I’ve already shared this clip where you,
“just need to go to 5:46 of this video, and watch until 12:48.
https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?t=346
This 7 minutes is all you need to debunk Flat Earthers.”
But forget about the science for a moment, forget about the videos from space, and forget about what the shadow of the earth looks like on the moon.
A Lunar Eclipse flat-Earther’s have never seen. pic.twitter.com/HuApDwa85n
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 26, 2017
What gets me is how flat earthers think time zones and plane travel work? We have decades of flight traffic data, and every day flights take off and land in predictable times between set locations. If the world were flat there would be some split in between 2 locations that would be impossible. Let’s say the split is somewhere between Hawaii and Japan. Take the globe and flatten it out with Hawaii on the Far West and Japan on the Far East. Then how can the flight between these two places be only 8.5 hours? Meanwhile, going the other way, it takes over 11 hours from Hawaii to Newfoundland… how could a plane go from one side of the flat earth to the other side so quickly?
No matter where you decide to draw the lines for a flat earth, we have flights travelling daily that would have to beat all airspeed records to accomplish landing on time, if they couldn’t go around the earth and instead had to fly the opposite way to avoid the edge. Put a flat earther on one of those flights, and that should defy any proof they think they might have. That should be the only evidence needed. Yet I guess it’s not enough.
That’s the weird thing about conspiracy theories like this… They don’t stand up to any evidence and yet people stick to them. To anyone who seriously and vehemently stands by the idea that the world is flat, do me a favour: draw the lines in the sand. Tell me where the edge is that separates east from west, then tell me how the flights between a city on the east and a city on the west can be achieved so quickly?
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David, this refusal to engage with the facts reminds me of something that Roland Barthes’ said about myths:
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/Blogger-Peer-Review/quotebacks@1/quoteback.js
Tim Harford argues that the solution for fake news is not simply facts, rather we need to foster an attitude of curiosity.
Excellent point Aaron. That’s why I like the flight airline times as a discussion point. “Help me understand how a plane spans this vast distance in this short time?”
That said, I have a close relative who is completely sunk into conspiracy theories, and I am at a loss as to how to approach any topic without it ending in both of our frustration. I don’t know how to foster creativity with this relative, who is curious, and inquisitive, and somehow completely gullible. The conspiracies aren’t as simple as a flat earth, they are cabals and government agendas based on leaked information from ‘reliable’ sources.
‘Who fact checks your fact checkers David? They are all part of the cover up.’
It’s curiosity tied with paranoia that seems to be the issue, rather than a lack of curiosity.
I’m astounded that anyone can seriously believe the Earth is flat. Having said that, I’m with Mark Twain on this one: “Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”
Such a great quote Bill. Reminds me of this quote too, “Never wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty, but the kid likes it!”