Believing that the Earth is flat was an excusable error back in the days before high-powered telescopes and space travel but today? Please.
In order to actually believe that the Earth is flat in the modern day, you need to also believe that just about everything else is also fake, including every single observation made by astronomers, every photo of the Earth, and even gravity. Gravity wouldn’t work like it does on our planet if Earth were flat, due to the center of mass being in the middle of the disc instead of the center of a sphere, so that’s right out the window. You even have to believe that the Moon itself is fake, since lunar eclipses show that the Earth is indeed a sphere. In a new video, Neil deGrasse Tyson addresses all of those facts and more when dispelling the idiotic theory that the Earth is flat, and it’s a lovely sight.
In the video, Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice run through a brief history of people believing the Earth is flat, noting that it was largely accepted that the Earth is in fact round even as far back as ancient Greece, thanks to observations made by astronomers at the time. The scientist talks about experiments conducted centuries and centuries ago regarding how shadows fall, noting that there’s no way a flat Earth could produce the kind of shadows that we can easily observe here on the surface.
Honestly, Tyson spends the entire nine minute video citing facts that any normal, sane person already knows, but which will bounce right off the noggins of just about any Flat Earther. Those who have chosen to believe in the flat Earth theory even in the face of thousands of years of scientific observation from every single continent will simply brush it off as “lies” anyway because that’s just what they do. I mean, if a person is willing to believe that gravity, space, and the Moon are all fake, it’s kind of hard to reason with them in the first place.
Towards the end of the video, Tyson blames the faltering US education system for the number of Flat Earthers that have sprung up in the country, noting that it’s not so much about teaching children long-known facts, but also about teaching them how to effectively reason. It’s hard to argue with him there, because if there’s one thing Flat Earthers lack it’s reason.
