We live in a world where the development of science has led us to some remarkable conclusions and discoveries. Some of these are disputed, some of them certainly can be disputed, and some… well, some really shouldn’t be, because they are obvious, and have been obvious for centuries.
The flat earth phenomenon is all about taking the most wild, outlandish notions, and spinning them together in a conspiracy theory that collapses under the slightest scrutiny. Unfortunately, conspiracy theorists are rarely deterred by a lack of evidence and logic, and tend to dig deeper, decrying anything that doesn’t confirm their bias.
Years ago, I got into a debate on this subject, and unsurprisingly, it went nowhere. My chief opponents ignored evidence, and make liberal use of the Alternative Syllogism Fallacy. This fallacy takes two competing ideas – A and B – and assumes that if A cannot perfectly address the available evidence, B automatically wins. It doesn’t matter if theory B is actually worse, at least, not in the eyes of its proponents. Their simplistic (or perhaps nonexistent) logic insists that all they need to do is show theory A is not perfect for their argument to win.
What makes this even worse is that there is a huge wealth of evidence to support Earth being a globe. It’s not like theory A is actually incomplete or flawed! From earliest observations of the Sun, other planets, the principles of gravity, and so much more, we have as a species collected enough proof that the Earth is not flat. Flat earthers have yet to define various mechanisms to any satisfactory degree (such as what keeps us rooted to the surface of our world if gravity is taken out of the mix), so if we followed flat earther ‘logic’ to its logical conclusion, and turned the Alternative Syllogism Fallacy against them, theory B automatically loses, by virtue of not explaining everything perfectly.
There’s a quote that brilliantly sums it all up:
Flat-Earthers seem to have a very low standard of evidence for what they want to believe but an impossibly high standard of evidence for what they don’t want to believe. Lee McIntyre, Boston University
