Members of the Flat Earth Society claim the Earth is flat. A belief that the Earth is flat has remained an ultimate conspiracy theory.
People with such mindsets are too stubborn and completely under the influence of their cultural programming. Walking around on the Earth’s surface, it looks and feels flat, so they deny all evidence that supports contradiction, They even claim the satellite photos of Earth as a sphere to be fake and insist that Science society is trying to play with their minds by capturing photos with fish eye lens that’s why the earth’s surface appears like a curve due to ultra-wide-angle lens.
One of the greatest minds from the 21st century, an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking included a joke in his famous book “A Brief History of Time”:
“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever, ” said the old lady. “But it turtles all the way down!”
As stubborn as their belief system appears, it doesn’t really amaze Psychologists. According to Karen Douglas, a psychologist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom who studies the psychology of conspiracy theories, flat-earthers’ beliefs relate with those of other conspiracy theorists she has studied.
“It seems to me that these people do generally believe that the Earth is flat. I’m not seeing anything that sounds as if they’re just putting that idea out there for any other reason,” Douglas told Live Science.
She said all conspiracy theories share a basic thrust, They hold within an alternative theory about an important issue or event, and build an often irrational explanation for why someone is manipulating the actual and true version of events. “One of the major points of appeal is that they explain a big event but often without going into details,” she said. “A lot of the power lies in the fact that they are vague.”
How to counter the Flat Earther’s?
You can easily counter with only 3 examples, but I can bet, they will keep insisting that their version of the ‘Story’ is true, because of their blind perspective of belief and stubborn nature.
Aristotle noticed that during lunar eclipses (when the Earth’s orbit places it directly between the Sun and the Moon, creating a shadow in the process), the shadow of the earth on the Moon’s surface appears like a curve. Is it possible for a flat surface to cast a curvy shadow?
The higher you climb, the farther you will see. Normally, we relate this to Earthly obstacles that obstruct our vision on the ground. But that is not the case. Even if you stood on a completely clear plateau ahead, with no obstacles between you and the horizon, you would see much farther from the greater height than you would on the ground. This phenomenon is caused by the curvature of the Earth as well, and would not happen if the Earth was flat.
If you take a flight that departs right after the sunset. After takeoff, you will be able to see the sun again, after gaining little altitude. Because the Earth is not flat and simply approaching to some height, your horizon will increase and you will be able to see the sun again. You can even make time standstill. We know that at noon the sun is approximately overhead, so during a flight towards the west, the sun would always be over the plane. In effect, you are chasing noon around the world. If you prefer sunsets, you could watch a perpetual sunset by departing on your westward journey just as the sun is setting.
It’s not the sun that’s rotating, it’s earth. Ops another call for the conspiracy theorists who claim that earth is not rotating. We will try to counter this claim in our next article.
PS: The article is not intended to challenge someones religious belief. We tried to explain facts and figures in the light of common sense and few scientific observations.