Guest whatever by David Middleton
Do People Really Think Earth Might Be Flat?
A poll says lots of Millennials evidently do—and it’s not entirely clear why
By Craig A. Foster, Glenn Branch on August 21, 2018
“Just 66 percent of millennials firmly believe that the Earth is round,” read the summary from the pollster YouGov. Kids today, right? But it’s not only curmudgeons eager to complain about the younger generation who ought to find the survey of interest. For despite the recent prominence of flat-earthery among musicians and athletes, YouGov’s survey seems to have been the first systematic attempt to assess the American population’s views on the shape of the Earth.
Moreover, the results raised a number of compelling questions that deserve attention. For example, why is the scientifically established view on the shape of the Earth less popular among younger respondents (according to YouGov) when the scientifically established view on the history of life and on the cause of global warming have been, in poll after poll, more popular among younger respondents?
[…]
The authors (“a psychology professor at the Air Force Academy and a long-time staffer at the National Center for Science Education”) went on to examine the raw data and could not verify YouGov’s survey results…
Puzzled but undeterred, we used the information in the spreadsheet to calculate acceptance of the round Earth by age groups and found that only about 82.5 percent of millennials (as YouGov called 18–24-year-olds) agreed with “I have always believed the world is round.” That’s still dismayingly low, of course, but it’s not as dismayingly low as 66 percent. And those aged 25–34 turned out to fare a tad worse, with only about 81.8 percent agreeing.
The discrepancy between the data underlying YouGov’s original report and the data provided in the spreadsheet undermined our understanding of both data sets. Frustratingly, YouGov was unable or unwilling to provide further assistance. Although there are transparency standards in survey research, such as the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls, they are, regrettably, not universally followed.
Even more oddly, the majority of the ~18% of survey respondents who didn’t believe the Earth was round(ish) also didn’t believe it was flat.
In the absence of further information, what can we conclude? Clearly, despite the discrepancy between the results, younger people are less likely to agree with the scientifically established view of the shape of the Earth. Yet, B.o.B. and Kyrie Irving notwithstanding, the spreadsheet data indicate that they are not substantially more likely to agree that the Earth is flat. Indeed, firm belief in a flat Earth was rare, with less than a 2 percent acceptance rate in all age groups.
Rather, according to the spreadsheet data, younger people were more likely to be uncertain or ambivalent about the shape of the Earth, either agreeing that they have recently entertained doubts that the Earth is round or opting for the “Other/Not Sure” choice on the questionnaire. Importantly, these responses weren’t distinctive to those aged 18 to 24 but were comparably prevalent among those aged 25 to 34 and those aged 35 to 44.
What can we conclude from this? I’d like to conclude that the 16% of not round, but not flat respondents were thinking spheroid… which is still round(ish). Although the most likely answer is that they are uninterested in the shape of the Earth because it didn’t come from an iPhone app.
We can also conclude that the results of public polling need to be taken with a LARGE grain of salt.
I’ll just conclude with a bit of humor…
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I’ve left everything to the Flat Earth Society. from the novel Hopscotch – movie staring Walter Matthau
As a founding member of the Norwich Flat Earth Society (circa 1969) I thank you in advance for your kind donation.
FWIW, I don’t “believe” the earth is round(ish) I know it is — scientific fact and all that. And the NFES was essentially a drinking club that enjoyed coming up with creative hypotheses while getting plastered.
Here’s one from the bimbo bartender who won 7% of her district and thinks this makes her a big wheel:
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/23/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-americans-are-dying-from-global-warming/
You should also consider the strong likelihood that millennials are a little more jaded about polling and my be pulling the pollster’s leg. Ironic detachment, including references to fake moon landings and flat earth, is a pretty standard part of millennials’ repertoire.
Oddly enough, that’s what Earther’s Brian Kahn thought.
I had an email discussion with a flat earth believer. According to him, the sun and moon don’t set, they just circle around and it only looks like they are setting. They are sort of giant floodlights, if you will. It is this recession from you that gives them the appearance of setting. When I pointed out that the Sun appears larger as it rises and sets and smaller at noon, it still had no affect on his very hardened belief that this is a flat world with the center at the north pole, and the outer rim was Antarctica, which was not a continent, but a retaining wall for the oceans. Satellites were an illusion as was the greater expanse of the universe since basically, space only extends a short distance above the flat surface of the planet. It really was fascinating, and no, he wasn’t a millennial.
I can see how sunset could be caused by recession of a circling sun if the viewer lived in a narrow valley running north-south. However, in open water (a Caribbean cruise) a circling sun would be seen to circle the northern horizon similar to the way the sun circles the horizon when viewed from the north pole in summer. Also, on a disc world as described, the sun would appear to circle to the north when viewed from southern hemisphere islands such as New Zealand instead of setting south of west as observed.
SR
To my surprise, a comment I made here just 5 minutes ago is in moderation. I’m wondering why, and for how long?
SR
My comment still has not appeared. Neither has the replacement I posted hours ago. Both described visible discrepancies that would occur if the Earth was as described in the post by Tom O. (Tom did not make the faulty description.)
SR
My first response died in moderation, so 2nd try:
A flat Earth believer might not be swayed by the setting sun appearing larger at sunset as he may have heard that that is a psychological phenomenon, but that explanation only applies to the spheroid Earth situation where there is no measurable difference. The Sun should appear to noticeably dwindle as the afternoon progressed if it is traveling thousands of miles in its daily circuit over the Earth’s surface.
While an observer living in a narrow valley that runs north-south, or lives in a forest would not be able to distinguish a setting sun from a receding sun because of the limited view, anyone living on a plain or an island would observe another notable difference. If the Sun was circling over a flat Earth it would appear to circle the northern horizon overnight and approach from the east early each morning, visible all night from all latitudes, not just the northern polar region.
If the counterclaim is made that the sun moves too far away from southern hemisphere locations to be visible all night, the sun would still appear to move to the north as the afternoon progressed, even for those southern hemisphere observers.
SR
AAhhh…Thank you moderator responsible.
SR
A very important fact is exposed here, only 66% of millennials are honest.
What percent is confused as to which restroom to use?
Maybe the dumbing down of our young is very effective.
Or, alternatively, the statistics were made up…
http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/2008/05/show-87-of-all-statistics-are-made-up.html
🙂
rip
97% of climate scientists agree.
I always throw out a few anomalous answers to any poll. It’s no fun otherwise. Particularly good for some of the dumb wording in politically motivated polls.
Why would they NOT question the Moon landings?
After all, they want to “decarbonize” all sectors of society. This based on the idea of fast progress of all technologies, the idea that progress of micro electronic is a model that applies to the energy industry, batteries and all industries.
Assuming all technology makes progress at about the same rate as computing, we should all be able to take vacation on the Moon now.
If NASA cannot send a man to the Moon now, assuming rapid progress of technology, it’s unthinkable that it was capable before the game of PONG was implemented.
(It’s also unthinkable that they had the technology to fake it back then when they still don’t have it now. But they don’t think that far.)
Look at the statement:
“I have always believed the world is round.”
If a person ever thought the Earth was flat (say when that person was 4 years old) then the statement would be false. The implication that 18% don’t believe the earth to be round does not fit the literal meaning of the statement.
Agreed! Beat me to it!
sycomputing
You and I think too much along the same lines. This is worrying. 🙂
Worrying for whom? Brilliant minds and what-not…
🙂
run in the same gutter? I believe that’s the way the line goes, but it’s usually “great minds.” I think you are overanalyzing the question and the probability of responses. When you are doing a survey, you don’t deep dive into logic and analysis to determine your response. You choose the one that best fits you at the moment. Most of us don’t remember if we even gave a thought about what shape the world was before we started school and was introduced to a globe, though there would have been those exposed to globes at younger ages.
If you don’t know, yougov surveys are paid for surveys, the more you take the more you make, so they aren’t going to sit and ponder about answers, they are just going to go with the flow. Yes, they may just say “I’ll have fun with this one,” and wing it, choosing answers that are foolish, but they won’t spend time deep thinking it.
run in the same gutter? I believe that’s the way the line goes, but it’s usually “great minds.”
Hmmm…never heard of that one (i.e., “run in the same gutter”) Tom. I guess we “run in different circles”? 🙂
The one I am familiar with is “great minds think alike,” however, I’ve chosen to apply my own poetic license to the phrase, as I am wont to do on flippant occasions such as these (you know the kind, where the subject matter is more something of a curiosity as opposed to the survival of the human race, etc.).
I think you are overanalyzing the question and the probability of responses. When you are doing a survey, you don’t deep dive into logic and analysis to determine your response.
Thanks Tom. Well, I appreciate your analysis and response regarding my response to HotScot, to which further regarded our (i.e., mine and HotScot’s) response to the subject matter at hand. I hope to retain these lessons going forward.
Take care!
🙂
As always, with polling the art is in how you ask the questions.
Like the 97% of scientists who “believe” in global warming, when you frame the question as being is CO2 a GHG. Of course everyone agrees. They then disingenuously report that as the same 97% said it is causing run away climate change and is an existential crisis for humanity ie CAGW.
#metoo 🙂
I’d go so far as to say that there’s a pretty good chance that the question was worded that way to try to elicit confusion and get a lower percentage.
If you asked the question, “is the sky blue?” a certain percentage of people will just answer yes. The rest of us require the question to read “is the sky usually/sometimes blue?” in order to agree with it, and since it implies that the sky is always blue, we will answer No.
Oh the irony that most people, especially myself, read # as pound.
Hahaha stupid broads riding the bandwagon when if they experienced what they claimed, they should have went to officials decades ago when it happened. That whole movement is another attack on males to dissuade the ones still interested in sex to hesitate from pursuing it. Just another attack on normal, healthy sexuality. Sure, a few of them are psychopaths, but this agenda reaches far past protecting women.
exactly. I remember clearly when my third grade teacher held up an apple to illustrate the (rough) shape of the earth. I don’t remember ever thinking about it before that-so I would probably have answered no to the question if the source was, for example, a student of child development. Hard to believe a question that bad.
It seems to me schools always had globes when I was young, but less so nowadays. Plenty of flat maps of the entire world hanging on the walls, but no globes. If the shape off the Earth isn’t even brought up until third grade, most kids would have no reason to think the world was anything other than flat before then.
On a related note, my American history class in middle school taught that Columbus had trouble getting funding for his voyage, and sailors to man his ships, because Europeans in the 15th century believed the Earth was flat.
It’s astonishing how many kids were taught that lie, and still believed it as adults. The story was made up by fantasy fiction writer Washington Irving.
The issue of course was the size of the Earth (and length of Asia), not its shape. In 1492, the Portuguese had already sailed farther south from Iberia than Columbus proposed to sail west. Of course, they could get water and supplies along the coast of Africa.
So, unless Earth were cylindrical, there was no edge off of which to fall in the western ocean.
Eratosthenes calculated the size of the Earth using a north-south line between Alexandria, Egypt and Syene to the south. That eliminated the possibility that the Earth is a cylinder with a north-south axis.
SR
I know. But an accountant of my acquaintance who learned in school in Los Angeles in the late ’40s that Columbus was opposed because the Church taught a flat earth wasn’t convinced when I pointed out that the Portuguese had already sailed farther south than CC proposed to sail west.
Flat rectangle?
I got my Columbus history from the Johnny Carson skit.
Columbus was trying to convince flat earth types that “the earth is round, like a chicken”.
Ah , he was carefully laying the ground for notion that there is a hole at the N. Pole . LOL
Wait…there’s not an hole???
sycomputing
According to Billy Connelly, if the world were to be given an enema it would be administered in Adelaide, Australia.
Evidently the world does have a hole, but it’s not in the ozone layer. 🙂
I’ve only seen Mr. Connelly on American PBS (a.k.a., “Public Bullcrap Station”) television doing travel stuff…for a bit I got he and John Cleese confused. Imagine that?
sycomputing
What on earth were you smoking?
🙂
What on earth were you smoking?
I wondered if such a thing (not the smoking but the confusion of a Scot for a Brit) should be considered blasphemous…
Now I know!
sycomputing
If you’re not a Brit, you’re forgiven.
Except that, well…….Scots are Brits, kind of, in that we live on the British Isles. You could have done worse though and referred to us as English.
That is blasphemous.
If living in the British Isles counts, then Irish and Manx are British.
Natives or residents of the Hebrides and Orkneys, being in Scotland, must qualify as British, plus even the Shetlands. But otherwise, my apparently false impression was that you had to live on Great Britain (aka the Big Island) to be British, ie English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, etc.
Bretons being, to their sometime chagrin, French.
Sgt
If one falls under the auspices of the British government, then one is British. Which includes most of the commonwealth although I think the choice has been largely consigned to history in the desire for cultural recognition. But as a child of a British family, I am also British despite being born in the Far East.
I am also by heritage, a large part English. My Paternal side is landed gentry in the North of England. But I suspect we were the rotten apples as I have never received an income from our apparently substantial estates.
However, my heart is in Scotland, where I would like to retire to in a few years, but sadly, I might not as I object to the borderline communist SNP who govern the country.
Of course if your parents are British, it doesn’t matter where you were born, unless you chose to renounce your citizenship (I can use that term now that Britons are no longer subjects if the Crown but citizens of a nation-state).
My point had to do with the Republic of Ireland. The island of Ireland is part of the British Isles, but citizens of the Republic would bridle at being called British.
If you’re not a Brit, you’re forgiven.
Then I am forgiven!
sycomputing
Indeed.
Exactly what I was about to say. It seems odd that so many are claiming they believed the Earth was round from the moment of their birth.
Also, “is round” could apply to a disk shaped Earth.
I suspect if the question had been worded:
“I believe the world to be spherical: Y/N”
The answer would have been…”Huh? What’s spherical mean?”
When dealing with the public you must use words that a 10-year-old will understand.
To be fair the full set of questions use round and flat as the two options so I doubt there was confusion. It’s just this article that’s confused.
Exactly right. And one might wonder why the question was asked that way. Maybe getting an alarming response which makes a nice headline was more important than properly assessing people’s real understanding of science. And “round” is not an accurate description of Earth so those more thoughtful might not agree – “roughly spherical” would make more sense but would confuse some who missed geometry class.
They should have asked whether it was an oblate spheroid, Then they could have claimed 97% of people believed it was flat.
This study demonstrates that older people are more likely to “round off” their answer to a poorly-worded question.
OTOH … Captain Planet WAS a two-dimensional cartoon character. And I believe CP was the source of all Millennial scienci-education
“I have always believed the world is round.” A fair question would be “I believe the world is round.” It seem the “Poll Writer” wanted people to read into it.
The problem with all polls is wording the question in a form that gives useful results.
“I have always believed the world is round.” is a lousy question- believe doesn’t belong there. The question is about facts. “I understand the world is pretty much shaped like a big, blue, marble” yes/no
You can get almost any answer you want with a properly biased or confusing question.
Or maybe some of them understood ‘round’ as a 2D concept. I think it was a misleading question – you could say a sphere and a flat earth are both round.
You have identified one of the reasons I never respond to polls, and have to down a large adult beverage every time I fill out my employer’s annual “Employee Opinion Survey”. My employer acts as if the results are important; I believe they are delusional.
*Every* survey should include the question:
If surveys did that, they would be forced to admit that a large percent of the responses are meaningless.
Of course the Earth is flat.
You merely need to represent it on a spherical coordinate system.
Plain as day.
It actually is flat, or almost, in parts of the Permian basin in west Texas. When I was working in Andrews back in the ’70s you could see the street lights on a highway overpass over 20 mile away. One explanation given was that it was due to all the oil that had been removed.
I think that part of West Texas was flat long before the first well was ever drilled in the Permian Basin.
The earth is flat. Over short distances. Anyone who’s ever studied derivatives knows this.
Nah. Bowl shaped (for those, like me, living in a valley surrounded by more or less high mountains).
There is pedantic accuracy, and practical approximation. I treat it like a bowl. People in flat plains treat it as flat. Those who go down to the sea treat it as a spheroid. Orbital engineers, concerned with satellites, treat it as this somewhat spheroid thing with a lot of bumps and bulges in odd places.
Try driving out of Hay towards Sydney.
There is a creek near Bollards Lagoon that flows South if it rains in the North and North if it rains in the South.
So, the kids going to school there truly do walk uphill both ways (or downhill?)
Clever, but hardly correct.
Actually our present system of mapping the earth with latitude, longitude and altitude is a spherical coordinate system.
A spherical coordinate system has 3 dimensions, same as a cartesian (x,y,z) system. Its just mapped differently. One can depict 2 dimensional ‘sections’, but not the surface shape.
lets just say it is an imperfect spheroid with flat spots.
The simplest retort to an obtuse flat earther is to ask them, “Why you can’t see Europe from Florida?”
The answer, obviously, is that Europe is too far from Florida.
They could get a telescope and look.
Tom Abbott
Google Maps?
Everything’s flat on a PC screen.
And they reply with “Rayleigh scattering”?
Maybe it’s cubical. With rounded edges. Like the heads of these researchers.
David:
I didn’t bother to go very deep into the article but I wonder how the questions were asked:
“…about 82.5 percent of millennials (as YouGov called 18–24-year-olds) agreed with “I have always believed the world is round.”
So, when I was five I might’ve evaluated the planet’s shape only by what I could see with my eyes???
I don’t think I ever thought about it before my Kindergarten teacher had someone point a flashlight at the globe while she rotated it on its axis.
When you were five, wouldn’t it have been a bit more like, “What’s a planet?” I have no recollection of when I might have transitioned from that phase to understanding it, let alone considering the shape of the one on which I exist.
Keen Observer:
Keen observation? 🙂
The main point was not a literal interpretation of the 5 year mark, but rather that at some point in my early years it certainly may have been the case that if I’d been asked the shape of the earth I might have suggested it was flat…
No quarter for hyperbole around here!
I wanted to be an astromer at age 8, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that at five I knew what a planet was.
Probably just trolling the pollsters. Millennials have grown up in the post truth world and are keen on throwing up the middle finger on a YouGov poll.
The earth is neither round (a 2-d shape) nor spherical (a 3-d) shape but some bizarre ellipsoid type shape. But nor is it that – instead it is a diverse fractal, that as we look at it in ever more detail, the actual shape changes and becomes more complex.
So technically, the earth is flat – if you are looking at a football pitch size with a large allowable error. And it is spherical and ellipsoid.
So, to be precise , it is neither round nor flat nor spherical.
Around Fargo, North Dakota, it’s flat.
There are benches there that are ancient beaches left from Lake Aggazis. (Sp?).
Flat, really flat, is at Winnipeg.
Old joke from the late great Pat Burns. “The best thing about Winnipeg is that if your dog runs away you can wait a couple days to get him because you’ll still be able to see his tail wagging in the distance.
On a drive through Kansas it looked pretty flat. Upon entering Colorado, as the Rocky Mtns began looming in the distance, the kids piped up from the back….Dad, were not in Kansas anymore.
Earth isn’t a sphere. It is a spheroid… Which is round-ish. If Earth was shrunk to the size of a billiard ball, its surface would be smoother than the billiard ball’s.
That said, Earth is a large enough spheroid that both football pitches and football fields (American and Canadian) are effectively flat.
David Middleton
In other words, it’s the pollsters who are wrong, not the Millennials. 🙂
Even with all surface water removed, the earth is much smoother than a billiard ball of comparable size…
https://possiblywrong.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/is-the-earth-like-a-billiard-ball-or-not/
More about the smoothness and roundness of the earth than you could possibly want to know…
How about Geoid? That takes into account the irregular bumps resulting from mascons.
The earth is more spheroidal than any other object you are likely to encounter such as a cue ball or ball bearing.
given an equatorial diameter of 7926 miles, and a polar diameter of 7900 miles, the relative difference of 3280 ppm should tell us that we are anything but spheroidal.
The earth diameter is only 7900, so the equatorial bulge (More than 3000 ppm) is likely going to cause positive rotational & gravitational feedbacks that will tear the earth apart if we don’t do something (within the next twenty years).
The feedbacks causing the bulge aren’t new, the fact that the earth has the largest relative bulge in the solar system shows that we are nearing the point of no return. We need to act … NOW.
football pitches and football fields (American and Canadian) are effectively flat.
Actually David their Not.
A properly designed grass football field does not lie perfectly flat. The surface of the field often arcs a foot or more from the sidelines to the midfield to allow excess water to drain off.
How about “ovoid spheroid”?
“I have always believed the world is round.” If when you were three years old you had formed no beliefs about the earth being round, or thought it was flat, then you would answer false to this question, and fall into the group that here is being described as a flat earrther.
Really! This is not better than the complete misinterpretation of the Doran Zimern questions in order to support CAGW!
Even the flat earthers accept a round earth, with the north pole at the center and a cold forbidding antarctica around the circumference.
Anyway, the earth is a flattened sphere, so the earth is both flat and round.
it’s actually sort of pear-ish … I get annoyed when people can’t keep their fruit straight 🙂
Well I’m pretty sure fruits aren’t straight. At least not in Denver!
They hide their bananas under skirts
Right. That’s what we were told in some early grade. Which grade, I don’t remember.
An Oblate Spheroid is the term you are searching for.
Hah!
A football has been called “an oblate spheroid filled with crazy bounces.”
The earth should be described as “an oblate spheroid covered with crazy bouncers over the outside.”
I also think a whole lot of people have decided to just give stupid answers because surveys annoy them. I even confess I’ve done that sometimes, if it’s some obviously robotic survey method and no real person is trying to contact me. I figure if the machine asks a stupid question, the machine deserves a stupid answer.
btw, this is a little bit OT, but Hooray! Malcolm Turnbull and all of his climate plans are finished in Australia! He deserved this end ever since he knifed Tony Abbott in the back.
wws
And the SNP starting to eat its own.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-45294504
Sexual harassment, bad!
Russian collusion, good!
Sgt
I don’t think even the Russians would collude over Scotland. Some of the places I worked in during the 70’s would make Gulags seem like a holiday camp.
Will any controversy NOT be muh Russia-ed?
Oh yeah, this is a good subject.
I completed a B.Sc. in geophysics ( 1957 was “International Geophysics Year”) in 1962 and it was very cool to hang out at the Physics Building. Especially down in the basement where guys in the labs had wired up Heath Kit “Hi Fidelity” sound systems. And played Bach!
I have a vague recollection that if one submitted a seemingly serious, but nonsensical, paper and is it was good enough one would be invited to join the “Flat Earth Society”.
One of the proposals of the society was that the United Nations General Assembly should debate building a fence along the edge of the Earth. After all, the Assembly has debated more foolish things.
And of course, there was (is?) the motto of the Flat Earth Society:
“We Are On The Level”
Bob Hoye
Like the climate skeptic videos on YouTube, maybe they need to start putting Wikipedia correction links on those flat earth videos, to re-educate those poor viewers.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/14/a-shining-example-of-google-and-youtube-protecting-us-against-misinformation/
If nothing else, this confirms my observations that Millennials just want to have a laugh and flat earth and global warming both fit in this light-hearted approach to life, along with comedy shows and urban legends. Attempts by Sierra Club to use and abuse them will likely not succeed over time except for the small percentage that become eco terrorists with similar percentage impact as Taliban recruits from madrasahs in Pakistan.
What the researchers are missing is that PEOPLE LIE —– they spoof surveys — they get a kick out of giving weird answers.
Ask anyone who was at uni in the 1960’s — extra bucks earned for going to the Psych Building and signing up to get paid to mess up someone’s research by giving odd and misleading answers while being paid to take part in some study — very anti-establishment.
And in states with open primaries like Wisconsin they vote for the worst candidate the other party is running. I didn’t vote for Mrs. Clinton in the primary because it was well known by that time she had it in the bag. But I would have crossed over and voted for that loser had it not been decided yet.
I wish it were a send up by millennials, but I see consistency in belief in agw and flat earth belief. I submit it is a result of the monumental collapse of critical thinking skills over the last several decades. Everyone has to have a guru to teach them what the “real” truth is. In the sixties we were taught to be skeptical of authority (except our guru). The millenials are taught postmodernism. From “test everything, hold to that which is true” to “everything is relative, you have your truth, I have mine,” it’s devolution to a herd of (shall we say?) zombies. Settled science my nether parts. Real science is still hammering at relativity.
Yeah. I remember a survey that showed that 83% of Swedish teenagers had watched porn on the internet. Some insightful person noted that the survey showed that 17% of swedish teenagers lies when asked whether they have watched internet porn.
Good discussion of both the problems with polling and milennials. Someone should bring up John Vasconcellos, the California politician who was a leader in the “self-esteem” movement. H e would have approved of participation trophies.
Surveys and polls have no redeeming value. They are the building blocks of group-think and the weapons of consensus mind control. They are the enemy of creative thought, intellect and imagination. They are the best friend of would-be dictators, the reason why music has deteriorated to electronic ear-pablum, and most new movies have numbers after them. They are the mechanism by which the tyranny of the majority is inflicted on free individuals.
Along those lines, what kind of crummy statement is this: “I have always believed the world is round.”
It has many problems. It seems unaware that the earth is an oblate spheroid, and not ’round’ at all, unless that term is defined clearly. It also includes an historical spin via the word ‘always’, which excludes people learning about the form of the world at some point, or (at least) the beginning of awareness of belief. Hmm… that last word is a problem, too. Why is ‘belief’ anything to do with thoughts about what is true.
Gack!
We could exploit this roundness for tansportation. Tunnel into the earth on a shallow straight heading and roll in on rails under gravity. Half way, you would stop, of course and take an elevator up to the surface using free electricity from windmills. For very large centers like New York, Chicago…you would tunnel in and continue until you re- appeared back on the surface with Chicago, say, halfway between portals. This way you could have rails in both directions for getting to Chicago.
I would put a sarc tag in, but hey, the solar windy folk don’t use arc tags – my carbon free transportation is in their league.
Better put the entrances away from sources of water. They discovered in Chicago not long ago what happens when you poke a hole in a subterranean tunnel.
Oh, and the energy required to dig the tunnels, and produce the steel for the rails… another matter.
They’ll still go for it, if pitched right.
This has been a serious discussion for at least 50 years. The point is you wouldn’t stop half way. You free fall and then decelerate almost to your end point where some small amount of energy input gets you to your goal. Theory works. Technology and resources are “minor” sticking points. The remake of “Total Recall” uses the concept. I suspect the flat earth thing would put the kabosh on it anyway:)
What do you do when you hit magma? I don’t think your theoretical tunnel could go very far. Once the deepest portion is more than a km or two, the temperature will probably be intolerable.
We’ve dug twice this deep (4km).
Here is a list
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deepest_mines
You wouldn’t be making a nonstop NYC-SYD. NYC-LAX probably no tougher than throwing a carbon nano-tubule up 60 KM for a space elevator. We should have figured out by the time we get out of the looming little ice age:)
Not loud enough discussion anywhere near me. Interesting. I actually had this idea about 50 yrs ago so I’must still in the game!
Yes, that’s about the time I remember sci-fi tinkering with it. However I think the original idea goes back to Newton or Hooke. A gravity train as opposed to the lefty darling of a gravy train.
Maybe it’s both round AND flat, like a pizza or a Frisbee. Lol.
I dated a woman about a year and a half ago, a grown woman in her late 50, very nice looking and very fit. On our second date, we were having pizza and she started talking all kinds of crazy stuff. Then she leaned towards me and whispered that the moon landings never happened and that the earth is really flat. I’m not kidding.
That was my last date with her and my first (an only so far) experience with somebody who believes in these crazy ideas. That said, my current girlfriend is a hard-core socialist and she usually calls me a science denier when the temperature goes up or a storm happens somewhere. Yet she often suggests getting my horoscope fully read and analyzed or may mention the psychic who gave her a ‘reading’ a little while back… (I got an earful from her yesterday on the news of Trump, Cohen, and Manafort and all the things that happened with their court verdicts and then had to watch an hour of Rachell Maddow last night. Yikes, not fun!)
On a related note, I’ve met a lot of people who think jet contrails are chemtrails, both right and left wingers. I reply back to them that the only way I’d believe there was something to them is if a credible scientist charted a jet plane and flew into the exhaust streams of some high flying jets, both who were leaving a trail and not leaving a trail and took air samples of their exhausts and then had the air samples analyzed for differences. When I tell them this, it doesn’t sway them in the least, they are adamant that they are being poisoned or that the earth’s climate is being cooled or messed with.
Oh, and the woman who told me the earth is flat thinks the “chemtrails” are being used to deposit materials on the earth so that everything can catch on fire easier. : )
You live in interesting times.
In the Chinese sense!
I’m wondering what dating app. he uses..
“and then had to watch an hour of Rachell Maddow last night. Not fun!”
That’s got to be rough! Torture, even.
Kramer I’m a mechanic on commercial jets and it doesn’t help in dealing with chemtrail people. One said the government puts the stuff in the fuel so I as a maintenance guy wouldn’t know. How he knows is still a mystery.
If the gubmint ain’t doing it, then why would they deny it ???
He just “knows”.
Kramer, you must be very patience. Patience in a patience cause.
She should have known, you never discuss the moon landings until the 3rd or 4th date. 😉
Well, the chemtrail people are sorta right. Jets leave behind the chemicals water and CO2, both of which can suffocate you. Both are greenhouse gasses too.
Jeff, you need to make it more alarmist sounding:
Jets leave behind the greenhouse gas chemicals CO2 and DiHydrogen Monoxide (the most deadly of the greenhouse gases) if we don’t do something about it now (at great expense to the taxpayer), we’re all going to die!
Dude, ditch that psycho. I told my woman before we were engaged if she voted for Hillary I’d leave her. I wasn’t kidding.
BTW, no one ever goes back to statism once they understand voluntaryism. My woman, an architect, couldn’t believe the way she thought 2 years ago when she first met me.
Amazing what two years of incessant logic and questioning everything does for one’s mind.
What a difference!
There isn’t a hot enough, sexually insatiable, incredible in bed enough woman that would ever get a moment of my time is she were a socialist or watched Rachel wishes she had a dingus madcow. That thing is an abortion to humanity.
Trust me, you can and will do better, or you better learn voluntaryism because conservativism isn’t sufficient to change them. They are broken
What do Flat Earthers and Climate Alarmists have in common?
..willful ignorance.
It is easy to delude someone about science when they are scientifically illiterate.
I could not honestly claim that “I have always believed the world is round.”
I have no knowledge of what I believed prior to age about 4.
Guess I should read other comments before commenting – sorry for just repeating the obvious ;(
I think 90-some percent of the readers of this site had the very same reaction to that question. It makes me wonder whether the people who wrote that that question were blind to what they were actually asking, or whether they merely wanted to form the question in a way to get interesting results.
On another note, when someone asks me “May I ask what you are doing” I always answer “Yes”.
They may ask, I’m not promising to answer. Most people don’t realized what they actually asked, so just look puzzled.
SR
In 1954 at primary school I was given an atlas (which I still have). I immediately noticed that South America fits neatly into the corner of Africa. I pointed this out to several adults, who ridiculed the idea that the continents could move around.
You had an unbiased eye, and saw the obvious. Good call! 🙂
Identical thing happened to me in 1958. Teacher said others in the past had that idea, but science had shown it to be wrong.
Technically, science cannot prove or disprove the idea, only supply evidence in one direction or the other. No one was there and no one can know.
Sheri,
Science now can observe seafloor spreading and measure the speed of “continental drift”, so the fact that the continents move isn’t in doubt.
It can also show that the directions in which they are moving, the distribution of rocks and fossils and every other evidence supports the conclusion that Africa and South America were conjoined for over 100 million years.
This is an ad hominen attack, usually made by a low IQ person to try and impress other low IQ people.
If you consider a flight from Los Angeles to New York, the Great Circle Distance is not that different from the “Flat Earth Distance”, the Rhumb Line.
Indeed, before we had GPS, many navigators would use a straight line on a flat map.
So, did the navigator actually believe the Earth is flat.
Walt D.
Well, the explicit purpose of the Mercator Projection method was to present the illusion of a flat earth specifically because the navigators (ship and airplane) needed to plot a straight-line curved course on a flat map of a spherical earth. Once adequate latitude-longitude points were pulled off of the Mercator projection map, the navigators would replot those points on area scaled maps to get the daily (hourly) course needed to approximate the arc. The pilot (or ship’s officer of the deck) used the scaled map, not the big one.
Anthony, why don’t you do a poll on this site.
1) Do you think the Earth is flat?
2) Do you believe that Climate never changes?
Publish the results.
(You are not allowed to use 97% ! )
Can we use 42?
My favorite fall-back answer to (life, the universe and) everything.
You can only use 42 for an answer. It is not the question.
P(“Earth is flat”)=P(‘Climate never changes’)
What the hell is “P”?
Probability
I have no idea what that is
Basically it stands for the likelihood of the statement in the parentheses being true. I am saying the likelihood of the earth being flat is the same as the likelihood of climate change never happening. Since I am certain the earth is not flat and that climate does change, I am declaring the likelihood of each statement to be 0 and therefore the probability of the earth being flat is the same as the probability that the climate will never change.
Still no idea what we are talking about…
Sorry, it’s all tongue-in-cheek – a joke.
more like 410 ppm would answer yes to either question.
How can the sea be level of the earth is not flat?
Short answer: tidal forces.
Longer answer: surface of oceans is a sphere equidistant from the barycenter of the Earth-moon gravitational field. (or would be if moon was tidally locked with the Earth’s rotation). This means the surface of the ocean is perpendicular to the gravity that you feel when you gaze upon the sea. That is the definition of level. The sea surface is flatter than the the land surface because it has less rigidity, but both curve on such a grand scale that it takes well over a mile to curve down 1 foot from a straight line.
SR
But the sea is not level. One of the first clues that led thinking people to surmise the Earth is round(ish). When a ship is approaching the first thing to come into sight was the topsails.