Although you may think this book's title is a joke, I assure you that there are people today that adamantly believe the world is flat. Worse still, the number of Flat Earthers has been increasing in recent years. How could that be possible? NASA has taken photos of the Earth from space to confirm it is round. According to The Flat Earth Society, NASA are lying. NASA never went to space... because space isn't real. You might find this concept preposterous. Are Flat Earthers suggesting every astronomer and physicist is wrong? No. Flat Earthers believe that so-called "scientists" know the Earth is flat but they are lying. Why would anyone lie about the shape of the Earth? How can Flat Earthers be so sure? If the Earth is flat, why doesn't the oceans spill out at the sides? All of these questions will be explained in this book. Read on to learn the history of the Flat Earth community, why they believe what they believe, and most importantly, how we know their beliefs are irrefutably false.
Contrary to popular belief fostered in countless school classrooms the world over, Christopher Columbus did not discover that the earth was round. The idea of a spherical world had been widely accepted in educated circles from as early as the fourth century B.C. Yet, bizarrely, it was not until the supposedly more rational nineteenth century that the notion of a flat earth really took hold. Even more bizarrely, it persists to this day, despite Apollo missions and widely publicized pictures of the decidedly spherical Earth from space. Based on a range of original sources, Garwood's history of flat-Earth beliefs---from the Babylonians to the present day---raises issues central to the history and philosophy of science, its relationship to religion and the making of human knowledge about the natural world. Flat Earth is the first definitive study of one of history's most notorious and persistent ideas, and it evokes all the intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual turmoil of the modern age. Ranging from ancient Greece, through Victorian England, to modern-day America, this is a story that encompasses religion, science, and pseudoscience, as well as a spectacular array of people and places. Where else could eccentric aristocrats, fundamentalist preachers, and conspiracy theorists appear alongside Copernicus, Newton, and NASA, except in an account of such a legendary misconception? Thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating, Flat Earth is social and intellectual history at its best.
“A deep dive into the world of Flat Earth conspiracy theorists . . . that brilliantly reveals how people fall into illogical beliefs, reject reason, destroy relationships, and connect with a broad range of conspiracy theories in the social media age. Beautiful, probing, and often empathetic . . . An insightful, human look at what fuels conspiracy theories.” —Science Since 2015, there has been a spectacular boom in a centuries-old delusion: that the earth is flat. More and more people believe that we all live on a pancake-shaped planet, capped by a solid dome and ringed by an impossible wall of ice. How? Why? In Off the Edge, journalist Kelly Weill draws a direct line from today’s conspiratorial moment, brimming not just with Flat Earthers but also anti-vaxxers and QAnon followers, back to the early days of Flat Earth theory in the 1830s. We learn the natural impulses behind these beliefs: when faced with a complicated world out of our control, humans have always sought patterns to explain the inexplicable. This psychology doesn’t change. But with the dawn of the twenty-first century, something else has shifted. Powered by Facebook and YouTube algorithms, the Flat Earth movement is growing. At once a definitive history of the movement and an essential look at its unbelievable present, Off the Edge introduces us to a cast of larger-than-life characters. We meet historical figures like the nineteenth-century grifter who first popularized the theory, as well as the many modern-day Flat Earthers Weill herself gets to know, from moms on vacation to determined creationists to neo-Nazi rappers. We discover what, and who, converts people to Flat Earth belief, and what happens inside the rabbit hole. And we even meet a man determined to fly into space in a homemade rocket-powered balloon—whose tragic death is as senseless and absurd as the theory he sets out to prove. In this incisive and powerful story about belief, Kelly Weill explores how we arrived at this moment of polarized realities and explains what needs to happen so that we might all return to the same spinning globe.
Explores globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks--environmental, social, and political.
The Flat Earth Clues book gives you 14 compelling reasons why you should rethink the globe model that you have been taught. Before you were born, before your parents, your grandparents, before you even had a family line… there was the illusion, the trick, the lie... That you lived on a small spinning rock, flying through space. What if, after centuries of preaching the globe as a religious icon, "the powers that be" found out that it was actually not a sphere, but instead something much different? Would they risk unravelling 500 years of science doctrine by informing the public? Could a government still retain it's authority if there were actually proof of a higher power? It's about proving the Flat Earth, but more importantly, it's about disproving the globe, and that shouldn't be possible, but there are several big questions which science has a difficult time with. Why was there only one blue marble image used for 43 years? Where are the videos of the earth rotating from space? Astronauts can't turn around in space with the camera running? Not even by accident? Are the Van Allen radiation belts dangerous? Why does the Orion Trial by Fire video exist? Why was the space shuttle program cancelled? Why does the Mars mission keep getting postponed? Why are they closing down the ISS? Why is Psalm 19:1 on Werner Von Braun's headstone? Why is the moon generating a light that is sometimes 12 degrees colder than the moon shade? How is that possible if it's reflecting the suns rays? And if the moon is generating it's own light source, then what was that dark grey thing we landed on? We can beam back crystal clear photos of Pluto, but the Global Positioning System doesn't track planes in the Southern oceans? And why does this topic, compared to ANY other, conspiracy or not, make people excited, angry, or scared? Some of you are getting anxious just listening! Why? Because it's the greatest trick of all, and we all fell for it. You should be excited, because it's going to change the world. You should be angry, because you were fooled your entire life, and you should be a little scared, because this is uncharted territory. This is the Flat Earth theory, that the world is easy to understand, more intimate, and very deliberate. It didn't just happen, it was built, and more importantly built for you. Open your eyes and smile. You have never been alone. Published by Booglez Limited, UK - Flat Earth Clues is digestible nuggets of information broken down in a very reader-friendly way. Author Mark Sargent is located in the USA. He features in the Netflix documentary Behind The Curve (2018). Mark runs a regular radio show on Truth Frequency Radio where you can phone in and discuss the topic.
Much may be gathered, indirectly, from the arguments in these pages, as to the real nature of the Earth on which we live and of the heavenly bodies which were created for us. The reader is requested to be patient in this matter and not expect a whole flood of light to burst in upon him at once, through the dense clouds of opposition and prejudice which hang all around. Old ideas have to be gotten rid of, by some people, before they can entertain the new; and this will especially be the case in the matter of the Sun, about which we are taught, by Mr. Proctor, as follows: “The globe of the Sun is so much larger than that of the Earth that no less than 1,250,000 globes as large as the Earth would be wanted to make up together a globe as large as the Sun.” Whereas, we know that, as it is demonstrated that the Sun moves round over the Earth, its size is proportionately less. We can then easily understand that Day and Night, and the Seasons are brought about by his daily circuits round in a course concentric with the North, diminishing in their extent to the end of June, and increasing until the end of December, the equatorial region being the area covered by the Sun’s mean motion. If, then, these pages serve but to arouse the spirit of enquiry, the author will be satisfied.
Can we change the minds of science deniers? Encounters with flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, coronavirus truthers, and others. "Climate change is a hoax--and so is coronavirus." "Vaccines are bad for you." These days, many of our fellow citizens reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. They are not merely uninformed--they are misinformed. They cite cherry-picked evidence, rely on fake experts, and believe conspiracy theories. How can we convince such people otherwise? How can we get them to change their minds and accept the facts when they don't believe in facts? In this book, Lee McIntyre shows that anyone can fight back against science deniers, and argues that it's important to do so. Science denial can kill. Drawing on his own experience--including a visit to a Flat Earth convention--as well as academic research, McIntyre outlines the common themes of science denialism, present in misinformation campaigns ranging from tobacco companies' denial in the 1950s that smoking causes lung cancer to today's anti-vaxxers. He describes attempts to use his persuasive powers as a philosopher to convert Flat Earthers; surprising discussions with coal miners; and conversations with a scientist friend about genetically modified organisms in food. McIntyre offers tools and techniques for communicating the truth and values of science, emphasizing that the most important way to reach science deniers is to talk to them calmly and respectfully--to put ourselves out there, and meet them face to face.
The most popular flat Earth book ever written, translated into over 20 languages, 200 Proofs Earth is Not a Spinning Ball inspired by John Carpenter's 19th century opus "100 Proofs Earth is Not a Globe," doubles the number of natural scientific evidences proving Earth is not a tilting, wobbling, spinning space-ball.Wolves in sheep
It seems odd to have to say this after about 2600 years of scientific verification, but the Earth is NOT flat. There is a growing and vocal group of people using to Internet to disagree with that statement, however, and that's what this book is about. If you haven't encountered the world of the flat-Earthers yet, you're in for an eye-opener. Here you'll find the arguments that the flat-Earth proponents make, from the almost reasonable to the truly bizarre. The purpose of this book is not to prove its title--it certainly should not be necessary--but to explore the propagation of a pseudoscience, and explore why it matters. One reviewer (who didn't actually buy the book) wrote: "A one sided and close minded attack on another belief system. Uncalled for attacks and misrepresentations are made of the #Flatearth community and any evidence said community has provided. An obvious attempt to use the inflammatory mood and trend to sell what is in all cases a poorly written diatribe about another system to boost his poor following and poorer debate skills." High praise indeed from the flat-Earth community. Get your copy today!
Samuel Birley Rowbotham, under the pseudonym 'Parallax', lectured for two decades up and down Britain promoting his unique flat earth theory. This book, in which he lays out his world system, went through three editions, starting with a 16 page pamphlet published in 1849 and a second edition of 221 pages published in 1865. The third edition of 1881 (which had inflated to 430 pages) was used as the basis of this etext. Rowbotham was an accomplished debater who reputedly steamrollered all opponents, and his followers, who included many well-educated people, were equally tenacious. One of them, John Hampden, got involved in a bet with the famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace about the flat earth. An experiment which Hampden proposed didn't resolve the issue, and the two ended up in court in 1876. The judge ruled against Hampton, who started a long campaign of legal harassment of Wallace. Rowbotham hints at the incident in this book. Rowbotham believed that the earth is flat. The contients float on an infinite ocean which somehow has a layer of fire underneath it. The lands we know are surrounded by an infinite wilderness of ice and snow, beyond the Antarctic ocean, bordered by an immense circular ice-cliff. What we call the North Pole is in the center of the earth. The polar projection of the flat earth creates obvious discrepancies with known geography, particularly the farther south you go. Figure 54 inadvertantly illustrates this problem. The Zetetic map has a severly squashed South America and Africa, and Australia and New Zealand in the middle of the Pacific. I think that by the 19th century people would have noticed if Australia and Africa were thousands of miles further apart than expected, let alone if Africa was wider than it was long! The Zetetic Sun, moon, planets and stars are all only a few hundred miles above the surface of the earth. The sun orbits the north pole once a day at a constant altitude. The moon is both self-illuminated and semi-transparent. Eclipses can be explained by some unknown object occulting the sun or moon. Zetetic cosmology is 'faith-based', based, that is, on a literal interpretation of selected Biblical quotes. Hell is exactly as advertised, directly below us. Heaven is not a state of mind, it is a real place, somewhere above us. He uses Ussherian Biblical chronology to mock the concept that stars could be millions of light years away. He attacks the concept of a plurality of worlds because no other world than this one is mentioned in the Bible. Rowbotham never adequately explains his alternative astronomy. If the Copernican theory so adequately explains planetary motions, why discard it, and what would he use in its place? What is the sun orbiting around once a day and how does it work like a spotlight, not a 'point source'? If the moon is self-luminous, what creates its phases? If gravity appears to work here on earth, why doesn't it apply to the celestial objects just a few hundred miles up? To make his system work he had to throw out a great deal of science, including the scientific method itself, using instead what he calls a 'Zetetic' method. As far as I can see this is simply a license to employ circular reasoning (e.g., the earth is flat, hence we can see distant lighthouses, hence the earth is flat). Zetetic Astronomy is a key work of flat-earth thought, just as Donnelly's Atlantis, the Antediluvian World is still considered required reading on the subject of Atlantis. If you ever have to debate the flat earth pro or con, this book is a complete agenda of each point that you'll have to argue.
