Stupid Beliefs- The Flat Earth Society

Stupid Things That Stupid People Believe

The Flat Earth Society

Background

Popular history credits Christopher Columbus with two major achievements; being the first European to discover America, and proving that the world was round. Both are not true. Modern historical consensus is that the first European to discover America was a Viking explorer and Christian missionary called Leif Ericson who called it Vinland, and there's even some debate about whether he was actually the first- according to his own saga, he got directions from a Swede and rescued two shipwrecked sailors.

Secondly, Columbus wasn't trying to prove the world was round because people already knew it was, it would be like a modern physicist trying to prove that things fall at the same rate in a vacuum- people would have laughed at him. Columbus was trying to sail around the back of the world to find a passage to India- the waters between Western Europe and India being pretty dangerous at the time. If you don't believe me, have a look at this poorly-proportioned America-free globe, made before Columbus set sail.

I think that's meant to be Asia but don't hold me to it

In all fairness, while Columbus may have totally failed at the only goal he set for himself, his landing on America lead to the colonisation of North America, the extinction of several Native tribes, and for better or worse pretty much all of human history from that point on, whereas Leif Ericson's lead to absolutely fuck all.

Did people really believe this?

Yes, yes they did. Pretty much every culture on Earth before reaching a certain level of scientific development believed that the world was flat- and can you really blame them? It does look flat to the naked eye, unless you happen to be on a boat or watching one. However, we don't really give ancient civilisations enough credit a lot of the time, ancient Greek philosopers like Pythagoras and Aristotle were able to figure it out, and, although the Christianity has a bit of a reputation for stamping down on science like a schoolyard bully, most early fathers of the Church accepted a round Earth as fact. Throughout the middle ages, European and Islamic scholars more or less agreed the world was a globe, but astronomers in Asia refused to buy it at first.

The reason for the "Myth of the Flat Earth"- the belief that people once widely though the world was flat- is mostly due to an American writer called Washington Irving, who first wrote the popular story of Columbus; and the rest of it is due to the fact that, by the 19th Century, historians looked at the Middle Ages as the "Dark Ages" of ignorance after the fall of Rome. We all like to think we're part of the smartest generation, so it's nice to imagine everyone in the past as a Bible-thumping inbred moron who doesn't know how fire works.

The idea of a flat earth was mostly dead therefore, until the late 19th and early 20th Century. You need to understand that education wasn't widespread back then, and it was mostly just the basics- reading, spelling, simple maths, boys here are your pickaxes, girls here are your brooms. To the average working-class 19th Century man, the world looked flat so it was flat- stood to reason. Various crackpot scientists and "Zeteic societies" started to spring out of the woodwork, carrying out experiments that seemed to prove the world was flat, the most famous was the "Bedford Level Experiment". These experiments did seem convincing at the time, but have since been proven to be seriously flawed due to the people creating them having a poor understanding of physics, and several optical illusions. Eventually religion started to get involved, with various Christian zealots holding that a flat earth was biblical fact, and when religion and science meet no-one walks out with any dignity. There were public debates between Flat Earthers and real scientists that the "Planists" as they were called were judged as winning.

This went on and one like crazy, according to Joshua Slocum- the first man to sail solo around the world, he was once approached by three men in South Africa who gave him a pamphlet explaining exactly why his landmark history-making voyage was completely impossible.

You wanna say that to my face? Punk?

Do they still believe it?

Yes, but only a few of them. The Flat Earth Society, which I swear to God is a real thing (they have a podcast) was founded in 1956 by an Englishman called Samuel Shelton. Their stated goal is to reach children before they become exposed to the spherical earth "theory" and covert them to the Society's way of thinking, which I'm pretty sure is cult brainwashing. This being 1956, his credibility took an instant hit.

Take that America!

With the wonderful logic of the completely insane, Shelton commented "Would sailing around the Isle of Wight prove that it were spherical? It's the same for those satellites". He then went on to claim that the government were space lizards. As time went on and the two major world superpowers shot more stuff into space he gradually lost more and more support and died in 1971.

End of story right?

Nope, one of his pen pals- Californian (of course he was from California) Charles K. Johnson revamped the society, eventually attracting 3000 members. I'll repeat that- in the 1970's, 3000 people  believed the world was flat. He mostly stayed underground- presumably talking to magical elves and working on his unicorn stew recipe, but in 1980 he published an article in now-defunct science magazine "Science Digest", where he added to his list of symptoms by claiming that there is a worldwide conspiracy to spread misinformation about a round earth, a conspiracy that had included Moses, Columbus and FDR.

NEW WORLD ORDER! NEW WORLD ORDER! ILLUMINATI! BEWARE!!!!

Johnson died in 2001 and the Society was relaunched again in 2004 as a website, since on the Internet there's someone who'll believe anything, like a conspiracy theorist Rule 34. They don't publish membership figures. They claim to be "free thinkers" and have both a wiki and library to catalogue the "different schools of Flat Earth thought". Really.

They claim that gravity is a result of the Earth accelerating upwards at 9.8m/s/s, and that night and day (as well as the seasons) are a result of the sun spinning around above the Earth in a spiral, and that all photographs taken from space have been doctored and anyway most space travel is faked anyway. This is all on their FAQ page by the way, and once again I swear I'm not kidding

I assumed that this website was some kind of parody at first, but they claim to be 100% serious, and are aware that a number of their members may be trolls.

They're a pretty loose and nebulous group- they can't even agree on how the Flat Earth actually looks, but here's the picture on their website, you will notice that Antarctica is a wall. I wonder what these people would have said to Captain Scott.

Conclusion

So that's the Flat Earth Society- the easiest target in history for mockery. Now I feel like I've hit my stride, next time we'll be looking at something more serious but equally uncontroversial (since I'm a spineless coward who only goes after easy targets); Climate Change Denialists. Coming in two weeks.