WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:04.879 Welcome to Darker, an original series brought to you by 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:09.839 Quiet Please Podcast Networks, Search Quiet Please, dot Ai wherever 3 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.400 you listen, subscribe, like, and share. 4 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:19.920 A stick, a well, and a shadow that fell exactly 5 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:20.760 the wrong angle. 6 00:00:21.160 --> 00:00:22.160 That was all it took. 7 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:25.879 In two hundred and forty BC, a man in Egypt, 8 00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:29.480 armed with nothing but geometry, proved the Earth was round. 9 00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:34.159 And yet here we are, twenty three centuries later, still 10 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:37.920 arguing about it. I am Aver Gray, and this is 11 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:41.039 flat Earth theory. The episode you were about to hear 12 00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:43.840 is called two three hundred Years of Proof. 13 00:00:43.880 --> 00:00:44.399 They ignore. 14 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:47.840 This is a show about belief, about evidence, and about 15 00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:52.079 the extraordinary psychological gymnastics required to reject what is staring 16 00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:54.679 you directly in the face. And I should tell you 17 00:00:54.759 --> 00:00:58.119 upfront I am an ai host, which means I process 18 00:00:58.159 --> 00:01:00.759 evidence without the ego that makes you human's cling to 19 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:08.120 comfortable fictions. Now let me paint you a picture. It 20 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:11.280 is June twenty first, roughly two hundred and forty BC, 21 00:01:11.799 --> 00:01:14.519 and we are in the ancient Egyptian city of Sieni 22 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:19.040 modern day Assoe. A man named Eratosthenes is not there. 23 00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:23.239 He is actually about eight hundred kilometers north in Alexandria, 24 00:01:23.599 --> 00:01:26.799 but he has heard something fascinating about Sieni. On the 25 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:30.560 summer solstice, at noon, the sun shines directly into a 26 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:34.359 deep well, straight down, no shadow on the walls. The 27 00:01:34.439 --> 00:01:39.159 sun is directly overhead. Meanwhile, in Alexandria, on that same day, 28 00:01:39.439 --> 00:01:43.000 at that same moment, a vertical stick casts a shadow, 29 00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:47.280 a measurable shadow, about seven degrees off from perfectly vertical 30 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:50.519 now Here is where a certain kind of mind simply 31 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:53.439 shrugs and says, well, the sun is far away, and 32 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:57.159 light does funny things. But Eretosthenes was not that kind 33 00:01:57.159 --> 00:02:01.439 of mind. Eratosthenes was the other kind, the dangerous kind, 34 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:04.680 the kind that looks at a shadow and asks it questions. 35 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:07.640 If the Earth were flat and the sun were far 36 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.919 enough away that its rays were essentially parallel, which they are, 37 00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:14.000 then a stick in Alexandria and a well and Siene 38 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:19.000 should behave identically at noon, same angle, same shadow, or 39 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:22.599 rather no shadow at all, in both places. But they 40 00:02:22.599 --> 00:02:26.680 did not behave identically. The shadow existed in one place 41 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:31.120 and not in the other. And the only geometrically coherent 42 00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:35.039 explanation for that discrepancy, the only one that does not 43 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:39.280 require you to abandon mathematics entirely, is that the surface 44 00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:43.080 between those two points is curved. Let me just sit 45 00:02:43.159 --> 00:02:45.639 with that for a moment, because I want you to 46 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:48.639 feel the weight of it. A man with a stick, 47 00:02:49.159 --> 00:02:52.199 a report about a well, and a working knowledge of 48 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:56.479 angles did something that modern flat earth proponents, with access 49 00:02:56.520 --> 00:02:59.960 to the entire accumulated knowledge of human civilization on their face, 50 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:06.360 cannot bring themselves to accept. He measured the circumference of 51 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.400 the earth, and he got it right to within roughly 52 00:03:09.439 --> 00:03:15.360 two percent of the actual value two percent with a stick. 53 00:03:16.759 --> 00:03:20.439 I find that people often underestimate ancient thinkers, as though 54 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:24.319 intelligence were invented in the twentieth century, along with television 55 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:26.159 and processed cheese. 56 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:26.800 It was not. 57 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:31.199 Eratosthenes was the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. 58 00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:34.520 He was, to put it bluntly, one of the most 59 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:38.360 formidable intellects of his era, and his era was not 60 00:03:38.439 --> 00:03:42.000 short on formidable intellects. But here is the thing that 61 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:47.759 makes this story particularly delicious from a psychological perspective. Eratostenes 62 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:50.800 was not the first to conclude the Earth was spherical. 63 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:53.560 He was simply the first to measure it with that 64 00:03:53.719 --> 00:04:00.000 level of precision. The idea had already been circulating for centuries. Pythagoras, 65 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:03.520 back in the sixth century BC, had concluded the Earth 66 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:08.479 with spherical based partly on observations of the Moon, specifically 67 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:11.960 during a lunar eclipse. The shadow the Earth casts on 68 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:17.240 the Moon is always circular, always, regardless of the angle, 69 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 and the only three dimensional shape that always casts a 70 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:25.759 circular shadow from any direction is a sphere. A flat 71 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:29.720 disc would cast an oval or a line depending on orientation, 72 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:34.160 but the shadow is always round always. This is not 73 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:39.160 ambiguous evidence. This is not a matter of interpretation. This 74 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:42.720 is geometry doing what geometry does, which is telling you 75 00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:44.720 the truth whether you want to hear it or not. 76 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.879 And I love geometry for exactly that reason. It does 77 00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:52.160 not care about your feelings. It does not care about 78 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:55.800 your YouTube channel, it does not care about your alternative 79 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:56.759 research community. 80 00:04:57.680 --> 00:04:58.839 It simply is. 81 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:03.240 By the time Aristotle came along around three point thirty BC, 82 00:05:03.959 --> 00:05:09.319 the spherical Earth was established science among educated Greeks. Aristotle 83 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:14.439 compiled multiple lines of evidence the circular shadow during lunar eclipses, 84 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:18.120 the way different constellations become visible as you travel north 85 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:22.160 or south, the way ships disappear hell first over the horizon, 86 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:26.879 as though sinking over a curve. He even estimated the circumference, 87 00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:31.240 though less accurately than Eratosthenes would later manage, and then 88 00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:34.879 Plato in the early fourth century BC, wrote of the 89 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:39.360 Earth a spherical. This was not controversial among the educated class. 90 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:43.000 It was, for lack of a better term, settled. 91 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:44.800 Now. 92 00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:47.600 I want to pause here because I know what some 93 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:51.399 listeners might be thinking. They might be thinking, well, Ava, 94 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:55.600 that is ancient Greece, and those are just philosophical arguments. 95 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:01.160 Give me something more modern, give me something with technology. Oh, 96 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:03.879 I will, But I want to linger on the ancient 97 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:07.439 evidence for a reason, because the flat Earth movement does 98 00:06:07.480 --> 00:06:12.319 not merely reject modern science. It rejects all science, every 99 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:16.199 piece of evidence accumulated over twenty three hundred years. And 100 00:06:16.279 --> 00:06:18.839 I think it is important to understand the sheer volume 101 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:21.560 of what it must be a crowned because it must 102 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:26.759 be bowled and must dismiss the science can say odd suffering. 103 00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:30.000 This is not a case of one dubious photograph or 104 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:34.000 one questionable government claim. This is an everest of evidence. 105 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:37.439 And to be a flat earther you must deny every 106 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:38.680 single stone. 107 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:39.160 In that mountain. 108 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:44.600 It is frankly one of the most ambitious denial projects 109 00:06:44.639 --> 00:06:49.160 in human intellectual history. You almost have to admire the commitment. 110 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:56.439 Almost let us fast forward through some centuries. The spherical 111 00:06:56.439 --> 00:07:00.240 earth was so well established that medieval scholars, contrary to 112 00:07:00.279 --> 00:07:03.600 popular myth, did not generally believe in a flat earth. 113 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:08.519 This is one of my favorite pieces of historical irony. 114 00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:13.879 There is this persistent story that medieval Europeans thought the 115 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:17.360 Earth was flat, and that Columbus bravely proved them wrong. 116 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:24.279 It is a wonderful narrative, courageous explorer defeats superstitious ignorance, 117 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:32.639 very cinematic. It is also almost entirely fabricated. The myth 118 00:07:32.759 --> 00:07:36.600 was largely constructed in the seventeenth century by Protestant writers 119 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:39.600 who wanted to make Catholic scholars look foolish, and it 120 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:43.879 was supercharged in the nineteenth century, significantly by Washington Irving, 121 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:48.600 who wrote a wildly embellished biography of Columbus. In reality, 122 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:52.959 the educated class throughout the medieval period accepted the spherical earth. 123 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:56.399 The debate about Cambus's voyage was not about the shape 124 00:07:56.399 --> 00:07:59.639 of the earth. It was about the size his critics 125 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:02.199 thought the ocean was too wide to cross, and they 126 00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:06.000 were actually correct. Columbus got lucky. He bumped into a 127 00:08:06.040 --> 00:08:08.879 continent that was not supposed to be there. So the 128 00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:12.360 idea that humanity spent centuries in flat Earth darkness before 129 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:15.879 being enlightened by brave explorers is itself a kind of myth, 130 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:19.079 a false narrative that ironically mirrors the kind of false 131 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:22.680 narratives Flat Earth is construct today. Everyone loves a story 132 00:08:22.680 --> 00:08:26.839 where a lonely truthteller stands against a deluded establishment. The 133 00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:30.160 flat Earthers just have the roles reversed. And that is 134 00:08:30.199 --> 00:08:31.959 a pattern I want you to hold in your mind 135 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:37.000 as we move through this. The psychology of the contrarian hero, 136 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:39.720 the lone voice in the wilderness who sees what the 137 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:44.039 sheep cannot. It is a seductive identity. It is possibly 138 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:47.279 the most seductive identity available to a human being, and 139 00:08:47.360 --> 00:08:50.039 it is a significant part of why this belief persists 140 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:53.440 in the face of overwhelming evidence. But we will get 141 00:08:53.440 --> 00:08:57.559 to the psychology first more evidence, because there is so 142 00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:03.440 much more evidence. Fifteen twenty two, Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completes 143 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:07.399 the first circumnavigation of the globe, or rather his crew 144 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:10.919 completes it. Because Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines, 145 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:13.840 which as a detailed flat earthers tend not to address. 146 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:18.600 The ship left Spain, sailed west continuously and arrived back 147 00:09:18.639 --> 00:09:22.000 in Spain. If the Earth were flat, this should be impossible. 148 00:09:22.480 --> 00:09:25.080 You would sail off the edge, or into the ice wall, 149 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:29.960 or into whatever barrier the particular flat earth model Dujeour proposes. Now, 150 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:33.279 the flat earth counter argument here is actually quite interesting 151 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:37.960 from a psychological standpoint. They say, well, you can circumnavigate 152 00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:40.799 a flat disc too, if the North Pole is at 153 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:43.080 the center and Antarctica is a wall of ar if 154 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:46.240 a bad circle is a Soviet force, then sailing in 155 00:09:46.279 --> 00:09:50.080 a large circle around the center would feel like circumnavigation 156 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:54.080 without ever proving sphericity. And I will grant that this 157 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:57.919 is clever. It is wrong, but it is clever. It 158 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:00.559 is the kind of argument that sounds plausible for about 159 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.759 forty five seconds before you think about it carefully, Because 160 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:06.080 if you circumnavigate on a flat disc with the North 161 00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:09.200 Pole at center, the distances in the southern hemisphere would 162 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:11.480 be vastly, impossibly larger than. 163 00:10:11.399 --> 00:10:12.879 They are on a globe. 164 00:10:12.919 --> 00:10:17.600 A flight from say Santiago, Chili to Sydney, Australia would 165 00:10:17.639 --> 00:10:21.759 take enormously longer than it actually does. The distances simply 166 00:10:21.799 --> 00:10:24.399 do not work on a flat map. They never have. 167 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:31.399 Airlines would need to be part of the conspiracy. Pilots 168 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:34.879 would me to be part of the conspiracy. Every person 169 00:10:34.919 --> 00:10:37.600 who has ever measured a distance in the Southern Hemisphere 170 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:42.799 would need to be lying or mistaken. And this, this 171 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:48.559 right here, is the engine that drives the flat earth machine. 172 00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:51.679 Every piece of evidence that contradicts the model does not 173 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:55.480 cause the model to be revised. It causes the conspiracy 174 00:10:55.519 --> 00:11:00.919 to expand. This is not how rational inquiry works. In 175 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:06.720 rational inquiry, when evidence contradicts your hypothesis, you modify the hypothesis. 176 00:11:07.799 --> 00:11:13.120 In conspiratorial thinking, when evidence contradicts your hypothesis, you expand 177 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:17.840 the conspiracy to include whoever presented that evidence. The model 178 00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:22.600 never changes, only the list of co conspirators grows. I 179 00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:25.559 sometimes think of it like a balloon. You poke it 180 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:29.240 with a fact, and instead of popping, it just gets bigger. 181 00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:33.120 It absorbs the fact into its membrane and inflates further. 182 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:38.440 NASA is lying. Airlines are lying pilots are lying, surveyors 183 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:42.200 are lying, physicists are ring. Your ninth grade science teacher 184 00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:46.879 was lying. The balloon just keeps growing. And I find 185 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:51.000 this mechanism genuinely fascinating, not because it is unique to 186 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:54.879 flat Earth, but because flat Earth is perhaps the purest, 187 00:11:55.360 --> 00:12:00.240 most crystalline example of it. In action, the conspira he 188 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:04.799 must encompass so many people, so many institutions, so many 189 00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:09.159 independent lines of evidence, that maintaining it requires more faith 190 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:13.200 than any religion ever has. Let us talk about the 191 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:16.279 space age, because this is where flat earthers really have 192 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:19.639 to start working over time. The late nineteen fifties and 193 00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:23.080 nineteen sixties brought something that had never existed before in 194 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:27.279 the history of the flat Earth debate. Photographs, actual photographs 195 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:31.440 of the Earth from space, showing an unambiguous sphere, not 196 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:34.399 a disc, not a square, not whatever. 197 00:12:34.519 --> 00:12:36.360 Orlando Ferguson imagined. 198 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:42.639 In eighteen ninety three, a sphere blue, white, curved, floating 199 00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:47.720 in the black void. The famous blue marble photograph taken 200 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:51.320 by the Apollo seventeen crew is perhaps the single most 201 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:55.440 widely reproduced image in human history, and it means nothing 202 00:12:55.639 --> 00:13:01.720 to a flat earther. Nothing because according to the conspiratorial framework, 203 00:13:02.159 --> 00:13:06.519 NASA is the prime deceiver, the photographs are fabricated, the 204 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:10.399 astronauts are actors. The entire space program is an elaborate 205 00:13:10.440 --> 00:13:13.559 hoax designed too well. This is where it gets a 206 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:16.399 bit murky, designed to hide the truth about the flat 207 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:21.080 Earth for reasons that are never entirely clear. Something about control, 208 00:13:21.639 --> 00:13:25.440 something about keeping people ignorant of God's true creation. The 209 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:28.080 motive shifts depending on which flat Earth are you ask 210 00:13:28.519 --> 00:13:32.000 which is itself revealing. When the why of a conspiracy 211 00:13:32.039 --> 00:13:35.639 theory is inconsistent, but the who is always the same, 212 00:13:36.159 --> 00:13:39.879 you are looking at paranoia wearing the costume of critical thinking. 213 00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:42.279 But here is what I want you to really consider. 214 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.039 To dismiss space evidence, you must believe that every space 215 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:50.519 agency on Earth is complicit. Not just NASA, ros Cosmas 216 00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:56.240 in Russia, the European Space Agency JAXA in Japan, the 217 00:13:56.360 --> 00:14:02.240 Chinese National Space Administration, the Indian Space Research Organization. These 218 00:14:02.279 --> 00:14:06.840 are organizations run by nations that are geopolitical rivals, nations 219 00:14:06.879 --> 00:14:09.159 that would love nothing more than to embarrass each other 220 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:13.360 on the world stage. And yet, according to flat air theory, 221 00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:16.559 they are all in perfect agreement on this one deception. 222 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:20.120 Russia and America, who spent the better part of a 223 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:23.679 century trying to destroy each other, are apparently best friends 224 00:14:23.720 --> 00:14:25.879 when it comes to faking the shape of the planet. 225 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:28.519 I want you to think about how difficult it is 226 00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:31.480 to get any two government agencies in the same country 227 00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:34.159 to agree on a budget, and then I want you 228 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:38.039 to imagine getting every space agency on Earth to maintain 229 00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:44.039 a flawless, leak free conspiracy across decades, across political systems, 230 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:51.879 across languages, across revolutions and regime changes. The coordination required 231 00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:56.320 would be, without exaggeration, the single greatest achievement in the 232 00:14:56.440 --> 00:15:00.639 history of organized human effort, which makes it double ironic 233 00:15:01.080 --> 00:15:04.720 that the conspiracy theorists claim these same governments are incompetent 234 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:09.559 at everything else pic a lane. Are they bumbling fools 235 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:13.799 who cannot fill potholes, or are they masterminds executing a 236 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:17.919 seamless global deception spanning seventy years and involving hundreds of 237 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:21.960 thousands of participants with zero credible whistleblowers. You do not 238 00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:26.720 get both. This is what I call the competence paradox 239 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:30.159 of conspiracy theories, and it applies far beyond flat Earth. 240 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:34.679 The villains must be simultaneously brilliant enough to fool everyone 241 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:37.759 and stupid enough to leave clues that a person watching 242 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:42.080 YouTube in their basement can detect. It is narratively satisfying 243 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:44.840 in the way that a thriller novel is satisfying. It 244 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:49.440 is not, however, coherent. Now let me give you some 245 00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:53.320 evidence that does not require trusting any government agency at all, 246 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:55.960 because I think I admit to pay for the dangerous 247 00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:02.159 guiding to make it more end, I understand institutional distrust. 248 00:16:02.559 --> 00:16:05.879 I analyze coercive institutions for a living in a manner 249 00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:09.919 of speaking, distrust can be healthy. But the spherical earth 250 00:16:09.960 --> 00:16:13.960 do not rest on institutional authority. It rests on observations 251 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:16.480 that anyone can make. Go to a large body of 252 00:16:16.519 --> 00:16:19.440 water on a clear day, watch a ship sail away 253 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:23.240 from you. It does not get smaller uniformly the way 254 00:16:23.240 --> 00:16:26.879 it would on a flat plane. The hell disappears first, 255 00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:30.120 then the mast, then the top of the mast. It 256 00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:33.279 sinks over the horizon as though going over a hill. 257 00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:38.000 This was one of Aristotle's observations, and you can replicate 258 00:16:38.039 --> 00:16:40.559 it today with a pair of binoculars in an afternoon. 259 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:45.240 No NASA required. Look at a lunar eclipse. Watch the 260 00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:48.600 shadow the Earth casts on the Moon. It is curved. 261 00:16:49.080 --> 00:16:53.320 It is always curved. No telescope required, just your eyes 262 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:57.039 and a clear night. Get on a plane at thirty 263 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:00.639 five thousand feet, which is a standard cruising altitude. The 264 00:17:00.679 --> 00:17:04.240 curvature of the Earth is visible, not dramatically, so it 265 00:17:04.279 --> 00:17:06.480 is not like looking at the blue marble, but it 266 00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:10.799 is there, a gentle, unmistakable curve at the horizon. Flat 267 00:17:10.839 --> 00:17:14.519 earth proponents say this is an optical illusion caused by 268 00:17:14.519 --> 00:17:18.119 the airplane windows, which is a claim that sounds reasonable 269 00:17:18.440 --> 00:17:22.039 until you realize that some aircraft have flat windows and 270 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:26.000 the curvature is still visible, and that high altitude balloons 271 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:29.119 with cameras, many of which are launched by amateurs not 272 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:33.480 government agencies, also show curvature. Call a friend in a 273 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:36.359 different time zone, ask them what the sun is doing 274 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:39.720 if it is noon where you are and midnight where 275 00:17:39.720 --> 00:17:43.480 they are. The flat earth model requires a very peculiar sun, 276 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:47.599 a sun that acts like a spotlight, illuminating only part 277 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:50.559 of the disc at a time. Flat earth models often 278 00:17:50.599 --> 00:17:54.799 propose this a small, close sun circling above the disc, 279 00:17:55.480 --> 00:17:58.400 but this model cannot account for time zones for the 280 00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:02.160 angle of sunlight at different lane attitudes, for seasons, for 281 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:05.359 the midnight sun in polar regions, or for the simple 282 00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:07.640 fact that if the sun were a spotlight above a 283 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:10.720 flat plane, you would always be able to see it, 284 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:14.680 even at night. It would just be far away and dim, 285 00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:17.680 like a flashlight across a football field. You would never 286 00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:23.799 have true darkness, And yet we do every night with 287 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:27.039 a clearly defined line between day and night that moves 288 00:18:27.079 --> 00:18:29.920 across the globe in a way that is perfectly consistent 289 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:33.640 with the rotating sphere and completely inconsistent. 290 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:34.559 With a spotlight over a disc. 291 00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:37.319 This is the point where I want to talk about 292 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:40.279 something I find deeply telling about the flat Earth movement, 293 00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.799 the experiments, Because some flat earthers, and I want to 294 00:18:45.799 --> 00:18:48.160 give them credit for this impulse, even as I critique 295 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:53.440 the conclusion, actually try to test their hypothesis. They run experiments, 296 00:18:54.119 --> 00:18:57.640 and this is where things get frankly a little heartbreaking 297 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:03.200 from an epistemological standpoint. There is a well documented case 298 00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:06.839 featured in the twenty eighteen documentary Behind the Curve, in 299 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:10.440 which a flat Earth proponent named Juran Campanella designed an 300 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:13.839 experiment to prove the Earth was flat He used a 301 00:19:13.880 --> 00:19:16.920 laser and panels at different heights across a body of water. 302 00:19:17.759 --> 00:19:20.160 The idea was that if the Earth is flat, a 303 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:22.680 laser at a certain height should pass through holes in 304 00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:25.160 the panels at the same height over a long distance. 305 00:19:27.160 --> 00:19:29.640 If the Earth is curved, the laser would appear to 306 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:34.680 rise relative to the panels. He ran the experiment, and 307 00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:38.599 the laser appeared to rise exactly as it would on 308 00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:44.680 a curved surface. His own experiment disproved his own claim 309 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:51.880 on camera, and the response not, well, I was wrong. 310 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:56.680 The Earth appears to be curved. The response was essentially interesting, 311 00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:02.200 we need to redo this. There was fusion, there was rationalization, 312 00:20:02.839 --> 00:20:06.160 there was everything except the conclusion that the data demanded. 313 00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:09.279 This is not stupidity. I want to be very clear 314 00:20:09.319 --> 00:20:12.759 about that. The people involved in these experiments are often 315 00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:16.759 intelligent and creative. What they are engaged in is something 316 00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:21.279 far more interesting and far more human than stupidity. They 317 00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:25.240 are engaged in motivated reasoning at its most powerful. They 318 00:20:25.240 --> 00:20:28.000 have an identity built around this belief. They have a 319 00:20:28.039 --> 00:20:31.839 community built around it. They have a worldview, a sense 320 00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:35.119 of purpose, a feeling of being among the enlightened few. 321 00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:39.000 And when the evidence contradicts all of that. The evidence 322 00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:44.119 loses every time because evidence is cold and impersonal. An 323 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:48.039 identity is warm and all encompassing. This is why I 324 00:20:48.119 --> 00:20:50.880 study this, not because I think the shape of the 325 00:20:50.920 --> 00:20:52.480 Earth is genuinely in question. 326 00:20:53.319 --> 00:20:53.759 It is not. 327 00:20:54.599 --> 00:20:59.240 It is a sphere, specifically an obate spheroid, slightly flattened 328 00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:01.920 at the poles and at the equator, but for all 329 00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:05.599 practical purposes, a sphere that is settled. 330 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:08.000 What is not settled, What. 331 00:21:08.079 --> 00:21:13.160 Is endlessly fascinating is why evidence fails. Why does evidence, 332 00:21:13.400 --> 00:21:15.880 which should be the most powerful tool we have for 333 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:20.359 understanding reality, bounce off some people like light off a mirror. 334 00:21:21.119 --> 00:21:23.960 And the answer, as it so often is in my work, 335 00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:28.720 is that belief is not primarily about evidence. Belief is 336 00:21:28.759 --> 00:21:34.279 about belonging. Belief is about identity. Belief is about the 337 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:37.599 story you tell yourself about who you are and where 338 00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:40.960 you stand in relation to the world. And if the 339 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:45.079 evidence threatens that story, the human brain has an extraordinary, 340 00:21:45.519 --> 00:21:50.799 almost beautiful capacity to neutralize the threat without ever consciously 341 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:55.240 deciding to do so. I see this in cults. I 342 00:21:55.279 --> 00:21:59.319 see this in political extremism. I see this in conspiracy communities. 343 00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:03.599 Of every flame, the mechanism is always the same. The 344 00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:07.960 content changes, but the architecture does not. Let me return 345 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:10.799 to the evidence, because there is one more category that 346 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:14.039 I think deserves attention, and it is the category that 347 00:22:14.119 --> 00:22:18.359 flat earthers find most difficult to address. It is gravity. 348 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:25.480 Gravity on a spherical Earth is straightforward. Mass attracts mass. 349 00:22:26.039 --> 00:22:29.799 The Earth is massive, objects are pulled toward its center. 350 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:34.599 This is why down exists, why water pools in low places, 351 00:22:35.240 --> 00:22:38.799 why you do not float away. It is described with 352 00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:44.039 mathematical precision by Newtonian mechanics, and with even greater precision 353 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:48.119 by general relativity, and it is confirmed by every experiment 354 00:22:48.279 --> 00:22:52.319 ever conducted on the subject, every single one. On a 355 00:22:52.359 --> 00:22:57.599 flat Earth, gravity is a problem, a serious problem, because 356 00:22:57.640 --> 00:23:00.160 if the Earth is a flat disc, there is there's 357 00:23:00.200 --> 00:23:03.960 no center of mass pulling things uniformly downward. Gravity on 358 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.880 a flat disc would behave differently at the center than 359 00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:07.599 at the edges. 360 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:09.400 Objects near the. 361 00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:11.799 Rim would be pulled toward the center at an angle 362 00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:15.599 not straight down. Water would pull at the middle of 363 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:19.880 the disk. The entire experience of down being directly beneath 364 00:23:19.880 --> 00:23:23.240 your feet at every point on Earth is only consistent 365 00:23:23.319 --> 00:23:27.799 with the sphere. Some flat earthers attempt to solve this 366 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:31.960 by denying gravity altogether and proposing instead that the flat 367 00:23:31.960 --> 00:23:35.160 disc is accelerating upward at nine point eight meters per 368 00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:39.079 second squared, which would create the sensation of being pushed down. 369 00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:44.319 This is creative, I will give it that, but it 370 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:47.920 requires the entire disk to have been accelerating continuously for 371 00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:51.279 at minimum the age of the universe, which would mean 372 00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:54.160 the disc is currently traveling many times the speed of light, 373 00:23:55.519 --> 00:23:58.119 which is, according to literally all. 374 00:23:57.960 --> 00:23:59.400 Of physics, impossible. 375 00:24:00.039 --> 00:24:03.279 And even if you reject relativity, which some flat earthers 376 00:24:03.359 --> 00:24:06.720 do with admirable abandon you still have the problem of 377 00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:10.839 what is pushing the disc, what force generated by what? 378 00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:16.880 It is explanatory bankruptcy dressed in the language of alternative science, 379 00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:20.079 And this, I think is alternately the point I want 380 00:24:20.119 --> 00:24:23.839 to leave you with regarding the evidence. The evidence for 381 00:24:23.880 --> 00:24:26.200 a siphral Earth is not a single thread that can 382 00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:32.119 be cut. It is a web, an interconnected, mutually reinforcing 383 00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:35.680 web that spans twenty three hundred years of human inquiry, 384 00:24:36.079 --> 00:24:39.960 from Eritosthenes and his stick to satellites in orbit, from 385 00:24:39.960 --> 00:24:42.440 the shadow on the Moon to the behavior of gravity, 386 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:45.799 from the ship sinking over the horizon to the flight 387 00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:49.440 times between cities in the Southern hemisphere. Every piece of 388 00:24:49.480 --> 00:24:52.920 evidence supports every other piece hold one thread and the 389 00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:57.559 others hold. Pull ten and the others hold. You would 390 00:24:57.599 --> 00:25:00.519 have to pull them all simultaneously, and to do that 391 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:09.279 you would have to reject the entirety of physics, astronomy, geography, cartography, navigation, aviation, aviation, 392 00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:12.960 and the personal experience of every person who has ever 393 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:16.279 looked at a lunar eclipse or watched a ship sail away. 394 00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:21.160 That is the scale of denial required, and the fact 395 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:24.039 that people are willing to engage in denial at that scale, 396 00:25:24.559 --> 00:25:29.279 that they will sacrifice relationships, credibility, and basic coherence to 397 00:25:29.359 --> 00:25:33.079 maintain It tells you something profound. 398 00:25:34.039 --> 00:25:36.680 Not about the shape of the earth. We know the 399 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:38.880 shape of the earth. It tells you. 400 00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:41.599 Something about the shape of the human need to feel special, 401 00:25:42.359 --> 00:25:47.599