Re: The flat Earth

[Gary Karshner <karshner@STMARYTX.EDU>]

At 05:55 PM 9/12/99 -0700, you wrote:
> This will blow your mind. I'm citing this in phys-L. Looks OK to me.
>
> http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/97/cm9711.html
Leigh,
        It is OK except it suffers from the same problem as those on the other
side of the flat Earth view point. The tendency to view knowledge as
monolithic with everyone agreeing on the facts in their age.
        I start my astronomy class by defining what science isn't. The first of
these "isn'ts" is a religion which is based on faith. I use as an example
the spherical earth which no one doughs, but most student base their
knowledge on their faith in their teachers who told them that, and not
because they know how to prove it. I then add that this knowledge that has
been known as far back as Pythagoras. A question that often comes up is the
Columbus story.
        Both W. Irving and Faulkner are correct. Some of Columbus's critics sided
with the archbishop of Marseilles who in the thirteenth century said that
when the Bible and Aristotle disagreed, the Bible is correct. He used as
his example Aristotle's view of the Earth being round, where as the Bible
said it was flat. In this defense he used two passages. One where the
tribes were scattered to the ends of the Earth. Spheres have no ends. The
other referred to the four corners of the Earth. Spheres have no corners.
In this light look at the article that follows Faulkner's.
        The scholars that criticized Columbus were divided between those that
would agree with the archbishop and those that knew of Eratosthenes's
measure of circumference of the earth which was over twice the value used
by Columbus. This error on Columbus's part is why he never doubted he had
reached the east Indies.
        As late as the 1840's a school board in St. Louis was interviewing a
prospective teacher (recorded in the local paper). They ask him whether the
world was round or flat. He said he sided with the round view, but was
prepared to teach it either way. The school board felt he should stick with
the traditional view that it was flat.
        Our modern world with its fast communications and acceptance of new as
better make a poor mirror to view the past where few were educated and old
views had stood the test of time.

Gary
Gary Karshner

St. Mary's University
San Antonio, Texas
KARSHNER@STMARYTX.EDU