LiveScience does fun article on Flat-Earthers
William of Ockham died in the middle of the 14th Century. A friar and theologian, he is credited with formulating “Occam’s Razor”, a principle roughly summarized as “when you have several possible explanations, pick the simplest”. (He never actually SAID that, but did write “Plurality must never be posited without necessity”. Hence endeth today’s philosophy lesson, stay tuned tomorrow for the lesson on the Holy Number of Three.)
Despite this, there exists a group who believe the Earth is flat. Yep, actually several of them. But they all feel we exist on a roughly disc-shaped platform, the stars, Sun and Moon are arguable, and all the discoveries of modern science regarding astronomy, astrophysics, etc. are delusional or illusions foisted on us by who knows who.
No one knows how many flat Earth believers are out there. According to Smithsonian Magazine, membership in the Flat Earth Society, founded in 1956, once reached 3,500 people. Today, the society claims more than 500 members on its roster. But some believers want nothing to do with the Flat Earth Society, according to a 2019 CNN article, with some attendees of the Flat Earth International Conference in Dallas that year telling the news agency that the organization is a government-sponsored front designed to make Flat Earthers look bad.
A 2017 national poll by Public Policy Polling found that only 1% of Americans believed the Earth was flat, with an additional 6% saying they weren’t sure.
The leading flat-earther theory holds that Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the center and Antarctica, a 150-foot-tall (45 meters) wall of ice, around the rim. NASA employees, they say, guard this ice wall to prevent people from climbing over and falling off the disc.
Furthermore, Earth’s gravity is an illusion, they say. Objects do not accelerate downward; instead, the disc of Earth accelerates upward at 32 feet per second squared (9.8 meters per second squared), driven up by a mysterious force called dark energy.
Predictably, NASA and all the Earth’s government are in on the con. All those pictures of the Earth, curved horizons, etc? Con. Guess they re covering up the four elephants standing on a tortoise who REALLY hold us up.
Doesn’t seem to address the speed of light – if the Earth is accelerating to provide that sense of gravity we find so comforting, after 6000 years since Biblical creation, how do they explain that we should be hitting Warp 6000 or so by now?
You really should read the article. And consider this – if 1% of Americans believe this, that’s roughly 3.3 MILLION adherents. Odds are you know someone (I know I do, a local church lady and her family) who do. Oh, and she votes.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Dumbass Bullshit, It's science!, None
There are current religions that started with less explanation. Barnum is still right.
Ask ol’ L. Ron Hubbard about his bar bet with Robert Heinlein.
L Ron knew it was a sure thing. Just mock up a fake military service, fantasy resume and some psychological babble and people bought right in.
It wouldn’t work today quite so well unless he were a strong Democrat. Everyone would figure out he was a fraud quickly.
As long as the topic of the moment is shady ethically challenged people with legions of followers who will do anything, up to and including murder, to keep the money flowing to Dear Leadee, let’s not forget Lyndon Larouche.
What bothers me is that there are 7% who think the earth is or may be flat. I assume that number excludes the crazy and those in mental institutions, plus those who are brain-dead but still on life support.
Don’t forget the large number of bored individuals answering an annoying survey in an entertaining manner.
Not that I have ever done anything like that. 😆
When you get to the number of people who believe the moon landings were faked the number rise to 11% and 11% unsure. So almost a quarter of the US has doubts about that.
I can kind of understand their point. If today Biden said that we had people land on the Moon I would be highly skeptical. If it were fact checked by USA Today I’d be even more skeptical.
Not all nutjobs are the ones that show up at a gunfight with a knife.
If the earth is round how did Saddam get the aluminums tube?
If the glove don’t fit jet fuel melts passports.
If the Earth is FLAT, how come I never learned how to say the word allumemum….alumeneemum…aummmleeemmumm….
Sounds like those 7% nimrods never looked at a map/globe of the earth. Why don’t these peeps prove that the earth is flat by flying around the earth going over the arctic circle untill they hit the south pole and then crash so we don’t have to hear about this anymore
It’s a vast right wing conspiracy between the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people, under the supervision of the the Rand McNally Globe Division to keep people from falling off of the edge of Earth.
You missed Big Magnet and it’s master, King of Lizardpeople Elon.
The rabbit hole deepens…. but since the discoid isn’t that thick, not too deep.
I have been to the wall, there is nothing beyond!
Is that the same ice wall in Game of Thrones?
Without the incest.
Hey, whatever keeps you warm through the ice cold nights . . .
So, boring, got it.
There is nothing wrong with incest….as long as you keep it in the family.
Well, I’ve been to Myrtle Beach, and beyond that, there’s just a lot of fuckin’ water.
What the fuck is up with that?
Our Society was born at Kitty Hawk on one of those dark and windy nights when nothing flew; even the seagulls bounced from place to place like hoppy toads. Our founders, who had been invited to attend a ceremony on December 17, honoring a pair of bicycle mechanics from Dayton Ohio, began drinking and thinking on the evening of December 16. They drank and they thought until the myth of the Wright Brothers’ flight in 1903 became as hard to swallow as the bootleg rye they imbibed.
Thus was born the society’s motto: “Birds Fly, Men Drink”. And thus its purpose:
Man will never fly Memorial Society
http://manwillneverfly.com/
First came the nonsense of Cupid flying through the air. Then there was the fairy tale of Pegasus, a winged horse. Next came the fabled Arabian carpet. And the bit of flummery about a flying stork that dropped babies down chimneys. Small wonder that humankind, nourished on such nonsense, would believe that bicycle mechanics could move through the air like winged fowl.
Accepting the challenge these myths have perpetuated, The Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society has fought the hallucination of airplane flight with every weapon at its command save sobriety. We remain dedicated to the principle that two Wrights made a wrong at Kitty Hawk.
Members of the Man Will Never Fly Society are not opposed to flight. Birds do it, Bees do it, even educated fleas do it, as Cole Porter once said. But when you stop to think about it, do you actually believe that a machine made of tons of metal will fly? Small wonder that the editor of a Dayton newspaper said, when informed of the mythical first flight in 1903. “Man will never fly. And if he does, he will never come from Dayton.”
Given a choice man will never fly. Not given a choice man will never fly sober
For further proof that man was not meant to fly, please see the story of Honorary Kamikaze Pilot Daniel Bernath. The man never bothered to make lodging arrangements when he traveled, as he was quite confident that he could find a place to crash.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Searched for ‘Dan Bernath meme’ the below was found.
On the positive side of the ledger, he’s been maintaining constant speed and bearing at an altitude of -6’ AGL for going on 5 years now. Steady as she goes, Dan. Steady as she goes!
MustangCPT, would that be 6′ BGL?
-6′ AGL = 6′ BGL
Still your point stands.
Stealing that pic
AGL = Above ground (+)
BGL = Below ground (-)
(-)(+) = (-)
(+)(-) = (-)
Your point still stands, BGL is morer properer.
What is:
If Bernath ends up 6 feet underground once. 😀
I might generate another Bernath meme comparing him to a commode. 😀
We should have a TAH Gathering of the mAsses.
All-can-drink beers at the local pub and a paid-for shuttle to our urinal.
Florida! HERE WE COME!!!!
He definitely flattened a portion of the earth on his last landing.
Tore ass through a bunch of innocent pine trees.
Poor Pine Land, he destroyed some of their only sustainable export.
After (how many years? my how time “flies”), still flying straight and level at -6 ft AGL. Impressive.
If the earth were flat there would not be any gravity but there
would be a hell of a lot of capacitance.
Make your hair stand up.
Gravity… Its not just a good idea, its the Law
There is no gravity. The earth sucks.
Flat Earth Society has members around the world 😉
😎
Sir Terry Prattchett presented the most compelling look at life on a disk world. (And how crazy a globe world would seem to them)
So near, and yet so far…
Well, I guess that explains some of the shit that happened to me when I was drunk.
I’ve hammered flat earthers on Gab. One exercise that I challenged them to do was to put a small object on a large beach ball, like a monopoly hotel or something similar. Then, while moving their line of sight close but tangent to the ball’s curve, rotate the ball until the object rotates to the other side. Then, rotate the ball the other way until it comes back (ship effect). The flat earth illusion, plus “disappearing effect”, could be seen.
Other pointers I’ve advanced… I saw the curved earth effect both on land and at sea, like mountain tops showing first before the bottom, they disappear from bottom up. At sea, the curve of the earth made it look like flat level sea surface was “hovering” above the beach on the other side. It hid the part of the beach closest to the water.
Here’s one of the images I put together to prove them wrong, the inset with the boat was from a video attempting to prove the curvature effect “wrong” as they tried to prove that the earth was “flat”.
You jest, but the United Nations itself let slip the actual map of the world:
If the model were real we would be inundated with penguins, or all the orcas would be at the edge of the earth.