Skip to contentWillowOne's PositionsTagsWhat’s newMediaStatisticsSearch
WillowOne's Positions

Flat Earth

My Positions

  1. The Earth is an oblate spheroid. This has been known since antiquity, was measured by Eratosthenes in around 240 BC to within a few per cent, and is confirmed by centuries of astronomical, navigational, geodetic, and photographic evidence.
  2. There is no single flat Earth model that accounts for observable phenomena. Flat-earthers do not agree with one another on what the model is, which is itself telling: a theory that matched reality would converge.
  3. There is no observable phenomena that is not explainable by the globe earth model.
  4. I regard flat Earth belief as less a position about geography than a position about trust. It is the conclusion one reaches by starting from "everything I was told is a lie" and working forwards. I respect that inclination towards scepticism; but scepticism should give way to reason.

See also Positions/Science/Flat Earth, which treats the question from the scientific side.

Rejected Positions

The Earth is flat

  • Claim: The Earth is a flat disc with the North Pole at its centre.
  • Basis: The horizon appears flat; water appears to find its level; distrust of NASA and governments; "I can't feel it moving".
  • Reason for rejection: Ships disappear hull-first over the horizon. The Sun sets, rather than shrinking into the distance. Different stars are visible from different latitudes, and the southern constellations rotate around a southern pole, which no flat model can reproduce. Time zones exist. Lunar eclipses always show a round shadow. Long-haul flight times in the southern hemisphere (Sydney to Santiago, for example) are impossible on any flat map. Commercial GPS, which depends on satellites in orbit, works. Satellite imagery, circumnavigation, the measurable curvature visible from high altitude, and the physics of gravity all confirm the Earth's shape. Any one of these would be sufficient; together they are conclusive. The horizon appears flat for the same reason a large circle appears straight when you stand on its edge.

Antarctica is an ice wall

  • Claim: Antarctica is a wall of ice surrounding the flat Earth, guarded by military treaty.
  • Basis: Maps produced by flat Earth groups; the Antarctic Treaty of 1959.
  • Reason for rejection: Antarctica is a continent, explored, mapped, overflown, and crossed on foot. Tourists visit it every year. Research stations from thirty countries operate there. The Antarctic Treaty regulates military activity and territorial claims; it does not restrict access. Several flat-earthers have themselves travelled to Antarctica and observed the 24-hour sun, which is impossible on a flat Earth, and most have found a way to disbelieve it.

Gravity does not exist; the disc accelerates upwards

  • Claim: What we feel as gravity is the flat Earth accelerating upwards at 9.8 m/s².
  • Basis: An attempt to explain weight without a spherical mass.
  • Reason for rejection: Gravity varies measurably with altitude and latitude; constant acceleration would not. Objects at the equator weigh slightly less than at the poles. Pendulums, plumb lines, and gravimeters all record these variations. An upward acceleration sustained for billions of years would also have reached the speed of light long ago.

Photographs from space are faked

  • Claim: All images of the Earth from space are computer-generated.
  • Basis: NASA has released composite images and has said so.
  • Reason for rejection: Thousands of images from dozens of agencies, private companies, and amateur high-altitude balloon launches show the curvature. The "Blue Marble" of 1972 was a single photograph from Apollo 17. The claim requires every space agency, every satellite operator, and every amateur with a balloon and a camera to be in on it.

Sources

  • NASA Earth Observatory
    https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/
  • Royal Geographical Society
    https://www.rgs.org/
  • Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy (2002), and his subsequent writing at Scientific American and elsewhere
  • Behind the Curve (documentary, 2018), in which flat-earthers conduct experiments that disprove their model and then reject the results
  • The Earth is round, a summary of evidence by Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine and the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

Also see