![]() ![]() This was maintained by Thales, considered by many one of the first philosophers, Lucretius, an avowed materialist, as well as Democritus, the founder of atomic theory. Both the poets Homer and Hesiod described a flat Earth. ![]() It was a common belief in ancient Greece, as well as in India, China and in a wide range of indigenous or "pre-state" cultures. ![]() Different cultures at different times have posited a staggeringly diverse array worldviews which cannot easily be summed up with the phrase "flat Earth." Nor is the idea of a flat Earth something that is exclusive to the Western world.ĭoes it look flat? Credit: DonkeyHotey, CC BYĮven the most cursory historical survey shows that the idea that the Earth is flat has been a notion shared by an extraordinarily wide range of cultures and tied to vastly different metaphysical systems and cosmologies. What do we do, then, when someone actually does believe that the Earth is flat, as the American rapper B.o.B expressed recently? The usual path seems to be blocked it's difficult to insult someone with a term that they themselves happily adopt.īut what exactly is a "flat Earth theory"? In fact, there never has been anything called "the flat Earth theory". In a subsequent move that one can read as either very fortunate or very unfortunate, the real Flat Earth Society issued a statement in support the hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change. "Flat Earther" is simply a scientifically seasoned variation of "idiot".įor a recent example, US President Barack Obama recently expressed impatience with the persistent objections put forward by climate change deniers by saying: "We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society." This being so, oddly enough, most people described pejoratively as "flat Earthers" do not actually believe that the Earth is flat. ![]()
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