefs that the Earth is flat. For similar topics, see Flat Earth (disambiguation).

Pseudoscientific beliefs in a flat Earth are promoted by a number of organizations and individuals. The claims of modern flat Earth proponents are not based on scientific knowledge and are contrary to over two millennia of scientific consensus that Earth is spherical.[3] Flat Earth beliefs are classified by experts in philosophy and physics as a form of science denial.[4]

Projections of the sphere like the azimuthal equidistant projection have been co-opted as images of the flat Earth model depicting Antarctica as an ice wall[1][2] surrounding a disk-shaped Earth.
Twenty-two images of the Earth taken from space by the DSCOVR satellite. The observable, contemporary scientific view of the Earth as a rotating spherical globe, which flat Earth believers contest.

Flat Earth groups of the modern era date from the middle of the 20th century; some adherents are serious and some are not. Those who are serious are often motivated by religion[5] or conspiracy theories.[6] Through the use of social media, flat Earth theories have been increasingly espoused and promoted by individuals unaffiliated with larger groups. Many believers make use of social media to spread their views.[7][8]

Background

Main article: Flat Earth

Many ancient cultures believed that the Earth was flat as it appears so at a local level. The Greeks deduced that it was instead a sphere, and that became the scientific consensus.[citation needed]

19th and early 20th centuries

See also: Biblical literalism

Contrary to the popular belief that the Earth was generally believed to be flat until a few hundred years ago, Earth's sphericity has been widely accepted in the Western world (and universally by scholars) since at least the Hellenistic period (323 BCE–31 BCE).[9] It was not until the 19th century that the Flat Earth concept had a resurgence.

 
Rowbotham's flat Earth map

Modern flat Earth belief originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1884). Based on conclusions derived from his 1838 Bedford Level experiment, Rowbotham published the 1849 pamphlet titled Zetetic Astronomy, writing under the pseudonym "Parallax". He later expanded this into the book Earth Not a Globe, proposing the Earth is a flat disc centred at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice, Antarctica. Rowbotham further held that the Sun and Moon were 3,000 miles (4,800 km) above Earth and that the "cosmos" was 3,100 miles (5,000 km) above the Earth.[2] He also published a leaflet titled The Inconsistency of Modern Astronomy and its Opposition to the Scriptures, which argued that the "Bible, alongside our senses, supported the idea that the Earth was flat and immovable and this essential truth should not be set aside for a system based solely on human conjecture".[10]

Rowbotham and followers like William Carpenter gained attention by successful use of pseudoscience in public debates with leading scientists such as Alfred Russel Wallace.[11][12][13] Rowbotham created a Zetetic Society in England and New York, shipping over a thousand copies of Zetetic Astronomy to the New York branch.[14] Wallace repeated the Bedford Level experiment in 1870, correcting for atmospheric refraction and showing a spherical Earth.

In 1877, John Hampden produced a book A New Manual of Biblical Cosmography.[15] Rowbotham also produced studies that purported to show that the effects of ships disappearing below the horizon could be explained by the laws of perspective in relation to the human eye.[16]

After Rowbotham's death, Lady Elizabeth Blount established the Universal Zetetic Society in 1893, whose objective was "the propagation of knowledge related to Natural Cosmogony in confirmation of the Holy Scriptures, based on practical scientific investigation". The society published a magazine, The Earth Not a Globe Review, which sold for twopence and remained active well into the early 20th century.[17] A flat Earth journal, Earth: a Monthly Magazine of Sense and Science, was published between 1901 and 1904, edited by Lady Blount.[18] She held that the Bible was the unquestionable authority on the natural world and argued that one could not be a Christian and believe the Earth is a globe. Well-known members included E. W. Bullinger of the Trinitarian Bible Society, Edward Haughton, senior moderator in natural science in Trinity College Dublin and an archbishop. She repeated Rowbotham's experiments, generating some counter-experiments, but interest declined after the First World War.[19] The Universal Zetetic Society "was revived under different names over the years—in 1956, 1972, and 2004".[20] The movement gave rise to several books that argued for a flat, stationary Earth, including Terra Firma by David Wardlaw Scott.[21]

Other notable flat Earthers from this time period include:

  • William Carpenter, a printer originally from Greenwich, was a supporter of Rowbotham. Carpenter published Theoretical Astronomy Examined and Exposed – Proving the Earth not a Globe in eight parts from 1864 under the name Common Sense.[22] He later emigrated to Baltimore, where he published One Hundred Proofs the Earth is Not a Globe in 1885.[23] He wrote: "There are rivers that flow for hundreds of miles towards the level of the sea without falling more than a few feet – notably, the Nile, which, in a thousand miles, falls but a foot. A level expanse of this extent is quite incompatible with the idea of the Earth's convexity. It is, therefore, a reasonable proof that Earth is not a globe", as well as: "If the Earth were a globe, a small model globe would be the very best – because the truest – thing for the navigator to take to sea with him. But such a thing as that is not known: with such a toy as a guide, the mariner would wreck his ship, of a certainty! This is a proof that Earth is not a globe."
  • John Jasper, an American slave turned prolific preacher, and friend of Carpenter's, echoed his friend's sentiments in his most famous sermon "The Sun do move", preached over 250 times, always by invitation. In a written account of his sermon, published in The Richmond Whig of March 19, 1878, Jasper says he would frequently cite the verse "I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth"[24] and follow up by arguing: "So we are living on a four-cornered earth; then, my friends, will you tell me how in the name of God can an earth with four corners be round!" In the same article he argued: "if the earth is like others say, who hold a different theory, peopled on the other side, those people would be obliged to walk on the ground with their feet upward like flies on the ceiling of a room".[25]
  • In Brockport, New York, in 1887, M. C. Flanders argued the case of a flat Earth for three nights against two scientific gentlemen defending sphericity. Five townsmen chosen as judges voted unanimously for a flat Earth at the end. The case was reported in the Brockport Democrat.[26]
  • Joseph W. Holden of Maine, a former justice of the peace, gave numerous lectures in New England and lectured on flat-Earth theory at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His fame stretched to North Carolina, where the Statesville Semi-weekly Landmark recorded at his death in 1900: "We hold to the doctrine that the Earth is flat ourselves and we regret exceedingly to learn that one of our members is dead."[19]
  • In 1898, during his solo circumnavigation of the world, Joshua Slocum encountered a group of flat-Earthers in Durban, South Africa. Three Boers, one of them a clergyman, presented Slocum with a pamphlet in which they set out to prove that the world was flat. Paul Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic, advanced the same view: "You don't mean round the world, it is impossible! You mean in the world. Impossible!"[27]
  • From 1915 to 1942 Wilbur Glenn Voliva, who in 1906 took over the Christian Catholic Church, a Pentecostal sect that established a utopian community in Zion, Illinois, preached flat Earth doctrine. He used a photograph of a twelve-mile (19 km) stretch of the shoreline at Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin, taken three feet (91 cm) above the waterline to prove his point. When the airship Italia disappeared on an expedition to the North Pole in 1928, he warned the world's press that it had sailed over the edge of the world. He offered a $5000 award ($98,590 in 2022 terms) for proving that the Earth is not flat, under his own conditions.[28] Teaching a globular Earth was banned in the Zion schools, and the message was transmitted on his WCBD radio station.[19]
  • Along with those who followed him, Frank Cherry (died 1963), the founder of the Black Hebrew Israelite religion, taught the existence of a flat Earth "surrounded by three layers of heaven."[29]

International Flat Earth Research Society

"Flat Earth Society" redirects here. For other uses, see Flat Earth Society (disambiguation).
 
Logo of the Flat Earth Society

In 1956, Samuel Shenton created the International Flat Earth Research Society, better known as the "Flat Earth Society", as a successor to the Universal Zetetic Society, running it as "organising secretary" from his home in Dover, England.[17][30] Given Shenton's interest in alternative science and technology, the emphasis on religious arguments was less than in the predecessor society.[31] This was just before the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik; he responded: "Would sailing round the Isle of Wight prove that it were spherical? It is just the same for those satellites."[32][better source needed]

His primary aim was to reach children before they were convinced about a spherical Earth. Despite plenty of publicity, the space race eroded Shenton's support in Britain until 1967, when he started to gain attention during the Apollo program.[19] When satellite images showed Earth as a sphere, Shenton remarked: "It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye".[33] Later asked about similar photographs taken by astronauts, he attributed curvature to the use of wide-angle lens, adding, "It's a deception of the public and it isn't right".[30]

In 1969, Shenton persuaded Ellis Hillman, a Polytechnic of East London lecturer, to become president of the Flat Earth Society after attempts to convince Eden Thomas, a former chairman, to take on the role; but there is little evidence of any activity on his part until after Shenton's death, when he added most of Shenton's library to the archives of the Science Fiction Foundation he helped to establish.[34]

Historical accounts and spoken history tell us the Land part may have been square, all in one mass at one time, then as now, the magnetic north being the Center. Vast cataclysmic events and shaking no doubt broke the land apart, divided the Land to be our present continents or islands as they exist today. One thing we know for sure about this world...the known inhabited world is Flat, Level, a Plain World.

– Flyer written by Charles K. Johnson, 1984.[35]

Shenton died in 1971. Charles K. Johnson, a correspondent from California, inherited part of Shenton's library from Shenton's wife; he incorporated and became president of the International Flat Earth Research Society of America and Covenant People's Church in California. Over the next three decades, under his leadership, the Flat Earth Society grew to a reported 3,500 members.[36]

Johnson spent years examining the studies of flat- and round-Earth theories and proposed evidence of a conspiracy against flat Earth: "The idea of a spinning globe is only a conspiracy of error that Moses, Columbus, and FDR all fought..." His article was published in the magazine Science Digest in 1980. It goes on to state: "If it is a sphere, the surface of a large body of water must be curved. The Johnsons have checked the surfaces of Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea without detecting any curvature."[37]

Johnson issued many publications and handled all membership applications. The most famous publication was Flat Earth News, a quarterly, four-page tabloid.[1] Johnson paid for these publications through annual member dues costing US$6 to US$10 over the course of his leadership.[1] Johnson cited the Bible for his beliefs, and he saw scientists as pulling a hoax which would replace religion with science.[36]

The Flat Earth Society's most recent planet model is that humanity lives on a disc, with the North Pole at its centre and a 150-foot-high (46 m) wall of ice, Antarctica, at the outer edge.[38] The resulting map resembles the symbol of the United Nations, which Johnson used as evidence for his position.[39] In this model, the Sun and Moon are each 32 miles (51 km) in diameter.[40]

The Flat Earth Society recruited members by speaking against the US government and all its agencies, particularly NASA. Much of the society's literature in its early days focused on interpreting the Bible to mean that the Earth is flat, although they did try to offer scientific explanations and evidence.[1]

Criticism

Eugenie Scott called the group an example of "extreme Biblical-literalist theology: The earth is flat because the Bible says it is flat, regardless of what science tells us".[41]

According to some flat Earthers, the Flat Earth Society is a government-controlled organization whose true purpose is to make ridiculous claims about flat Earth and therefore discredit the flat Earth movement.[42]

Decline and relaunch

According to Charles K. Johnson, the membership of the group rose to 3,500 under his leadership but began to decline after a fire at his house in 1997 which destroyed all of the records and contacts of the society's members. Johnson's wife, who helped manage the membership database, died shortly thereafter. Johnson himself died on 19 March 2001.[43][44]

In 2004, Daniel Shenton (not related to Samuel)[45] resurrected the Flat Earth Society, basing it around a web-based discussion forum.[46] In the late 1990s, Thomas Dolby's 1984 album The Flat Earth inspired Shenton to look into the Flat Earth Society, and he came to believe in its ideas.[47] He believes that no one has provided proof that the world is not flat.[48] This eventually led to the official relaunch of the society in October 2009,[49] and the creation of a new website, featuring a public collection of flat Earth literature and a wiki.[50] Moreover, the society began accepting new members for the first time since 2001. Dolby accepted Shenton's offer of membership number 00001, although he does not believe the Earth is flat.[47][51] As of July 2017, over 500 people had become members.[52]

In 2013, part of this society broke away to form a new web-based group also featuring a forum and wiki.[53]

By country

Canada

Flat Earth Society of Canada was established on 8 November 1970 by philosopher Leo Ferrari, writer Raymond Fraser and poet Alden Nowlan;[54] and was active until 1984.[55] Its archives are held at the University of New Brunswick.[56]

Calling themselves "planoterrestrialists",[57] their aims were quite different from other flat Earth societies. They claimed a prevailing problem of the new technological age was the willingness of people to accept theories "on blind faith and to reject the evidence of their own senses."[55] The parodic intention of the Society appeared in the writings of Ferrari, as he attributed everything from gender to racial inequality on the globularist and the spherical Earth model.[58] Ferrari even claimed to have nearly fallen off "the Edge" of the Earth at Brimstone Head on Fogo Island.[59]

Ferrari was interviewed as an "expert" in the 1990 flat Earth mockumentary In Search of the Edge by Pancake Productions (a reference to the expression "as flat as a pancake").[60] In the accompanying study guide, Ferrari is outed as a "globularist", a nonce word for someone who believes the Earth is spherical.[61] The real intent of the film, which was part-funded by the Ontario Arts Council and National Film Board of Canada,[60] was to promote schoolchildren's critical thinking and media literacy by "[attempting] to prove in convincing fashion, something everyone knew to be false."[62]

Relaunch

Multi-media artist Kay Burns re-created the Flat Earth Society of Canada as an art project with her alter ego Iris Taylor[56] as its president.[63] Burns created an installation entitled the Museum of the Flat Earth, which included some artefacts from the 1970 group. It was exhibited in 2016 at the Flat Earth Outpost Café in Shoal Bay, Newfoundland.[56]

Italy

In Italy there are no centralised societies on flat Earth. However, since the 2010s, small groups of conspiracy theorists, who carry out meetings, started to emerge and to spread flat Earth theories. Among these are Calogero Greco, Albino Galuppini and Agostino Favari, who in 2018–2019 organised several meetings in Palermo, Sicily, with an entry price of €20.[64][65]

Among their claims, some include:

In addition to these, it is their common belief that the United States has a plan to create in Europe a new America open to everyone, where the only value is consumerism and that George Soros commands a satanic globalist conspiracy.[64][65] They reject the past existence of dinosaurs, the Darwinian theory of evolution, and the authority of the scientific community, claiming scientists are Freemasons.[66]

Former leader of the Five Star Movement political party Beppe Grillo showed interest in the group, admitting to admiring their free speech spirit and to wanting to participate at the May 2019 conference.[67] However, Grillo did not appear.[65]

Internet-era resurgence

In November 2017 "more than five hundred people ... paid as much as $249 each to attend "the first-ever Flat Earth Conference", in a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.[20][68] According to a 2018 YouGov opinion poll, "just 66% of millennials firmly believe" that the earth is round,[69] with celebrities (rapper B.o.B.,[70] basketball players Kyrie Irving, Wilson Chandler, Draymond Green)[71] advocating for flatness.

Sociological explanations for counterfactual beliefs

A popular 2020 YouTube debate about the Flat Earth concept, between science advocate and atheist activist Aron Ra and flat-earther Nathan Thompson

In the Information Age, the availability of communications technology and social media like YouTube, Facebook[72] and Twitter have made it easy for individuals, famous[73] or not, to spread disinformation and attract others to erroneous ideas. One of the topics that has flourished in this environment is that of the flat Earth.[7][8][74] These sites have made it easier for like-minded theorists to connect with one another and mutually reinforce their beliefs. Social media has had a "levelling effect", in that experts have less sway in the public mind than they used to.[75]

YouTube had faced criticism for allowing the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories through its platform. In 2019, YouTube stated that it was making changes in its software to reduce the distribution of videos based on conspiracy theories including flat Earth.[76][77][78]

In the documentary Behind the Curve (2018)[79] (which follows prominent modern flat-Earthers including Mark Sargent and Patricia Steere, as well as astrophysicists and psychologists who attempt to explain the growing fad),[80] professor of psychiatry Joe Pierre offers as explanations: the Dunning-Kruger effect (the phenomenon whereby ignorance in a given field makes people unable to recognize their own ignorance or lack of ability in that field); misunderstandings of simple observation; pseudoscientific practices which fail to separate reliable from unreliable conclusions; and a progressive divergence from reality that starts with a belief that conventional information sources and the government cannot be trusted.[81]

Out of the necessity to explain photographs of the earth in space, the observations of astronauts, why all major institutions such as governments, media outlets, schools, scientists, and airlines assert that the world is a sphere, etc., modern flat-Earthers very commonly embrace some form of conspiracy theory. As Darryle Marble, a speaker at the Flat Earth Conference, told his audience, after watching hours of YouTube conspiracy videos on Sandy Hook, 9/11, false flags, the Bilderbergers, Rothschilds, Illuminati – "Each thing started to make that much more sense. I was already primed to receive the whole flat-Earth idea, because we had already come to the conclusion that we were being deceived about so many other things. So of course they would lie to us about this."[20]

Conspiracy belief is often intertwined with conservative Christian belief. According to internet influencer Rob Skiba, "the ultimate motivation" of the (alleged) conspiracy of a round earth in space, "many of us have come to believe, is hiding God." Reading the Bible, "when you break down the text of what it represents, there's no way you can get a spinning heliocentric globe out of anything in the Bible."[68] (According to author Alan Burdick, "in style and substance, the flat-Earth movement is a close cousin of creationism.")[20]

They tend to not trust observations they have not made themselves, and often distrust or disagree with each other.[82] Patricia Steere admitted in Behind the Curve that she wouldn't believe an event like the Boston Marathon bombing was real unless she had gotten her own leg blown off. Flat Earth believers in the documentary also professed belief in conspiracy theories about vaccines, genetically modified organisms, chemtrails, 9/11, and transgender people; some said dinosaurs and evolution were also fake, and that heliocentrism is a form of Sun worship.

The scientific experts in Behind the Curve pointed to confirmation bias as a way to maintain a counterfactual belief, by cherry-picking only supporting evidence, and dismissing any disconfirming evidence as part of the purported global conspiracy.[83]

Some flat Earth believers, such as authors Zen Garcia and Edward Hendrie, cite the Christian Bible as evidence. Some critics of the flat Earth idea, such as astronomer Danny R. Faulkner, are young Earth creationists and attempt to explain away the Bible's supposed flat Earth language.[84]

On 3 May 2018, Steven Novella analysed the modern belief in a flat Earth, and concluded that, despite what most people think about the subject, the believers are being sincere in their belief that the Earth is flat, and are not "just saying that to wind us up". He stated that:

In the end that is the core malfunction of the flat-earthers, and the modern populist rejection of expertise in general. It is a horrifically simplistic view of the world that ignores (partly out of ignorance, and partly out of motivated reasoning) to [sic] real complexities of our civilisation. It is ultimately lazy, childish, and self-indulgent, resulting in a profound level of ignorance drowning in motivated reasoning.[85]

The British sceptical activist Michael Marshall attended the annual Flat Earth UK Convention on 27–29 April 2018 and noted disagreement on several views among believers in a flat Earth. To Marshall, one of the most telling moments at the convention was the "Flat Earth Addiction" test that was based on a checklist used to determine whether someone is in a cult, without the convention attendees realising the possibility of themselves being in a cult.[86]

Beliefs

Based on the speakers at the 2018 UK's Flat Earth UK Convention, believers in a flat Earth vary widely in their views. While most agree upon a disc-shaped Earth, some are convinced the Earth is diamond-shaped. Furthermore, while most believers do not believe in outer space and none believe humans have ever travelled there, they vary widely in their views of the universe.[86] (Flat Earth International Conferences, organized by Robbie Davidson, are unaffiliated with the Flat Earth Society. According to Davidson, the "Earth is ... a stationary plane, with the sun, moon, and stars inside a dome", while the Flat Earth Society promotes a model in which Earth is "a disk flying through space", and which Davidson finds "incredibly ridiculous".)[20]

Filmmakers of Behind the Curve attended another flat Earth conference at which a substantial number of people believed the Earth was an infinite plane, potentially with more continents beyond the purported circular ice wall of Antarctica. Members of the Flat Earth Society and other flat-Earthers claim that NASA and other government agencies conspire to fabricate evidence that the Earth is spherical.[87] According to the most widely spread version of current flat-Earth theory, NASA is guarding the Antarctic ice wall that surrounds Earth.[87] Flat-Earthers argue that NASA manipulates and fabricates its satellite images, based on observations that the color of the oceans changes from image to image and that continents seem to be in different places.[88] The publicly perpetuated image is kept up through a large-scale practice of "compartmentalization", according to which only a select number of individuals have knowledge about the truth.[20]

Research by Carlos Diaz Ruiz and Tomas Nilsson on the arguments that flat Earthers wield, shows three factions, each one subscribing to its own set of beliefs.[89]

The first faction subscribes to a faith-based conflict in which atheists use science to suppress the Christian faith. Their argument is that atheists use pseudo-science – evolution, Big Bang, and the round Earth – to make people believe that God is an abstract idea, not real. Instead, their arguments use the Scripture – word-by-word – to support an argument that enables God to really exist. This faction frames flat-Earth arguments as revelatory.[89] (For example, a literal interpretation of Revelation 7 -- "I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth ..."—indicates the earth must have four corners.)

The second faction believes in an overarching conspiracy for knowledge suppression. Building upon the premise that knowledge is power, the flat Earth conspiracy argues that a shadowy group of "elites" control knowledge to remain in power. In their view, lying about the fundamental nature of the Earth primes the population to believe a host of other conspiracies. This faction frames flat-Earth arguments as liberatory.[89]

The third faction believes that knowledge is personal and experiential. They are dismissive of knowledge that comes from authoritative sources, especially book knowledge. This faction would like to find out themselves whether the Earth truly is round or flat. Because they distrust book knowledge and mathematical proof, this faction believes that the Earth is flat because their observations and lived experiences make it appear as if we live on a flat surface. This faction frames flat-Earth arguments as experimental.[89]

Fellow flat earthers are not exempt from distrust and belief that they may be in cahoots with round earthers. In Behind the Curve, conference attendees were warned against attending by Math Powerland a.k.a. Matt Boylan, who posted videos alleging others were working for the CIA or Warner Brothers. At the 2017 Flat Earth conference:

several speakers made reference to "shills" within the community, people purporting to espouse the theory but who in fact belong to some deep-state counterintelligence program aimed at making the movement seem laughable. In 2016, [Eric] Dubay, of the "200 Proofs" video,[90] called out Mark Sargent, Jeran Campanella, and other figures as "suspected controlled opposition shills," and last year in a radio interview he called the November conference a "shill-fest." Even the flat-Earth bureaucracy is suspect. At the end of the conference's second day, a panelist mentioned a plan to set up a nonprofit to carry on the work. This brought a rebuke from a woman in the audience. "You had me up until I heard the gentleman say, 'The reason we had to scramble to get the 501(c)(3),' " she said. "In my research, I found out that's a Luciferian contract."[20]

Social and experimental activities of skeptics and believers

Organisations sceptical of fringe beliefs have occasionally performed tests to demonstrate the local curvature of the Earth. One of these, conducted by members of the Independent Investigations Group of the Center for Inquiry, at the Salton Sea on 10 June 2018 was attended also by supporters of a flat Earth, and the encounter between the two groups was recorded by the National Geographic Explorer. This experiment successfully demonstrated the curvature of the Earth via the disappearance over distance of boat-based and shore-based targets. IIG founder Jim Underdown reported that the flat Earth supporters in attendance immediately rejected the results, denying the validity of the demonstration after the fact, and the discussion degenerated into tangents about Moon landing conspiracy theories and alleged NASA cover-ups.[91][92]

The 2018 documentary Behind the Curve followed two groups of American flat Earth believers who were attempting to gather first-hand empirical proof for that belief. One group from the YouTube show GlobeBusters used a ring laser gyroscope in an attempt to show the Earth was not rotating. Instead, they detected the actual 15-degree-per-hour rotation of the Earth, a measurement they dismissed as corrupted by the device somehow picking up the rotation of the "firmament". Another group used lasers in an attempt to show a several-mile stretch of water is perfectly flat by measuring the distance between the water level and the laser beam along three vertical posts. They were unable to align the beam as they expected to because the surface of the still water was in fact bent by several feet over the distance measured; the experiment was dismissed as inconclusive.[citation needed]

Behind the Curve illustrated how flat Earth believers rely on poorly-verified claims. Mark Sargent claimed to have watched flightaware.com for a very long time to check if any flights traveled between continents in the Southern Hemisphere, which in his disc model would be much further apart than they are on the globe. He stated that he saw no such flights, and took this as evidence for the disc model. Caltech astrophysicist Hannalore Gerling-Dunsmore went to the site and immediately found flights that contradicted Sargent's claims.[93][94]

The solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 gave rise to numerous YouTube videos purporting to show how the details of the eclipse prove the Earth is flat.[95][96]

In 2017, "the Tunisian and Arab scientific and educational world" had a scandal when a Ph.D. student at the University of Sfax in Tunisia submitted a Ph.D. dissertation "declaring Earth to be flat, unmoving, young (only 13,500 years of age), and the centre of the universe".[97] In 2018, astronomer Yaël Nazé analyzed the controversy over the dissertation. The dissertation, which had not been approved by the committee overseeing environmental studies theses, had been made public and denounced in 2017 by Hafedh Ateb, a founder of the Tunisian Astronomical Society, on his Facebook page.[98]

In March 2019, social media personality Logan Paul released a satirical documentary film about the flat Earth called FLAT EARTH: To The Edge And Back.[99][100][101]

The Flat Earth Society has a Twitter account, @FlatEarthOrg. This account shares information about their group and promotes flat Earth ideologies.[102]

Mike Hughes

Main article: Mike Hughes (daredevil)

Mike Hughes, a daredevil/stuntman, planned to use a homebuilt crewed rocket to reach outer space.[103] In a practice flight on 22 February 2020, the early deployment and separation of the return parachute allowed his rocket to fall unimpeded from an altitude of several hundred feet, killing him instantly.[104]

After Hughes' death, his public relations representative Darren Shuster stated that Hughes "didn't believe in flat Earth" and that it was "a PR stunt" to get publicity,[105][106] while Michael Linn, who worked on the documentary Rocketman: Mad Mike's Mission to Prove the Flat-Earth, said that Hughes' belief appeared genuine.[107]

Social consequences and responses

Behind the Curve's filmmakers spoke with several people who said that as a result of their flat Earth beliefs they had lost romantic partners and no longer spoke to many friends and family. One said he was tired of being told he was an idiot. The Facebook group Flat Earth Match is a dating site used by some to find romantic partners who share these beliefs. Experts pointed out that after social ties to people outside the flat Earth community are lost, one consequence of abandoning the flat Earth belief would be loss of all remaining relationships.[citation needed]

Caltech physicist Spiros Michaelakis stated that instead of denigrating flat Earthers, scientists should do a better job of teaching scientific facts. Various scientific and medical experts in the documentary supported improving scientific literacy and avoiding marginalization of flat Earthers. They pointed out that people who distrust all of science, including truths about vaccines, evolution, and climate change, would make poorly informed-decisions, and that people who do not exercise the skill of critical thinking can be easily manipulated. They also pointed out that some believers were motivated to spread false ideas, and that because they are unconstrained by facts they can mutate and become less harmless than a mere belief about the shape of the Earth.[108]

The term "flat-Earther"

The term flat-Earth-man, used in a derogatory sense to mean anyone who holds ridiculously antiquated or impossible views, predates the more compact flat-earther. It was recorded in 1908: "Fewer votes than one would have thought possible for any human candidate, were he even a flat-earth-man."[109] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of the term flat-Earther was in 1934 in Punch magazine: "Without being a bigoted flat-earther, [Mercator] perceived the nuisance ... of fiddling about with globes ... in order to discover the South Seas."[110]

See also

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Schadwald, Robert J. (July 1980). "The Flat-out Truth:Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet" (PDF). Science Digest.
  2. ^ a b Schick, Theodore; Vaughn, Lewis (1995). How to think about weird things: critical thinking for a new age. Houghton Mifflin. p. 197. ISBN 978-1-55934-254-4.
  3. ^ "Is the Earth round?". oceanservice.noaa.gov. US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
  4. ^ Brazil, Rachel (14 July 2020). "Fighting flat-Earth theory". Physics World. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  5. ^ Nguyen, Hoang (2 April 2018). "Most flat earthers consider themselves very religious". today.yougov.com. YouGov PLC. Retrieved 22 February 2020. more than half of Flat earthers (52%) consider themselves "very religious,"
  6. ^ Wolchover, Natalie (30 May 2016). "Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?". LiveScience. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  7. ^ a b Ambrose, Graham (7 July 2017). "These Coloradans say Earth is flat. And gravity's a hoax. Now, they're being persecuted". The Denver Post. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
  8. ^ a b Dure, Beau (20 January 2016). "Flat-Earthers are back: 'It's almost like the beginning of a new religion'". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
  9. ^ "Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?". Live Science. 16 December 2021.
  10. ^ Garwood 2007, p. 46
  11. ^ Nature 7 April 1870.
  12. ^ "The Form of the Earth—A Shock of Opinions" (PDF). The New York Times. 10 August 1871. (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2019. Retrieved 2 November 2007.
  13. ^ Hampden, John (1870): The Bedford Canal swindle detected & exposed. A. Bull, London.
  14. ^ Garwood 2007, p. 133
  15. ^ Fiske, John (1892). The Discovery of America. The Riverside Press. p. 267.
  16. ^ Parallax (Samuel Birley Rowbotham) (1881). Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe (Third ed.). London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.
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References

  • Garwood, Christine (2007). Flat Earth: the History of an infamous idea. Macmillan.
  • Ambrose, Graham (7 July 2017). "These Coloradans say Earth is flat. And gravity's a hoax. Now they're being persecuted". The Denver Post.
  • Valenzuela, S. (19 April 2019). History's most famous Flat Earth believers: Athletes, celebrities, and ancient Greeks. Retrieved 3 March 2020
  • Lewis, D. (2016, January 28). The curious history of the International Flat Earth Society. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/curious-history-international-flat-earth-society-180957969/

Further reading

Scientific sources

  • Raymond Fraser (2007). When The Earth Was Flat: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan, the Flat Earth Society, the King James monarchy hoax, the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious matters. Black Moss Press, ISBN 978-0-88753-439-3
  • Christine Garwood (2007) Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, Pan Books, ISBN 1-4050-4702-X

Flat Earth believers

  • Zen Garcia (2016). Firmament: Vaulted Dome of the Earth. Lulu.com (self-publishing platform). ISBN 9781365073847. Arguments based on Christian Bible and related writings.
  • Edward Hendrie (2018). The Greatest Lie on Earth (Expanded Edition): Proof That Our World Is Not a Moving Globe (10th Expanded ed.). Great Mountain Publishing (self-published brand). ISBN 978-1943056057. Christian basis.

External links

  • The Flat Earth Society (2004/2009)
  • The Flat Earth Society (2013)
  • The International Flat Earth Research Society
  • The Modern Day Flat Earth Community
  • References to The Flat Earth Society by the Library of Congress
  • Article on Daniel Shenton
  • 3D Interactive Earth Globe
  • USA Today: Fact check roundup: Debunking the flawed science behind flat Earth claims

January 01, 1970
modern, flat, earth, beliefs, this, article, about, modern, beliefs, that, earth, flat, similar, topics, flat, earth, disambiguation, pseudoscientific, beliefs, flat, earth, promoted, number, organizations, individuals, claims, modern, flat, earth, proponents,. This article is about modern day beliefs that the Earth is flat For similar topics see Flat Earth disambiguation Pseudoscientific beliefs in a flat Earth are promoted by a number of organizations and individuals The claims of modern flat Earth proponents are not based on scientific knowledge and are contrary to over two millennia of scientific consensus that Earth is spherical 3 Flat Earth beliefs are classified by experts in philosophy and physics as a form of science denial 4 Projections of the sphere like the azimuthal equidistant projection have been co opted as images of the flat Earth model depicting Antarctica as an ice wall 1 2 surrounding a disk shaped Earth Twenty two images of the Earth taken from space by the DSCOVR satellite The observable contemporary scientific view of the Earth as a rotating spherical globe which flat Earth believers contest Flat Earth groups of the modern era date from the middle of the 20th century some adherents are serious and some are not Those who are serious are often motivated by religion 5 or conspiracy theories 6 Through the use of social media flat Earth theories have been increasingly espoused and promoted by individuals unaffiliated with larger groups Many believers make use of social media to spread their views 7 8 Contents 1 Background 2 19th and early 20th centuries 3 International Flat Earth Research Society 3 1 Criticism 3 2 Decline and relaunch 4 By country 4 1 Canada 4 1 1 Relaunch 4 2 Italy 5 Internet era resurgence 5 1 Sociological explanations for counterfactual beliefs 5 2 Beliefs 5 3 Social and experimental activities of skeptics and believers 5 3 1 Mike Hughes 5 4 Social consequences and responses 6 The term flat Earther 7 See also 8 Notes and references 8 1 Notes 8 2 References 9 Further reading 9 1 Scientific sources 9 2 Flat Earth believers 10 External linksBackgroundMain article Flat EarthMany ancient cultures believed that the Earth was flat as it appears so at a local level The Greeks deduced that it was instead a sphere and that became the scientific consensus citation needed 19th and early 20th centuriesSee also Biblical literalism Contrary to the popular belief that the Earth was generally believed to be flat until a few hundred years ago Earth s sphericity has been widely accepted in the Western world and universally by scholars since at least the Hellenistic period 323 BCE 31 BCE 9 It was not until the 19th century that the Flat Earth concept had a resurgence nbsp Rowbotham s flat Earth map Modern flat Earth belief originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham 1816 1884 Based on conclusions derived from his 1838 Bedford Level experiment Rowbotham published the 1849 pamphlet titled Zetetic Astronomy writing under the pseudonym Parallax He later expanded this into the book Earth Not a Globe proposing the Earth is a flat disc centred at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice Antarctica Rowbotham further held that the Sun and Moon were 3 000 miles 4 800 km above Earth and that the cosmos was 3 100 miles 5 000 km above the Earth 2 He also published a leaflet titled The Inconsistency of Modern Astronomy and its Opposition to the Scriptures which argued that the Bible alongside our senses supported the idea that the Earth was flat and immovable and this essential truth should not be set aside for a system based solely on human conjecture 10 Rowbotham and followers like William Carpenter gained attention by successful use of pseudoscience in public debates with leading scientists such as Alfred Russel Wallace 11 12 13 Rowbotham created a Zetetic Society in England and New York shipping over a thousand copies of Zetetic Astronomy to the New York branch 14 Wallace repeated the Bedford Level experiment in 1870 correcting for atmospheric refraction and showing a spherical Earth In 1877 John Hampden produced a book A New Manual of Biblical Cosmography 15 Rowbotham also produced studies that purported to show that the effects of ships disappearing below the horizon could be explained by the laws of perspective in relation to the human eye 16 After Rowbotham s death Lady Elizabeth Blount established the Universal Zetetic Society in 1893 whose objective was the propagation of knowledge related to Natural Cosmogony in confirmation of the Holy Scriptures based on practical scientific investigation The society published a magazine The Earth Not a Globe Review which sold for twopence and remained active well into the early 20th century 17 A flat Earth journal Earth a Monthly Magazine of Sense and Science was published between 1901 and 1904 edited by Lady Blount 18 She held that the Bible was the unquestionable authority on the natural world and argued that one could not be a Christian and believe the Earth is a globe Well known members included E W Bullinger of the Trinitarian Bible Society Edward Haughton senior moderator in natural science in Trinity College Dublin and an archbishop She repeated Rowbotham s experiments generating some counter experiments but interest declined after the First World War 19 The Universal Zetetic Society was revived under different names over the years in 1956 1972 and 2004 20 The movement gave rise to several books that argued for a flat stationary Earth including Terra Firma by David Wardlaw Scott 21 Other notable flat Earthers from this time period include William Carpenter a printer originally from Greenwich was a supporter of Rowbotham Carpenter published Theoretical Astronomy Examined and Exposed Proving the Earth not a Globe in eight parts from 1864 under the name Common Sense 22 He later emigrated to Baltimore where he published One Hundred Proofs the Earth is Not a Globe in 1885 23 He wrote There are rivers that flow for hundreds of miles towards the level of the sea without falling more than a few feet notably the Nile which in a thousand miles falls but a foot A level expanse of this extent is quite incompatible with the idea of the Earth s convexity It is therefore a reasonable proof that Earth is not a globe as well as If the Earth were a globe a small model globe would be the very best because the truest thing for the navigator to take to sea with him But such a thing as that is not known with such a toy as a guide the mariner would wreck his ship of a certainty This is a proof that Earth is not a globe John Jasper an American slave turned prolific preacher and friend of Carpenter s echoed his friend s sentiments in his most famous sermon The Sun do move preached over 250 times always by invitation In a written account of his sermon published in The Richmond Whig of March 19 1878 Jasper says he would frequently cite the verse I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth 24 and follow up by arguing So we are living on a four cornered earth then my friends will you tell me how in the name of God can an earth with four corners be round In the same article he argued if the earth is like others say who hold a different theory peopled on the other side those people would be obliged to walk on the ground with their feet upward like flies on the ceiling of a room 25 In Brockport New York in 1887 M C Flanders argued the case of a flat Earth for three nights against two scientific gentlemen defending sphericity Five townsmen chosen as judges voted unanimously for a flat Earth at the end The case was reported in the Brockport Democrat 26 Joseph W Holden of Maine a former justice of the peace gave numerous lectures in New England and lectured on flat Earth theory at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago His fame stretched to North Carolina where the Statesville Semi weekly Landmark recorded at his death in 1900 We hold to the doctrine that the Earth is flat ourselves and we regret exceedingly to learn that one of our members is dead 19 In 1898 during his solo circumnavigation of the world Joshua Slocum encountered a group of flat Earthers in Durban South Africa Three Boers one of them a clergyman presented Slocum with a pamphlet in which they set out to prove that the world was flat Paul Kruger President of the Transvaal Republic advanced the same view You don t mean round the world it is impossible You mean in the world Impossible 27 From 1915 to 1942 Wilbur Glenn Voliva who in 1906 took over the Christian Catholic Church a Pentecostal sect that established a utopian community in Zion Illinois preached flat Earth doctrine He used a photograph of a twelve mile 19 km stretch of the shoreline at Lake Winnebago Wisconsin taken three feet 91 cm above the waterline to prove his point When the airship Italia disappeared on an expedition to the North Pole in 1928 he warned the world s press that it had sailed over the edge of the world He offered a 5000 award 98 590 in 2022 terms for proving that the Earth is not flat under his own conditions 28 Teaching a globular Earth was banned in the Zion schools and the message was transmitted on his WCBD radio station 19 Along with those who followed him Frank Cherry died 1963 the founder of the Black Hebrew Israelite religion taught the existence of a flat Earth surrounded by three layers of heaven 29 International Flat Earth Research Society Flat Earth Society redirects here For other uses see Flat Earth Society disambiguation nbsp Logo of the Flat Earth Society In 1956 Samuel Shenton created the International Flat Earth Research Society better known as the Flat Earth Society as a successor to the Universal Zetetic Society running it as organising secretary from his home in Dover England 17 30 Given Shenton s interest in alternative science and technology the emphasis on religious arguments was less than in the predecessor society 31 This was just before the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite Sputnik he responded Would sailing round the Isle of Wight prove that it were spherical It is just the same for those satellites 32 better source needed His primary aim was to reach children before they were convinced about a spherical Earth Despite plenty of publicity the space race eroded Shenton s support in Britain until 1967 when he started to gain attention during the Apollo program 19 When satellite images showed Earth as a sphere Shenton remarked It s easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye 33 Later asked about similar photographs taken by astronauts he attributed curvature to the use of wide angle lens adding It s a deception of the public and it isn t right 30 In 1969 Shenton persuaded Ellis Hillman a Polytechnic of East London lecturer to become president of the Flat Earth Society after attempts to convince Eden Thomas a former chairman to take on the role but there is little evidence of any activity on his part until after Shenton s death when he added most of Shenton s library to the archives of the Science Fiction Foundation he helped to establish 34 Historical accounts and spoken history tell us the Land part may have been square all in one mass at one time then as now the magnetic north being the Center Vast cataclysmic events and shaking no doubt broke the land apart divided the Land to be our present continents or islands as they exist today One thing we know for sure about this world the known inhabited world is Flat Level a Plain World Flyer written by Charles K Johnson 1984 35 Shenton died in 1971 Charles K Johnson a correspondent from California inherited part of Shenton s library from Shenton s wife he incorporated and became president of the International Flat Earth Research Society of America and Covenant People s Church in California Over the next three decades under his leadership the Flat Earth Society grew to a reported 3 500 members 36 Johnson spent years examining the studies of flat and round Earth theories and proposed evidence of a conspiracy against flat Earth The idea of a spinning globe is only a conspiracy of error that Moses Columbus and FDR all fought His article was published in the magazine Science Digest in 1980 It goes on to state If it is a sphere the surface of a large body of water must be curved The Johnsons have checked the surfaces of Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea without detecting any curvature 37 Johnson issued many publications and handled all membership applications The most famous publication was Flat Earth News a quarterly four page tabloid 1 Johnson paid for these publications through annual member dues costing US 6 to US 10 over the course of his leadership 1 Johnson cited the Bible for his beliefs and he saw scientists as pulling a hoax which would replace religion with science 36 The Flat Earth Society s most recent planet model is that humanity lives on a disc with the North Pole at its centre and a 150 foot high 46 m wall of ice Antarctica at the outer edge 38 The resulting map resembles the symbol of the United Nations which Johnson used as evidence for his position 39 In this model the Sun and Moon are each 32 miles 51 km in diameter 40 The Flat Earth Society recruited members by speaking against the US government and all its agencies particularly NASA Much of the society s literature in its early days focused on interpreting the Bible to mean that the Earth is flat although they did try to offer scientific explanations and evidence 1 Criticism Eugenie Scott called the group an example of extreme Biblical literalist theology The earth is flat because the Bible says it is flat regardless of what science tells us 41 According to some flat Earthers the Flat Earth Society is a government controlled organization whose true purpose is to make ridiculous claims about flat Earth and therefore discredit the flat Earth movement 42 Decline and relaunch According to Charles K Johnson the membership of the group rose to 3 500 under his leadership but began to decline after a fire at his house in 1997 which destroyed all of the records and contacts of the society s members Johnson s wife who helped manage the membership database died shortly thereafter Johnson himself died on 19 March 2001 43 44 In 2004 Daniel Shenton not related to Samuel 45 resurrected the Flat Earth Society basing it around a web based discussion forum 46 In the late 1990s Thomas Dolby s 1984 album The Flat Earth inspired Shenton to look into the Flat Earth Society and he came to believe in its ideas 47 He believes that no one has provided proof that the world is not flat 48 This eventually led to the official relaunch of the society in October 2009 49 and the creation of a new website featuring a public collection of flat Earth literature and a wiki 50 Moreover the society began accepting new members for the first time since 2001 Dolby accepted Shenton s offer of membership number 00001 although he does not believe the Earth is flat 47 51 As of July 2017 update over 500 people had become members 52 In 2013 part of this society broke away to form a new web based group also featuring a forum and wiki 53 By countryCanada Flat Earth Society of Canada was established on 8 November 1970 by philosopher Leo Ferrari writer Raymond Fraser and poet Alden Nowlan 54 and was active until 1984 55 Its archives are held at the University of New Brunswick 56 Calling themselves planoterrestrialists 57 their aims were quite different from other flat Earth societies They claimed a prevailing problem of the new technological age was the willingness of people to accept theories on blind faith and to reject the evidence of their own senses 55 The parodic intention of the Society appeared in the writings of Ferrari as he attributed everything from gender to racial inequality on the globularist and the spherical Earth model 58 Ferrari even claimed to have nearly fallen off the Edge of the Earth at Brimstone Head on Fogo Island 59 Ferrari was interviewed as an expert in the 1990 flat Earth mockumentary In Search of the Edge by Pancake Productions a reference to the expression as flat as a pancake 60 In the accompanying study guide Ferrari is outed as a globularist a nonce word for someone who believes the Earth is spherical 61 The real intent of the film which was part funded by the Ontario Arts Council and National Film Board of Canada 60 was to promote schoolchildren s critical thinking and media literacy by attempting to prove in convincing fashion something everyone knew to be false 62 Relaunch Multi media artist Kay Burns re created the Flat Earth Society of Canada as an art project with her alter ego Iris Taylor 56 as its president 63 Burns created an installation entitled the Museum of the Flat Earth which included some artefacts from the 1970 group It was exhibited in 2016 at the Flat Earth Outpost Cafe in Shoal Bay Newfoundland 56 Italy In Italy there are no centralised societies on flat Earth However since the 2010s small groups of conspiracy theorists who carry out meetings started to emerge and to spread flat Earth theories Among these are Calogero Greco Albino Galuppini and Agostino Favari who in 2018 2019 organised several meetings in Palermo Sicily with an entry price of 20 64 65 Among their claims some include NASA is similar to Disneyland and that astronauts are actors 64 65 The April 2019 supermassive black hole photo at the core of the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 is fake 65 The proof Earth is flat lies in a filled bottle where if placed horizontally water never curves 64 65 In addition to these it is their common belief that the United States has a plan to create in Europe a new America open to everyone where the only value is consumerism and that George Soros commands a satanic globalist conspiracy 64 65 They reject the past existence of dinosaurs the Darwinian theory of evolution and the authority of the scientific community claiming scientists are Freemasons 66 Former leader of the Five Star Movement political party Beppe Grillo showed interest in the group admitting to admiring their free speech spirit and to wanting to participate at the May 2019 conference 67 However Grillo did not appear 65 Internet era resurgenceIn November 2017 more than five hundred people paid as much as 249 each to attend the first ever Flat Earth Conference in a suburb of Raleigh North Carolina U S 20 68 According to a 2018 YouGov opinion poll just 66 of millennials firmly believe that the earth is round 69 with celebrities rapper B o B 70 basketball players Kyrie Irving Wilson Chandler Draymond Green 71 advocating for flatness Sociological explanations for counterfactual beliefs source source source source source source source A popular 2020 YouTube debate about the Flat Earth concept between science advocate and atheist activist Aron Ra and flat earther Nathan Thompson In the Information Age the availability of communications technology and social media like YouTube Facebook 72 and Twitter have made it easy for individuals famous 73 or not to spread disinformation and attract others to erroneous ideas One of the topics that has flourished in this environment is that of the flat Earth 7 8 74 These sites have made it easier for like minded theorists to connect with one another and mutually reinforce their beliefs Social media has had a levelling effect in that experts have less sway in the public mind than they used to 75 YouTube had faced criticism for allowing the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories through its platform In 2019 YouTube stated that it was making changes in its software to reduce the distribution of videos based on conspiracy theories including flat Earth 76 77 78 In the documentary Behind the Curve 2018 79 which follows prominent modern flat Earthers including Mark Sargent and Patricia Steere as well as astrophysicists and psychologists who attempt to explain the growing fad 80 professor of psychiatry Joe Pierre offers as explanations the Dunning Kruger effect the phenomenon whereby ignorance in a given field makes people unable to recognize their own ignorance or lack of ability in that field misunderstandings of simple observation pseudoscientific practices which fail to separate reliable from unreliable conclusions and a progressive divergence from reality that starts with a belief that conventional information sources and the government cannot be trusted 81 Out of the necessity to explain photographs of the earth in space the observations of astronauts why all major institutions such as governments media outlets schools scientists and airlines assert that the world is a sphere etc modern flat Earthers very commonly embrace some form of conspiracy theory As Darryle Marble a speaker at the Flat Earth Conference told his audience after watching hours of YouTube conspiracy videos on Sandy Hook 9 11 false flags the Bilderbergers Rothschilds Illuminati Each thing started to make that much more sense I was already primed to receive the whole flat Earth idea because we had already come to the conclusion that we were being deceived about so many other things So of course they would lie to us about this 20 Conspiracy belief is often intertwined with conservative Christian belief According to internet influencer Rob Skiba the ultimate motivation of the alleged conspiracy of a round earth in space many of us have come to believe is hiding God Reading the Bible when you break down the text of what it represents there s no way you can get a spinning heliocentric globe out of anything in the Bible 68 According to author Alan Burdick in style and substance the flat Earth movement is a close cousin of creationism 20 They tend to not trust observations they have not made themselves and often distrust or disagree with each other 82 Patricia Steere admitted in Behind the Curve that she wouldn t believe an event like the Boston Marathon bombing was real unless she had gotten her own leg blown off Flat Earth believers in the documentary also professed belief in conspiracy theories about vaccines genetically modified organisms chemtrails 9 11 and transgender people some said dinosaurs and evolution were also fake and that heliocentrism is a form of Sun worship The scientific experts in Behind the Curve pointed to confirmation bias as a way to maintain a counterfactual belief by cherry picking only supporting evidence and dismissing any disconfirming evidence as part of the purported global conspiracy 83 Some flat Earth believers such as authors Zen Garcia and Edward Hendrie cite the Christian Bible as evidence Some critics of the flat Earth idea such as astronomer Danny R Faulkner are young Earth creationists and attempt to explain away the Bible s supposed flat Earth language 84 On 3 May 2018 Steven Novella analysed the modern belief in a flat Earth and concluded that despite what most people think about the subject the believers are being sincere in their belief that the Earth is flat and are not just saying that to wind us up He stated that In the end that is the core malfunction of the flat earthers and the modern populist rejection of expertise in general It is a horrifically simplistic view of the world that ignores partly out of ignorance and partly out of motivated reasoning to sic real complexities of our civilisation It is ultimately lazy childish and self indulgent resulting in a profound level of ignorance drowning in motivated reasoning 85 The British sceptical activist Michael Marshall attended the annual Flat Earth UK Convention on 27 29 April 2018 and noted disagreement on several views among believers in a flat Earth To Marshall one of the most telling moments at the convention was the Flat Earth Addiction test that was based on a checklist used to determine whether someone is in a cult without the convention attendees realising the possibility of themselves being in a cult 86 Beliefs Based on the speakers at the 2018 UK s Flat Earth UK Convention believers in a flat Earth vary widely in their views While most agree upon a disc shaped Earth some are convinced the Earth is diamond shaped Furthermore while most believers do not believe in outer space and none believe humans have ever travelled there they vary widely in their views of the universe 86 Flat Earth International Conferences organized by Robbie Davidson are unaffiliated with the Flat Earth Society According to Davidson the Earth is a stationary plane with the sun moon and stars inside a dome while the Flat Earth Society promotes a model in which Earth is a disk flying through space and which Davidson finds incredibly ridiculous 20 Filmmakers of Behind the Curve attended another flat Earth conference at which a substantial number of people believed the Earth was an infinite plane potentially with more continents beyond the purported circular ice wall of Antarctica Members of the Flat Earth Society and other flat Earthers claim that NASA and other government agencies conspire to fabricate evidence that the Earth is spherical 87 According to the most widely spread version of current flat Earth theory NASA is guarding the Antarctic ice wall that surrounds Earth 87 Flat Earthers argue that NASA manipulates and fabricates its satellite images based on observations that the color of the oceans changes from image to image and that continents seem to be in different places 88 The publicly perpetuated image is kept up through a large scale practice of compartmentalization according to which only a select number of individuals have knowledge about the truth 20 Research by Carlos Diaz Ruiz and Tomas Nilsson on the arguments that flat Earthers wield shows three factions each one subscribing to its own set of beliefs 89 The first faction subscribes to a faith based conflict in which atheists use science to suppress the Christian faith Their argument is that atheists use pseudo science evolution Big Bang and the round Earth to make people believe that God is an abstract idea not real Instead their arguments use the Scripture word by word to support an argument that enables God to really exist This faction frames flat Earth arguments as revelatory 89 For example a literal interpretation of Revelation 7 I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth indicates the earth must have four corners The second faction believes in an overarching conspiracy for knowledge suppression Building upon the premise that knowledge is power the flat Earth conspiracy argues that a shadowy group of elites control knowledge to remain in power In their view lying about the fundamental nature of the Earth primes the population to believe a host of other conspiracies This faction frames flat Earth arguments as liberatory 89 The third faction believes that knowledge is personal and experiential They are dismissive of knowledge that comes from authoritative sources especially book knowledge This faction would like to find out themselves whether the Earth truly is round or flat Because they distrust book knowledge and mathematical proof this faction believes that the Earth is flat because their observations and lived experiences make it appear as if we live on a flat surface This faction frames flat Earth arguments as experimental 89 Fellow flat earthers are not exempt from distrust and belief that they may be in cahoots with round earthers In Behind the Curve conference attendees were warned against attending by Math Powerland a k a Matt Boylan who posted videos alleging others were working for the CIA or Warner Brothers At the 2017 Flat Earth conference several speakers made reference to shills within the community people purporting to espouse the theory but who in fact belong to some deep state counterintelligence program aimed at making the movement seem laughable In 2016 Eric Dubay of the 200 Proofs video 90 called out Mark Sargent Jeran Campanella and other figures as suspected controlled opposition shills and last year in a radio interview he called the November conference a shill fest Even the flat Earth bureaucracy is suspect At the end of the conference s second day a panelist mentioned a plan to set up a nonprofit to carry on the work This brought a rebuke from a woman in the audience You had me up until I heard the gentleman say The reason we had to scramble to get the 501 c 3 she said In my research I found out that s a Luciferian contract 20 Social and experimental activities of skeptics and believers Organisations sceptical of fringe beliefs have occasionally performed tests to demonstrate the local curvature of the Earth One of these conducted by members of the Independent Investigations Group of the Center for Inquiry at the Salton Sea on 10 June 2018 was attended also by supporters of a flat Earth and the encounter between the two groups was recorded by the National Geographic Explorer This experiment successfully demonstrated the curvature of the Earth via the disappearance over distance of boat based and shore based targets IIG founder Jim Underdown reported that the flat Earth supporters in attendance immediately rejected the results denying the validity of the demonstration after the fact and the discussion degenerated into tangents about Moon landing conspiracy theories and alleged NASA cover ups 91 92 The 2018 documentary Behind the Curve followed two groups of American flat Earth believers who were attempting to gather first hand empirical proof for that belief One group from the YouTube show GlobeBusters used a ring laser gyroscope in an attempt to show the Earth was not rotating Instead they detected the actual 15 degree per hour rotation of the Earth a measurement they dismissed as corrupted by the device somehow picking up the rotation of the firmament Another group used lasers in an attempt to show a several mile stretch of water is perfectly flat by measuring the distance between the water level and the laser beam along three vertical posts They were unable to align the beam as they expected to because the surface of the still water was in fact bent by several feet over the distance measured the experiment was dismissed as inconclusive citation needed Behind the Curve illustrated how flat Earth believers rely on poorly verified claims Mark Sargent claimed to have watched flightaware com for a very long time to check if any flights traveled between continents in the Southern Hemisphere which in his disc model would be much further apart than they are on the globe He stated that he saw no such flights and took this as evidence for the disc model Caltech astrophysicist Hannalore Gerling Dunsmore went to the site and immediately found flights that contradicted Sargent s claims 93 94 The solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 gave rise to numerous YouTube videos purporting to show how the details of the eclipse prove the Earth is flat 95 96 In 2017 the Tunisian and Arab scientific and educational world had a scandal when a Ph D student at the University of Sfax in Tunisia submitted a Ph D dissertation declaring Earth to be flat unmoving young only 13 500 years of age and the centre of the universe 97 In 2018 astronomer Yael Naze analyzed the controversy over the dissertation The dissertation which had not been approved by the committee overseeing environmental studies theses had been made public and denounced in 2017 by Hafedh Ateb a founder of the Tunisian Astronomical Society on his Facebook page 98 In March 2019 social media personality Logan Paul released a satirical documentary film about the flat Earth called FLAT EARTH To The Edge And Back 99 100 101 The Flat Earth Society has a Twitter account FlatEarthOrg This account shares information about their group and promotes flat Earth ideologies 102 Mike Hughes Main article Mike Hughes daredevil Mike Hughes a daredevil stuntman planned to use a homebuilt crewed rocket to reach outer space 103 In a practice flight on 22 February 2020 the early deployment and separation of the return parachute allowed his rocket to fall unimpeded from an altitude of several hundred feet killing him instantly 104 After Hughes death his public relations representative Darren Shuster stated that Hughes didn t believe in flat Earth and that it was a PR stunt to get publicity 105 106 while Michael Linn who worked on the documentary Rocketman Mad Mike s Mission to Prove the Flat Earth said that Hughes belief appeared genuine 107 Social consequences and responses Behind the Curve s filmmakers spoke with several people who said that as a result of their flat Earth beliefs they had lost romantic partners and no longer spoke to many friends and family One said he was tired of being told he was an idiot The Facebook group Flat Earth Match is a dating site used by some to find romantic partners who share these beliefs Experts pointed out that after social ties to people outside the flat Earth community are lost one consequence of abandoning the flat Earth belief would be loss of all remaining relationships citation needed Caltech physicist Spiros Michaelakis stated that instead of denigrating flat Earthers scientists should do a better job of teaching scientific facts Various scientific and medical experts in the documentary supported improving scientific literacy and avoiding marginalization of flat Earthers They pointed out that people who distrust all of science including truths about vaccines evolution and climate change would make poorly informed decisions and that people who do not exercise the skill of critical thinking can be easily manipulated They also pointed out that some believers were motivated to spread false ideas and that because they are unconstrained by facts they can mutate and become less harmless than a mere belief about the shape of the Earth 108 The term flat Earther The term flat Earth man used in a derogatory sense to mean anyone who holds ridiculously antiquated or impossible views predates the more compact flat earther It was recorded in 1908 Fewer votes than one would have thought possible for any human candidate were he even a flat earth man 109 According to the Oxford English Dictionary the first use of the term flat Earther was in 1934 in Punch magazine Without being a bigoted flat earther Mercator perceived the nuisance of fiddling about with globes in order to discover the South Seas 110 See also nbsp Earth portal nbsp Religion portal nbsp Society portal Empirical evidence for the spherical shape of Earth Figure of the Earth Geodesy Hollow Earth Category Flat Earth proponentsNotes and referencesNotes a b c d Schadwald Robert J July 1980 The Flat out Truth Earth Orbits Moon Landings A Fraud Says This Prophet PDF Science Digest a b Schick Theodore Vaughn Lewis 1995 How to think about weird things critical thinking for a new age Houghton Mifflin p 197 ISBN 978 1 55934 254 4 Is the Earth round oceanservice noaa gov US Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Brazil Rachel 14 July 2020 Fighting flat Earth theory Physics World Retrieved 6 February 2021 Nguyen Hoang 2 April 2018 Most flat earthers consider themselves very religious today yougov com YouGov PLC Retrieved 22 February 2020 more than half of Flat earthers 52 consider themselves very religious Wolchover Natalie 30 May 2016 Are Flat Earthers Being Serious LiveScience Retrieved 17 October 2019 a b Ambrose Graham 7 July 2017 These Coloradans say Earth is flat And gravity s a hoax Now they re being persecuted The Denver Post Retrieved 19 August 2017 a b Dure Beau 20 January 2016 Flat Earthers are back It s almost like the beginning of a new religion The Guardian Retrieved 19 August 2017 Are Flat Earthers Being Serious Live Science 16 December 2021 Garwood 2007 p 46 Nature 7 April 1870 The Form of the Earth A Shock of Opinions PDF The New York Times 10 August 1871 Archived PDF from the original on 11 July 2019 Retrieved 2 November 2007 Hampden John 1870 The Bedford Canal swindle detected amp exposed A Bull London Garwood 2007 p 133 Fiske John 1892 The Discovery of America The Riverside Press p 267 Parallax Samuel Birley Rowbotham 1881 Zetetic Astronomy Earth Not a Globe Third ed London Simpkin Marshall and Co a b Moore Patrick 1972 Better and Flatter Earths PDF Can You Speak Venusian Wyndham Publications ISBN 0 352 39776 4 Archived PDF from the original on 21 May 2014 Garwood 2007 pp 155 159 a b c d Garwood 2007 a b c d e f g Burdick Alan 30 May 2018 Looking for Life on a Flat Earth The New Yorker ISSN 0028 792X Retrieved 29 July 2023 Wardlaw Scott David 1901 Terra Firma Retrieved 13 December 2010 Carpenter William 1864 Theoretical astronomy examined and exposed by Common sense Carpenter William 1885 One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe Baltimore William Carpenter via Project Gutenberg Rev 7 1 Hatcher 1908 p 20 Garwood 2007 p 165 Randolph 1884 pp 47 53 The Earth Scripturally Rationally and Practically Described A Geographical Philosophical and Educational Review Nautical Guide and General Student s Manual n 17 November 1 1887 p 7 Cited in Schadewald Robert J 1981 Scientific Creationism Geocentricity and the Flat Earth Skeptical Inquirer Lock Haven University Archived from the original on 3 August 2003 Retrieved 21 August 2010 via lhup edu Slocum Joshua 1900 17 18 Sailing Alone Around the World New York The Century Company 5 000 for Proving the Earth is a Globe Modern Mechanix 19 May 2006 Archived from the original on 11 April 2011 Retrieved 9 February 2013 Gallagher Eugene V 2006 Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America Five Volumes Greenwood Publishing Group p 73 ISBN 978 0 313 05078 7 he accepted the collection of Jewish law known as the Talmud as the ultimate authority on religious matters Like many black Israelites and black Muslims Cherry stigmatized Southern black culture forbidding his followers to eat pork drink heavily or observe Christian holidays He also separated himself from African American Christianity by forbidding pianos public collections emotional expression in worship or speaking in tongues Services began and ended with a prayer said while facing east Prophet Cherry s theology was strongly millenarian black nationalist and idiosyncratic He emphasized strict adherence to the Ten Commandments and his followers believed in a square Earth surrounded by three layers of heaven He claimed that Jesus was black and would return in the year 2000 and raise all the saints who obeyed the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Prophet Cherry Cherry denigrated white Jews as interlopers and frauds and vilified them for denying the divinity of Jesus Prophet Cherry passed away in 1963 and was succeeded by his son Prince Benjamin F Cherry a b Gilmore Eddy 26 March 1967 So now we know The Earth is not only flat it s motionless too The Cincinnati Enquirer p 26 I Retrieved 15 February 2018 via Newspapers com nbsp Readable clippings in four parts 1 2 3 4 Garwood 2007 pp 220 225 Zyl Derrick van 30 November 2017 The Mytholgy of God Why and how religion harms humanity Derrick van Zyl ISBN 978 0 620 49962 0 Schadewald RJ Six flood arguments creationists can t answer National Center for Science Education Retrieved 24 April 2010 Garwood 2007 pp 320 Documenting the Existence of The International Flat Earth Society talk origins Retrieved 26 December 2013 a b Martin Douglas 25 March 2001 Charles Johnson 76 Proponent of Flat Earth The New York Times Retrieved 27 December 2013 Robert J Schadewald The Flat out Truth Lhup edu Archived from the original on 29 December 2017 Retrieved 22 January 2018 Voliva Wilbur Glenn March 1979 Is the Earth a Whirling Globe PDF Flat Earth News Lancaster CA International Flat Earth Research Society p 2 Archived PDF from the original on 12 August 2014 Johnson Charles K December 1978 Flat Earth News News of the World s Children PDF Lancaster California International Flat Earth Research Society p 2 Johnson Charles K December 1978 Sun is a light 32 miles across PDF Flat Earth News Lancaster California International Flat Earth Research Society p 1 Retrieved 1 January 2018 Scott Eugenie 1997 Antievolution and Creationism in the United States PDF Annual Review of Anthropology 26 263 289 doi 10 1146 annurev anthro 26 1 263 Archived from the original PDF on 5 June 2012 Retrieved 8 December 2011 Picheta Rob 18 November 2019 The flat Earth conspiracy is spreading around the globe Does it hide a darker core CNN Retrieved 27 July 2022 Cole John R 2001 Flat Earth Society President Dies National Center for Science Education Retrieved 15 June 2009 Donald E Simanek The Flat Earth Lhup edu Archived from the original on 28 January 2013 Retrieved 9 February 2013 Miedo a un planeta esferico 19 March 2010 Retrieved 21 July 2012 The Flat Earth Society forum Retrieved 24 July 2014 a b Adam David 23 February 2010 The Earth is flat What planet is he on The Guardian Ingenious Flat Earth Theory Revealed In Old Map LiveScience 23 June 2011 Retrieved 9 February 2013 Relaunch of the Flat Earth Society press release PDF The Flat Earth Society Homepage Archived from the original on 8 July 2016 Retrieved 24 July 2014 Why celebs are joining the flat earth debate NZ Herald 5 February 2024 Retrieved 5 February 2024 The Flat Earth Society Membership Register theflatearthsociety org Retrieved 23 July 2014 The Flat Earth Society Retrieved 14 July 2014 Leo Charles Ferrari New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia St Thomas University Archived from the original on 2 February 2014 Retrieved 16 March 2013 a b Series No 2 The Flat Earth Society of Canada Leo C Ferrari Fonds UNB Archives and Special Collections Retrieved 16 March 2013 a b c Bird Lindsay 20 May 2016 Museum of the Flat Earth opens on where else Fogo Island Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Retrieved 8 May 2017 Dr Ferrari and the Flat Earth Society by Alden Nowlan 3 December 2012 Retrieved 7 February 2013 Ferrari Leo Charles 1975 Feminism and education in a Flat Earth perspective McGill Journal of Education X 1 77 81 Colombo John R 1984 Canadian Literary Landmarks Dundurn p 19 ISBN 978 0888820730 a b Barrie Scott Director Marsh Robert Narrator 2005 In search of the edge an inquiry into the shape of the earth and the disappearance of Andrea Barns DVD Toronto Ontario Pancake Productions ISBN 9781594582295 OCLC 81094526 Barrie Scott Director Marsh Robert Narrator 2005 In search of the edge an inquiry into the shape of the earth and the disappearance of Andrea Barns DVD Toronto Ontario Pancake Productions ISBN 9781594582295 OCLC 810945 In Search of the Edge An Inquiry into the Shape of the Earth and the Disappearance of Andrea Barns Bullfrog Films Retrieved 8 May 2017 Flat Earth Society Iris Taylor Research Retrieved 8 May 2017 a b c d Terrapiattisti a Palermo Lo sbarco sulla luna e una invenzione Flat Earth in Palermo Moon landing is fiction Adnkronos in Italian 11 May 2019 Retrieved 22 July 2019 a b c d e f Terrapiattisti a Palermo ma Beppe Grillo non c e La Nasa E come Disneyland Flat Earth in Palermo but Beppe Grillo is not there NASA It s like Disneyland Il Messaggero in Italian 12 May 2019 Retrieved 22 July 2019 Il terrapiattismo italiano in 10 punti Italian flat Earth in 10 points 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confusion Martin Sean 15 August 2017 The sun hologram needs updating This is how flat earthers explain the solar eclipse Daily Express Retrieved 19 August 2017 Hickey Brian 17 August 2017 What do flat Earthers think about Monday s solar eclipse Phillyvoice com Philly Voice Retrieved 19 August 2017 Guessoum Nidhal 10 April 2017 PhD thesis The earth is flat Gulf News Retrieved 19 August 2017 Naze Yael 2018 A Doctoral Dissertation on a Geocentric Flat Earth Zetetic Astronomy at the University Level Skeptical Inquirer 42 3 12 14 Logan Paul 20 March 2019 Flat Earth To The Edge And Back Official Movie archived from the original on 11 December 2021 retrieved 1 July 2019 Alexander Julia 22 March 2019 Logan Paul s satirical flat Earth doc gets to the heart of YouTube s recommendation issue The Verge Retrieved 1 July 2019 Sung Morgan 21 March 2019 Good news everyone Logan Paul doesn t actually think the Earth is flat Mashable Retrieved 1 July 2019 account F E S V 15 March 2020 Flat Earth Society FlatEarthOrg Retrieved from https twitter com FlatEarthOrg Flat earther blasts off in homemade rocket in bid to reassure himself world is shaped like a Frisbee The Independent 25 March 2018 Archived from the original on 15 May 2022 Retrieved 8 December 2018 Infamous Daredevil Mad Mike Hughes Has Died in Homemade Rocket Crash in California ScienceAlert 23 February 2020 Retrieved 23 February 2020 Steadman Otillia 24 February 2020 A Daredevil Flat Earther Died After Attempting To Launch Himself 5 000 Feet With A Homemade Rocket BuzzFeed News Retrieved 13 August 2021 Ortiz Aimee 23 February 2020 Mike Hughes 64 D I Y Daredevil Is Killed in Rocket Crash The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 13 August 2021 Wigglesworth Alex 24 February 2020 Death of rocket man Mad Mike Hughes ends years of close calls Los Angeles Times ISSN 2165 1736 Retrieved 13 August 2021 Behind the Curve starting around 1 hour 8 minutes Shaw George B 1908 Fabian Essays on Socialism new ed Ball p xviii Flat Earth Oxford English Dictionary Retrieved 29 July 2013 References Garwood Christine 2007 Flat Earth the History of an infamous idea Macmillan Ambrose Graham 7 July 2017 These Coloradans say Earth is flat And gravity s a hoax Now they re being persecuted The Denver Post Valenzuela S 19 April 2019 History s most famous Flat Earth believers Athletes celebrities and ancient Greeks Retrieved 3 March 2020 Lewis D 2016 January 28 The curious history of the International Flat Earth Society Smithsonian Magazine https www smithsonianmag com smart news curious history international flat earth society 180957969 Further readingScientific sources Raymond Fraser 2007 When The Earth Was Flat Remembering Leonard Cohen Alden Nowlan the Flat Earth Society the King James monarchy hoax the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious matters Black Moss Press ISBN 978 0 88753 439 3 Christine Garwood 2007 Flat Earth The History of an Infamous Idea Pan Books ISBN 1 4050 4702 X Flat Earth believers Zen Garcia 2016 Firmament Vaulted Dome of the Earth Lulu com self publishing platform ISBN 9781365073847 Arguments based on Christian Bible and related writings Edward Hendrie 2018 The Greatest Lie on Earth Expanded Edition Proof That Our World Is Not a Moving Globe 10th Expanded ed Great Mountain Publishing self published brand ISBN 978 1943056057 Christian basis External linksThe Flat Earth Society 2004 2009 The Flat Earth Society 2013 The International Flat Earth Research Society The Modern Day Flat Earth Community References to The Flat Earth Society by the Library of Congress Article on Daniel Shenton 3D Interactive Earth Globe USA Today Fact check roundup Debunking the flawed science behind flat Earth claims Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Modern flat Earth beliefs amp oldid 1224590776, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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