Talk:Flat Earth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Good article Flat Earth has been listed as a Philosophy and religion good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.
This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.
Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Archives: Archive 1 – Prior to January 2005

Contents

[edit] Discworld/Pratchett/Flatland?

Why is there a link to Terry Pratchett / Discworld as the sole item in the "Further reading" section? Is that set of fiction about flat earth beliefs?

I have never read Pratchett, and so I don't doubt that there is a reason. (For example, I imagine the geography of the discworld is flat...) However, the connection is not clear from the text here, nor is it clear from the article about Discworld to which the link points ... that article doesn't actually discuss the geography of the Discworld.

I would question:

  • whether the link is appropriate, and if not it should potentially be removed. Just because a fictitious location if flat, does that mean we should link to it from an article about flat earth beliefs? I'm sure there is a lot of fiction with flat worlds.
  • If it's staying, someone needs to make it clear what the connection is.

IdahoEv 00:38, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest that the link be replaced by a link to Discworld (world), which explains the geography of the Discworld itself. 81.224.28.151 14:18, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
As much as I love Terry Pratchett's Diskworld books, I don't see the relevance to this article of a fictional series. It's fictional, and it isn't Earth.--RLent 22:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, the book Flatland by E.A. Abbott is not about a flat earth, it is about a number of "universes," one of which is two-dimensional. I think this reference should be deleted, since it is a mathematical and philosophical treatment of the nature of perception (the characters are all shapes) and has nothing to do with any planet being flat, much less earth.

[edit] popular belief?

what are the references that it is indeed a popular belief that belief in a flat earth was predominant during the middle ages? let alone that there are schoolbooks making that claim? It is a cliche popularly employed in dark age / fantasy Cartoons maybe, but I'm removing the schoolbook until we have one to point to. dab (ᛏ) 10:19, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ignorance of light traveling in curves

have removed the phrase:

"this required ignorance of the fact that light travels in curved lines"

as being profoundly misleading. I'm not sure whether this is refering to refraction or to relativistic 'bending' of light. If it's the former, then it needs more explanation. If it's the later, it's wrong - not in the sense that light doesn't 'curve' in the presence of a gravitational field, but that the amount of curve near the earth due to this is negligible for this matter.

[edit] Fictional source

Why does this article refer to a criticism of Russell that he used a fictional source? This needs to be explained, or probably deleted. If the reference is to Irving, what is the problem? There is nothing unscholarly about a historian mentioning the influence a novel had on the history of popular perceptions. --Doric Loon 13:26, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't the bibles Daniel 4:10-11 be present in this section. I guess you could classify is as somewhat popular litterature.

[edit] Round earth

This should point to a history (or the article already containing it) of those who thought/concluded the earth was round. I occassionally need to refer back to it; but always forget the name of the guy who conducted the shadow experiment in ancient Greece; accurately estimating the circumference of the Earth. - RoyBoy 800 05:04, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Got it. I obviously needed more sleep last night. - RoyBoy 800 15:19, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction in lead in.

Anyone else note that this is a contradiction:

A small number of early Christian writers questioned and even opposed Earth's sphericity on theological grounds. With the astrolabe, Arab astronomy reached Europe in the 11th century, and by the 1100s at the latest, the geocentric model had supplanted it in the minds of the learned people of Europe.

This is close to Christian apologia when as only briefly noted the last Christian words on the subject in 548 A.D. (or should that be C.E.?) until the Renaissance were: "To those who, while professing Christianity, believe like the heathens, that the heavens are spherical."

I'm afraid I don't get either contradiction norapologia. Unless you mean that 'supplanted' is incorrect when it was a minority opinion to begin with. dab (ᛏ) 20:33, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The earth is flat about 10^-9 meters through to about 10^4 meters.

While talking with a friend about this article recently, it occured to us that, accepting that the spherical nature of the earth is an approximation, it can be argued that the world is as flat as it is spherical - on the basis that the shape of the earth depends upon specific contexts - mostly depending on scale:

  • At the scale of less than 10^-9 meters or so, the earth is a space has an undefinable shape.
  • From about 10^-9 meters through to about 10^4 meters, the earth is flat.
  • From about 10^4 meters to about 10^9 meters the earth is a sphere.
  • At the scale of anything greater than about 10^9 meters, the earth is a point.

Within the context of many physical models (as well as mental models) in the scale mentioned, the earth may be sufficiently approximated as being a flat plane. For most small to medium architectural and engineering purposes, the earth is represented as flat.

Of course, I can understand that different individuals have different ideas regarding truth, but it seems fair to me to say that even within many modern contexts, the world is treated as flat, whereas in other contexts it is treated as a sphere; and to state that one approximation is more 'true' than another could merely indicate that we currently assign 'fact' to certain scales over others. (20040302 09:05, 7 September 2005 (UTC))

the "shape" of anything is, of course, determined by its borders. Naturally, these will be considered at a scale similar to their own scale. If you include the Earth's interior, and don't just look at the surface, I don't see how it is flat even at a scale of 1m. At best, it can be argued that from 10^-4 to 10^4m or so, the Earth is a completely irregular (jagged, bumpy, fractal) solid body. dab (ᛏ) 09:15, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Generally, I agree. What I was stating above is that the approximation of the world as being a sphere is no more factual than the approximation of the world as being flat. When people talk about the earth being flat (or round), it is (afaik) implicitly accepted that this is an approximation - after all, no-one denys hills and valleys - most models of the earth in the scale 10^-4 to 10^4m (e.g. software simulations at this scale, such as Boids) approximate the earth as flat.
BTW, you seem to contradict yourself - I agree that shape is determined by borders, in which case it isn't relevant as to whether or not the world is solid. (20040302)
no contradiction, if only the borders are considered, Earth isn't a 'space' on any scale. If we agree that the shape is determined by the borders of a solid (i.e. inside and outside are meaningful, it isn't just a 2d manifold), we can also meaningfully decide whether the "sphere", the "altar" or the "wheel" shape is more correct. I would say that "sphere" is most correct, "wheel" comes second (with the equatorial bulges approximating the rim), and "altar" a poor third :) dab (ᛏ) 11:15, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, fair enough about 'space' - except that I don't think it makes much sense to talk about the shape of the earth using approximations that are related to scales of less than 10^-9 or so - as the concept of 'surface' becomes pretty ropey. As for the rest of what you say about altars and wheels, it makes no sense to me. In terms of 'surfaces' - (which makes much more sense than 'borders'), the approximate shape of the earth is undefined, flat, spherical, a point respectively, according to scales as above. (20040302)
"sphere", "wheel" (disk, Isidore) and "altar" ("brick", Lactantius) are the competing models. Now imagine some morphing algorithm, transforming the actual "geoid" shape into either of these. The least amount of "morphing" will be required for the spherical model, and the most (modelling of 12 edges) for the altar model. The disk model is in between, for a thick disk, you just need to flatten the geoid (imagine a stepped-on chewing gum). The actual "geoid" shape does have two 'flat' sides (the poles), so the actual shape is somewhere in between a sphere and a disk, but considerably closer to the sphere. dab (ᛏ) 15:09, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Ah okay, you are talking about historic references to various shapes of the earth. Whereas I am talking about approximations of the shape of the earth. (20040302)
I am talking about a way of establishing the similarity of historical models with modern measurements, i.e. inasmuch said models can be regarded as 'approximations'. I imagine the score will turn out something like: sphere: 98%, disk: 40%, brick: 15% (fantasy scores :) dab (ᛏ) 18:51, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I challenge you to find any real geometrically straight line in nature. :) Flatness existeth not. --Home Computer 19:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A ray of light, the edge of a crystal, the path of a falling object, how many more do you need?166.82.201.8 16:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mismatched counts

"Only 3 were clearly on the opposition", but 7 are now listed as in opposition. Does that mean the other 4 were in opposition but not "clearly"? Those in favor are similarly mismatched, 80 to 90. If this is just bad bookkeeping, then let's delete the paragraph with the counts and let the lists speak for themselves, so we won't have this problem every time someone changes the lists.Art LaPella 20:07, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] cut from article

In favour to the idea of a spherical earth were:

fathers of the church: Basilius of Caesarea, Ambrosius of Milan, Aurelius Augustinus, Paulus Orosius.

philosophers of the late antiquity: Ampelius, Chalcidius, Macrobius, Martianus Capella, Boethius.

ministers and functionaries of the mediaeval states: Cassiodor, Brunetto Latini.

bishops: Jornandes (or Jordanes) of Ravenna, Isidor of Sevilla, Bishop Virgilus of Salzburg, Adam of Bremen.

Kings: King of the Wisigoths Sisebut, King Alfred the great of England, Alfonso X, el Sabio.

monks, nuns, priests: the irish monk Dicuil, archpriest Leo of Naples, Notker the German of Sankt-Gallen, Hermann der Lahme, Hildegard of Bingen, Gautier de Metz, Berthold of Regensburg, Meister Eckehart.

popes: Gerbert d’Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II), Enea Silvio Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II).

theologians, philosophers: Beda Venerabilis, Theodulf von Orléans, Hrabanus Maurus, Remigius von Auxerre, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, Guillaume de Conches, Pierre Abélard, Honorius Augustodunensis, Philippe de Thaün, Abu-Idrisi, Bernardus Sylvester, Petrus Comestor, Thierry de Chartres, Gautier de Châtillon, Alexander Neckam, Alain de Lille, Ibn-Rušd (Averroes), Mose ben Maimon (Maimonides), Lambert de Saint-Omer, Gervaise de Tilbury, Robert Grosseteste, Johannes de Sacrobosco, Thomas de Cantimpré, Jean de Meung, Peire de Corbian, Vincent de Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, Thomas von Aquin, Robertus Anglicus, Juan Gil de Zámora, Perot de Garbelei, Roger Bacon, Ristoro d’Arezzo, Cecco d’Ascoli, Fazio degli Uberti, Levi Ben Gerson, Konrad von Megenberg, Nicole Oresme, Geoffrey Chaucer, Pierre d’Ailly, Alfonso de la Torre, Toscanelli.

poets, voyagers, bookprinters, seafarers, merchants: Snorri Sturluson, Marco Polo, Dante Alighieri, Brochard the German, Jean de Mandeville, Christine de Pizan, William Caxton, Martin Behaim, Christoph Columbus.

In opposition to the idea of a spherical earth were:

Lactantius, Cyril of Jerusalem (315–386), Saint John Chrysostom (344–408), Diodorus of Tarsus, Severianus of Gabala, Cosmas Indicopleusthes and Bonifatius.


-- this (unwikified) list is less than helpful. The article points out at great length that the spherical earth model was mainstream. So why are we listing everybody? The only interesting thing is the list of advocates of a flat earth. Lactantius, check. Cyril of Jerusalem, check. Saint John Chrysostom, check, Diodorus of Tarsus, check, Severianus of Gabala, check. [[Cosmas Indicopleusthes and Bonifatius] check. They are all already mentioned in the article. In fact, this list is just a duplication of the names mentioned in the very next section. What's the point?


Krueger, Reinhard: Eine Welt ohne Amerika, vol. 2. Das Überleben des Erdkugelmodells in der Spätantike (ca. 60 v.u.Z. - ca. 550), Berlin: Weidler 2000, ISBN: 3-89693-162-8

Krueger, Reinhard: Eine Welt ohne Amerika, vol. 3. Das lateinische Mittelalter und die Tradition des antiken Erdkugelmodells (ca. 550 - ca. 1080) Berlin, Weidler 2000: ISBN: 3-89693-163-6

Simek, Rudolf: Altnordische Kosmographie : Studien und Quellen zu Weltbild und Weltbeschreibung in Norwegen und Island vom 12. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert, Berlin [u.a.] : de Gruyter, 1990

Simek, Rudolf: Erde und Kosmos im Mittelalter. Das Weltbild vor Kolumbus. C.H.Beck, München, 1992

von den Brincken, Anna-Dorothee: Fines terrae: die Enden der Erde und der vierte Kontinent auf mittelalterlichen Weltkarten: Hannover : Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1992, ISBN: 3775254366

-- that's a nice reading list. for de:Flache Erde. dab (ᛏ) 13:42, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

  • This change ranges from "oh, maybe it could be better that way" and "you might be right" to baffling. To choose a seemingly clear-cut (though trivial) example, why would you change "temperate" back to "temparate"? Several dictionaries agree the only spelling is "temperate", and since the quote is a translation it might as well be spelled correctly. Explain that one and I'll have more confidence in the rest of it. Art LaPella 20:08, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
DEAR DAB, much as I usually value your contributions, it is a mystery to me why you have cut this material. I found that list the most helpful thing in the whole article. There is too much waffle - we need more specifics, including more citations of primary and secondary sources. Both the list of mediaeval thinkers and the references to modern scholars (even if they ARE German - do you think the German Wiki doesn't accept English-language references?) pin the thing down. It is precisely when we don't cite in this way that other people come along and feel justified in adding rubbish. I am putting all this material back! --Doric Loon 21:28, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
hm, I didn't consciously change "temperate" to "temparate", I was reverting to an earlier version. Doric Loon, what part of the list did you find useful? The list of flat earth supporters? It was simply redundant, it is still in the article. The list of Spherical Earth supporters? This list is neither complete nor referenced, nor is this article about the Spherical Earth. (a) Spherical Earth was the default opinion.Would you like a "list of Christians" at the Islam article? That's nonsense. (b) Also, the list is unreferenced; while all these people might have accepted the spherical earth with a shrug, I would like to see a reference for each one that they actively supported the idea. I haven't heard that Adam of Bremen, for example, wrote any texts on astronomy. Maybe there is a reference to the shape of the earth somewhere in his writings, but we won't know until somebody gives us a reference, will we? Likewise, I would be terribly interested in evidence on the position of king Sisebut. All we know is that he was instructed de rerum natura by Isidor of Sevilla . We don't know the position he finally took. So it would already be stretching things to list Sisebut as an independent Spherical Earth supporter if we knew Isidore's teachings on the matter. However, what we know about Isidore is that he considers the Earth "round, like a wheel" (see T and O map). A wheel is hardly spherical, is it? Yet Isidore is listed as a spherical earth supporter in this list, without so much as a footnote. The actual scholarly postition on the matter is that "he never tells us whether he believed the earth to be flat or spherical; he uses at one time language that belongs to the spherical earth, and at another, language that can have sense only if he believed the earth to be flat." [1]. In other words, this list doesn't live up to the poorest standards of encyclopedicity or accuracy. I could have removed it with a simple "WP:CITE" edit summary. What we want is a prose paragraph, explaining the arguments by active supporters of the spherical model. Not a simple list that is, on top of everything, horribly inaccurate. dab (ᛏ) 07:26, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, since I can't defend the accuracy of the list I accept that. I don't accept however that in principle a list of people who rejected the flat earth idea would be out of place here. Given the popular view that "everyone" in the Middle Ages was a flat earther, it is good to have more than just a general statement that that is not true - cited examples, and a lot of them including big names, are the way to go--Doric Loon 11:17, 10 September 2005 (UTC).

I sort of see your point. However, we already say that this is a misconception, and we cannot really do more than say it. I am fine with a list of people defending the spherical model, i.e. a list of authors who actually reply to the arguments of the flat earthers. I am reasonably sure that Sisebut will not appear on such a list, however. We can also discuss in more detail the origin of the 'common misconception'. Rhetorical pro-spherical point scoring is misguided, however. We shouldn't assume that our readers are naive and uneducated, so we do not have to argue about that long-exposed misconception. We can say that the misconception existed, but writing a polemic against it would really amount to beating a dead horse. dab (ᛏ) 12:18, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Consider our statement,

Today essentially all professional mediaevalists agree with Russell that the "mediaeval flat earth" is a nineteenth-century fabrication, and that the few verifiable "flat earthers" were the exception.

I fully agree with this. I just think that we cannot be more unambiguous than this, not even with a long list of dubious validity. dab (ᛏ) 12:45, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


It's my opinion right now that the Early Church is being unnecisarily focused on as proponents of Flat Earth. A whole section has been devoted to focusing on the Christian Response to the earth when it's allready been established that thier belief was simmilar to the rest of the worlds scioentific view and also an accusation is suggested (that the early Christians propelled the notion) without allowing for the demonstration that most Christians defended the notion of a spherical earth.. the citations above would be relevant in this article for the sake of balancing out the anti-early-christian bias. --Home Computer 13:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early antiquity believed?

The article nearly starts with "People from early antiquity generally believed the world was flat", with the only support given as "In early Mesopotamian thought the world was portrayed as a flat disk floating in the ocean".

First, was that the world or the habitable land on the Earth? Second, why are they considered the primal source for this? -- Chacham

[edit] Jewish source

Would the inclusion of a Jewish source help this article? On Isaiah 40:22 Ibn Ezra comments that the Earth is round, not square, and that it needs no proof since it is well known. The importance here is that he lived mostly in the 12th century.

The Midrash Rabbah (also twelfth century, but quotes oral sources of 700+ years) says it very clearly using the word "kidor" meaning ball.

The Jerusalem Talmud (Peah 1:2) also says it directly, using a story with Alexander the Great, though not printed until much later (also 12th century?) it was redacted in approximately the year 400 according to the article here.

If someone thinks these will enhance the article, i can provide the exact quotes.

-- Chacham 16:24 26 September 2005 (UTC)


To correct myself, the Jerusalem Talmud reference is in Avodah Zora chapter 3 law 1. online The Mishnah mentions an opinion that a statue is considered idolatry when it has in its hand a stick, bird, or ball (kadur). The Talmud then comments why these things symbolize idolatry and for the ball it says "Kadur shehaolam usooy k'kadur" "A ball, because the world is made like a ball." It then tells a story about Alexander the Macedonian going "up and up and up until he saw the world was like a ball and the ocean like a pot (or basin, the word is "k'kaarah")." -- Chacham 19:35 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we don't pay enough attention to Jewish sources. Do put some of this into the article. --Doric Loon 06:17, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Here are the other sources i mentioned.

The Midrash Rabbah on Deuteronomy (Naso) 13:14 commenting on the "mizrak" (basin) says "mizrak kesef k'neged h'olam shehu usooy k'kadur hanizrak meyad l'yad". " 'Mizrak' of silver, representing the world that is make like a ball that is thrown from hand to hand". It then quotes the same source (the Mishnah) that the above Jerusalem Talmud passage quotes, and includes the story of Alexander the Macedonian with minor differences (such as spelling or verbiage) but the story is the same.

On Isaiah 40:22 Ibn Ezra says "ki haaretz agulah lo r'vuah v'im ayn tzorech lifsok ki hadavar yudua b'raayos g'muros". "Because the land is circular, not square, and there is no reason to explain(?) because the thing is [well] known with absolute proofs".

(The word "lifsok" does not mean "to explain", but i do not known how to properly translate it in context.)

So he does not say spherical, he says circle. Unless he means spherical as opposed to cubical. But he of all people (being careful about language and wiriting treatises included one on the asterlobe (Sefer Kli Nechoshes) i would have expected to be more exact. Then again, what are the "absolute proofs" he is refering to?

-- Chacham 17:07 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the mention of 'absolute proofs' is more to show that this was a widly held belief in the 12th century, rather then support for the reasoning held at the time. T-rex 18:15, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Theory

Small comment - would anyone object to changing the word "theory" to "belief" in the opening line? Flat earth does not fit the criteria for theory. KillerChihuahua 01:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes. I think "belief" cannot be said in context and yet reflect an NPOV. -- Chacham 18:37 11 Nov 2005 (UTC)

What do you suggest as a NPOV way to word this? KillerChihuahua 18:42, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

huh? It was certainly a valid theory in the 6th century. There were arguments for it and against it. Just being a disproven theory doesn't make it any less of a theory. Otherwise, strictly speaking, Newtonian gravity has also ceased to be a theory in 1915. dab (ᛏ) 18:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Respectfully I must disagree. Would you mind citing sources for anyone noteable, besides that acknowledged crackpot Cosmas Indicopleustes, believing this was anything like a valid theory? And his (possible) belief that it was did not make it a valid nor an accepted theory even at the time. Have you read Inventing the Flat Earth cited as a source for the article, or The Myth of the Flat Earth, or The Flat Earth Myth (also cited)? I'm deeply concerned someone invented a create a myth that people believed the earth was flat, and this article is treating that as somehow actual history. Frankly I find this whole article is unduly weighted toward perpetuating the myth. I refer you to this site, where can be found the quote: "The myth that Christians in the Middle Ages thought the world was flat was given a massive boost by Andrew Dickson White's weighty tome The Warfare of Science with Theology. This book has become something of a running joke among historians of science and it is dutifully mentioned as a prime example of misinformation in the preface of most modern works on science and religion. The flat Earth is discussed in chapter 2 and one can almost sense White's confusion that hardly any of the sources support his hypothesis that Christians widely believed in it." Now I can find more sources to cite in this vein, but not one source that supports that anyone actually believed this nonsense. KillerChihuahua 19:51, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Etymologiae. Anyway, if it was a crackpot view in the 6th century, it was certainly a valid theory in 1500 BC. Making me push back the date doesn't change my fundamental point. I am fully aware of the uneducated myth that "the Middle Ages thought the Earth was flat", but I think this article does a fine job dispelling it. You just have to read it, of course, including, for example,
During the 19th century, the Romantic conception of a European "Dark Age" gave much more prominence to the Flat Earth model than it ever possessed historically.
It is not a myth, however, that the Bronze Age civilizations, unlike the Middle Ages, did in fact assume the Earth was flat. dab (ᛏ) 20:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I see nothing on Etymologiae which mentions the flat-earth belief.
You have now revised from "It was certainly a valid theory in the 6th century" to "if it was a crackpot view in the 6th century, it was certainly a valid theory in 1500 BC". Neither view is accurate. Theories had not been defined circa 1500 BC. That some, perhaps most, ancients believed the earth was flat is not in question. However, the use of the word "theory" is inaccurate in this context. What do you suggest as an alternative? KillerChihuahua 20:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
naturally, since we don't give the entire content of the Etymologiae on its article. There are links to the text however. But see
"The world is called 'round' after the roundness of a circle, because it is like a wheel",
a statement that has been in this article for months. I do get the impression that you are criticizing our article, without having read beyond the intro. I would suggest that you take the time to read the entire thing now.
well, according to your view, it is, then, inappropriate to talk in modern English about events predating 1500? Maybe this article should be written in Latin, for maximal authenticity? I am happy to inform you that theoria is a word attested in Sophocles, although in another meaning. Its modern meaning dates to Aristotle at the latest [2], who lived still a full millennium before Isidore. Now, quibbles aside, I do not object to the statement that some people 'believed' in a flat Earth, as long as you don't explicitly denied that it was also a "theory". It would probably be best to separate mythological or naive Ancient belief in a Flat Earth from dogmatic medieval belief in a Flat Earth. We can avoid "theory" if you like, although I maintain that something can be a theory even though it is false. dab (ᛏ) 11:06, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I am very sorry if I gave the impression that I was criticising without reading the entire article or without giving it serious consideration. I find the article very well written, and my only suggestion was intended to make the first sentence more accurate. (Perhaps if I'd found something to take issue with further in the article you would not now be accusing me of not reading the whole thing?) It surprised me that the word "theory" was used in the opening statement, as it is inconsistent with the paragraph on Russell's "Inventing the Flat Earth" etc. I concur that modern English is indeed the language to use. In modern English, theory has several meanings, and I am merely saying that in this context the use is that of a scientific theory, which is not accurate. As a minor comment, to speak of using modern English then cite the Greek is inconsistant.
I like your idea of seperating ancient belief from the myth that there was also a scientific theory. It appears to me that distinction exists in the article, I cannot see a way to make the distinction clearer than is already done - did you have a specific idea?
And finally, am I to understand that upon consideration, you have no objection to replacing the word "theory" in the first sentence with "belief"? Which leaves Chacham as the only objectee, and Chacham has not stated why "belief" would be POV. KillerChihuahua 12:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I think that is what the word means implicitly. Obviously noone else thinks so, so it is irrelevant. Chacham 20:00 Nov 13 2005 (UTC)


let's see. The intro at the moment reads,

The flat Earth theory is the idea that Earth is flat, as opposed to the view that the Earth is very nearly spherical (see Spherical Earth).

I agree that this can be significantly improved. How about

The notion of a Flat Earth refers to the idea that the inhabited surface of the Earth is flat, rather than curved (see Spherical Earth).

We could then go on to say that there were various suggestions for actual shapes, including a disc or wheel shape, a cuboid or "altar" shape, and a ziggurat shape (see karshvar). I prefer the neutral "notion" over either "theory" or "belief", because it encompasses all of scientific speculation, mythology and religious dogma. dab (ᛏ) 15:35, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Dab, you are brilliant. Avoids "theory" and "belief". KillerChihuahua 18:13, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Changing it to use the word "notion" is also not NPOV, IMNSHO. But, i am not objecting. The term is probably as good as any. Chacham 20:00 Nov 13 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quote from Basil

The relevant portion of Hex. 9:1, from [3]:

Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the shape of the earth. If it be spherical or cylindrical, if it resemble a disc and is equally rounded in all parts, or if it has the forth of a winnowing basket and is hollow in the middle; all these conjectures have been suggested by cosmographers, each one upsetting that of his predecessor. It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to shapes; he has not said that the earth is a hundred and eighty thousand furlongs in circumference; he has not measured into what extent of air its shadow projects itself whilst the sun revolves around it, nor stated how this shadow, casting itself upon the moon, produces eclipses. He has passed over in silence, as useless, all that is unimportant for us.

In context, it's clear that he says this because he's well aware that Scripture can be taken as contradicting what can be observed, but he's not really interested in reconciling the two. "It is this which those seem to me not to have understood, who, giving themselves up to the distorted meaning of allegory, have undertaken to give a majesty of their own invention to Scripture." That is, to get at what Scripture is trying to express, it's unimportant whether or not its description of the world corresponds with observation, since that description is intended to be allegorical and this allegory is most easily extracted by taking it literally and not by arbitrarily assigning meaning according to an individual exegete's preferences. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your interpretation. Thanks for adding the source.--Eloquence* 00:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
In the interests of transparency, it occurred to me that what I had written was unclear, and the last portion of my above analysis was probably added after Eloquence read and responded to it. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related user template

If anyone is interested, I just created the template bellow. Template:user medieval spherical earth:

This user realizes that educated people from the Middle Ages already thought that the Earth was spherical.

--Leinad ¬ pois não? 04:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] So many links.

Do we really need so many references all the saying the same thing? We have links to about 5 different christian apolegetic groups arguing that the bible does not say the earth is flat. JoshuaZ 07:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

- - - - - - - -

Yesterday (19:42, 2 March 2006) user 24.5.220.74 added this external link: "Biblical arguments for a flat Earth"... . . ...and removed all the links bellow:

Maybe it was a answer to Joshua's comment, but I'm not sure it was the best move. --Leinad ¬ pois não? 20:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well I would have advocated taking out one or two, but that seems a bit extreme. However, I don't know what the criteria should be for keeping some in and not others. Put back in whichever you think are notable enough. JoshuaZ 20:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] misconception?

It's very interesting to learn that the spherical earth was already contemplated in ancient times. However, the lead reads:

The common misconception that people before the age of exploration believed that Earth was flat [..] is even repeated in [..] Thomas Bailey's The American Pageant, where it is stated that "The superstitious sailors [...]

That statement appears to be POV and apparently it has no cited support. Moreover, it gives the impression that Wikipedia confuses sailors and common people of those days with the learned. I look forward to clarifications Harald88 13:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

it is cited: Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, p. 56).
I meant Wikipedia's claim that it is a "misconception" that sailors were afraid that the earth is flat - that's a POV, which can only be stated as fact if nowadays all experts agree that those sailors were not afraid of falling off a possibly flat earth. Harald88 13:44, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
It is a misconception, and SFAIK there is no-one who meets RS who states otherwise. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
That it's a misconception is so far the (probably unverifiable!) opinion of that one historian. I would be surprised if any other historian made such claims, and on what grounds. Did they find written evidence of absence of sailor's fears?! Harald88 18:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
While I don’t have evidence of "absence of fear among sailors", there is evidence in the article suggesting that not only scholars, but also ordinary people, knew that the earth was spherical during the Late Middle Ages.
Remember that it’s much easier to prove that something existed than to "prove" the inexistence of something. How can you find evidence that there are no real Hobbits or Orcs? You can't. But the fact that there’s no evidence of their existence makes people believe that it is a misconception to assert that they do exist or existed.
I think the right question should be: did they find any evidence of presence of sailor's fears? If they didn’t, they shouldn’t be spreading such myths in history textbooks. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 21:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
That point may be brought up indeed, and I don't know the answer; problem here is that Wikipedia now spreads its own myth here. This must be corrected. Harald88 06:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't really understand what your problem is, Harald88. The story used to circulate (in some circles still circulates) that Columbus' sailors were afraid of falling off the edge of the world. That would be very strange if it were true, as the world-view of the society in which those sailors had been brought up did not believe in an edge of the world. Now scholars have researced the origins of the story and discovered who invented it, and what political agenda motivated this. I think that is the point at which it is really not POV to say that this story is a "misconception" - if anything that is a very polite and tolerant way to put it. Something much stronger like "ignorant propaganda" would be fair, but as this is Wiki we will stick with "misconception". --Doric Loon 09:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, in those days the world view of educated people differed from the world view of the unlettered. One may just as well claim a few centuries from now that it's untrue that people in the 20th century were afraid of ghosts. What reason did those sailers have to trust with their life that the earth is a globe? I don't know the political agenda of Thomas Bailey, nor that of James Loewen; what matters is the evidence we have. So far I've seen no evidence => we must treat it for the bullshit that it is if it can't be sustained by solid facts.
Happily, that doesn't mean that that paragraph should be deleted; some subtle rephrasing will suffice. Harald88 21:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand your problem. That the earth is curved in all directions from any point on its surface is not a matter of belief or education to sailors, is it a matter of everyday observation as boats and landmasses disappear and appear on the horizon. It is as obvious to them as the salt in the sea water. It can hardly be imagined that sailors would not be able see that this inevitably leads to the prospect of a spherical earth. Jooler 23:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Harald, contrary to what you seem to believe, the assertion that it is a misconception to think that "before Columbus people believed the earth was flat" is well supported by contemporary scholarship. Today, professional medievalists and historians of science agree this misconception was a 19th century fabrication. You may personally find unlikely the expert's opinion to be true, but, according to the current policies, we should not be doing original research in Wikipedia. . . . Moreover "Lies My Teacher Told Me" seems to be a reliable source. It is described in its wikipedia article as an "awarded" and "unusually well sourced" book that is "cited by, and recommended by, a large number of American History professors". Until now I saw no indication whatsoever that James Loewen was telling "bullshit" when he criticized Washington Irving or Thomas Bailey. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 02:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Leinad, contrary to what you seem to believe, the assertion that sailors in Columbus' time had no fear of falling of the earth is so far *not* collaborated by any evidence - it is independent of the question if the idea that "before Columbus people believed the earth was flat" was a fabrication or not. I don't know how to explain that if we have no evidence that something is black, that this doesn't corroborate the statement that it's white, and it's certainly not for Wikipedia to make such a statement. If indeed Loewen made such deduction then his logic should be ascribed to him, and not to Wikipedia. Harald88 21:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
As well as "Inventing the Flat Earth" which covers the subject of the fabrication of the Flat Earth belief. KillerChihuahua?!? 13:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, the sentence: From a European perspective, Portuguese exploration of Africa and Asia in the 15th century removed any serious doubts corroborates the idea that some sailors could have had serious doubts. Harald88 21:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
granted, there is room for the possibility that one or more of Columbus' sailors had serious doubts. Now before we add "At least one of Columbus' sailors had serious doubts" to the article, we ask you to provide at least one reference where this possibility is explicitly entertained. Otherwise, we could also add "at least one of Columbus' sailors wore ladies' underwear", since it is unlikely that any known contemporary sources deny that possibility. dab (ᛏ) 21:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Funny, but I have no comments to make on erroneous logic, especially immediately after I pointed it out. Anyway, there is nothing to add: the combined statements that they did not have any doubt because people didn't have doubts AND that people had serious doubts tell enough to an intelligent reader about the reliability of this article's information. Harald88 18:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

If there is no evidence that something happened in history, and if that something is historically improbable given all we know about the period of history, and if popular stories that it happened can be shown to have an attestable origin in a much later work of fiction, then the case for the notion being a myth has been made. That is true of Arthur and the round table, it is true of Robin Hood's cocked hat, and it is true of Columbus' sailors' flat earth fears. The burden of evidence lies firmly on the shoulders of anyone who thinks differently to find some shred of evidence that the stories are after all true. So, Harald88, where is your evidence? If significant numbers of people in the 15th century believed that the earth had an edge which a ship could fall off, that idea will certainly be recorded in some document of the period, because we are talking about the Renaissance when vast numbers of texts were written from every known perspective, including the views of the illiterate, who were regularly parodied. If you are right, there must be textual evidence. You find it. --Doric Loon 21:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

You also turn things on their head: I insist on the removal of unsustainable claims that Wikipedia makes; in principle Wikipedia is not supposed to make any claim anyway.
Either we:
A. Claim that nobody had serious doubts around that time (as is now the case), AND back it up with cited evidence AND show on this page that there is consensus about its validity among experts; or
B. Claim that people had serious doubts around that time (as is now the case), AND back it up with cited evidence AND show on this page that there is consensus about its validity among experts; or
C. Abstain from making unsustained claims, and instead follow the standard Wikipedia rule to attribute opinions to the originators of those opinions.
Harald88 18:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


Precisely. And the first of those three is what we have done. Obviously the absence of something in history cannot be demonstrated by cited evidence, we can only point to the lack of evidence to the contrary. But the scholarly consensus is the important thing. Wikipedia does no original research. We only record what scholars are saying. And there is no debate about this issue among serious historians. Only badly outdated textbooks have the flat earth myth. The question which bemuses and puzzles me is why you have a problem with this. Do you disagree with the scholarly consensus? Do you have information to the contrary which you have not yet shared with us? Or are you just irritated that something you long believed has turned out to be wrong? --Doric Loon 19:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I object to the abuse of Wikipedia for replacements of old myths by new myths, that's all. If something isn't known (specualtion about fear is for psychologists, not historians and certainly not encyclopedias) it shouldn't be claimed. Enough of fairytales, please help keep up Wikipedia's standards. It needs to be clear that it's not Wikipedia's crystal ball.
BTW, where does the citation about the sailor's fear originate from? It appears to be citation, and must thus have been proven to be a forgery - by whom? Harald88 20:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
from our article: The common misconception that people before the age of exploration believed that Earth was flat entered the popular imagination after Washington Irving's publication of The 'Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus' in 1828. Still, I agree to suppress any discussion of a "belief" in Columbus' sailors' fears until we have evidence that there even is such a belief. dab (ᛏ) 20:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
It's more a matter of presentation than of content. To be constructive: if indeed no historical source can be found for that claim of Thomas Bailey, then that can be stated as fact. For example, the passage that Dbachman deleted may become (if it doesn't contain OR):
The claim that Christopher Columbus's sailors feared they would fall off the edge of the world has no historical basis. Instead the sailors were understandably uncertain about a voyage into the unknown. Moreover, they had reason to worry that food supplies would run out: Columbus did not provide sufficient supplies to reach China or the East Indies, his original destination; and if America had not existed then his expedition might have died of starvation. Columbus believed the Earth to be much smaller than it is now known to be; about the size of Mars.
Similarly the intro can simply state about Thomas Bailey's passage that it's probably a myth. Harald88 21:10, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
It's already well-established that the claim has no historical basis. The question posed by dab was whether or not it's an actual "belief" (as the original paragraph had it) that needs to be debunked. There's no use discussing it if it doesn't exist. The original citation was from an obsolete edition of a textbook. If it can be verified (especially if it still exists in the current edition) we can safely state that this belief is still extant. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
If my eyes don't fool me, and contrary to Csernica's thinking, nowhere does the article state that it's already well-established that the claim has no historical basis, thus I'll add that. Apart of that, I think you entirely missed the point of Dbachmann, and which I think to have solved - for him to reply of course.Harald88 21:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I think that the size of Mars or the supplies taken on his voyage by Columbus has no pertinence whatsoever to this article. Columbus may be cited as evidence that by 1492, people were prepared to take the sphericity of the earth for granted, enough to try to reach India sailing west. As long as we have no citation for any "sailors' fears" we are in the realm of urban legend. The issue at present is not whether there were any "sailors' fear", it is rather, are there any claims of such fears notable enough to be debunked at all. dab (ᛏ) 21:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, you mean that so far we only have this claim by Bailey... I vaguely remember to have heard that too, so that story seems to be widespread; but I agree that it amounts to OR if we are to establish how widespread that story is. Still, it may be argued to be notable enough because it appears in Bailey's history book which is in turn criticized for it. Harald88 22:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese and others

This article doesn't discuss the views of Chinese and other non-Europeans much at all. AFAIK, the Chinese largely believed the world was spherical from early on, before 0 AD I believe. In fact, I'm not even sure whether the idea the world is flat was ever a popular phenomenon at least in recorded history. Someone who knows more about research on the historical views of non-Europeans should add to this and the world is spherical articles. Nil Einne 15:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This article (in Portuguese) says that Chinese only started to discuss the possibility of an spherical earth in the 17th century. I've read other sources agreeing that, during the Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Chinese believed in a flat earth. . . . But I agree that the article should elaborate on the views of non-Europeans. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 21:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
One of G. E. R. Lloyd's recent books on Chinese and Greek science compares a Chinese measurement with that of Eratosthenes. Where Eratosthenes used the difference in noontime altitude of an assumed very distant Sun to compute the radius of the earth, the Chinese observer used an equivalent measurement to determine the distance of the Sun from an assumed flat earth. (Sorry, I don't have the reference at hand). --SteveMcCluskey 18:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I found the reference and added a description to the discussion of Eratosthenes. --SteveMcCluskey 16:02, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

The article has been stylistically inconsistent on earth vs Earth. The Manual of Style says that the names of planets should be capitalized, but this is a tricky point here since discussions of the shape of the Earth hinge, in part, on the issue of whether the Earth is a planet or not. Since geographic regions are also capitalized, in the interest of consistency I've gone with Earth. --SteveMcCluskey 13:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Antipodes or Antipodeans?

I keep getting jarred by the article's use of the word "antipodes" to describe the people on the opposite side of the earth. Checking the Oxford English Dictionary I find that the meaning "Those who dwell directly opposite to each other on the globe, so that the soles of their feet are as it were planted against each other; esp. those who occupy this position in regard to us." is the original usage, but is now listed as obsolete (the oldest use of that sense recorded in the OED was dated 1837; Andrew Dickson White, the source of much of the Flat Earth evidence, used it as late as 1898)

The dominant meaning of "antipodes" is now "Places on the surfaces [sic] of the earth directly opposite to each other, or the place which is directly opposite to another; esp. the region directly opposite to our own."

With the dominance of the geographical sense of the word "antipodes", the word "antipodeans" emerged in the 19th century to refer to people on the opposite side of the world.

Since most of the discussions in this article use the term as referring to people on the far side of the earth, the present usage can be a source of confusion in an article which deals with geography. I suggest that we bring the article's terminology into line with modern English usage and substitute the term "antipodeans" in place of "antipodes", except when the latter has a clearly geographical sense. --SteveMcCluskey 19:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] flat earth turtle

I cant see any picture depicting the earth as a flat disc on the back of a giant turtle...Ther shoudl be such a picture...

The hard part is the elephants. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I've seen paintings. I actually looked around for images on the Web some time back and didn't have any luck. I would offer to scan something myself, but doubt that anything that I've got would be compatable with Wikipedia's license. I'm sure that there are lots of images out there that are old enough to be free and clear, I just haven't been able to find any on the Web. Perhaps someone with better sources that I have right now could scan something? Heather 23:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article should be scrapped or re-done by a objective writer

This entire article is mostly fundamentalist christian revisionism with a lot of feel good PoV thrown in for good measure. In this regards this articule reads no better than the entry on the inquisistion which has been flagged as pure historical revisionism\PoV as well. This entry fares little better and should be deleted or completely redone as well. Christian apologetics notwithstanding, it is a matter of *fact* that many ancient cultures had flat earth cosmologies, nor is there any dispute that the dark ages church essentially held this view, nor is there any evidence that they were any great hurry to change that official viewpoint, at least until they were absolutely forced to.

So many subjective claims in this entry.

Example Globus cruciger is offered up as 'proof' the dark ages church though the earth was a sphere. Really? I have been unable to find a single authoritive reference that this is definitively how this object was in fact viewed by its creators. Pure speculation.

The point is made (repeatedly) that 'Learned' people in europe 'had little or no doubts' as to the sphericity of the earth -unquote. This one is hard to reconcile for several obvious reasons. Firstly, to have any sort of formal education at all was exceedinly rare during the dark ages....which is one of the reasons we call them ....the dark ages, and number 2, guess who was in charge of what passed for formal education in said period?...the church, what a co-incidence. Christians during the dark ages were not in the business of provideing what we today would refer to as raitional secular style of education, and what would someday come to be called 'science' was definately nowhere near the top of the class list. Education was primarily religous and....well thats pretty much about it. They were in the business of training priests and what few scholars europe could produce while locked in the grip of a repressive brutal theocracy. All that aside, despite much(modern) christian hand-waveing, there does not exsist one singular clear statement to the effect that the earth was view as round by the early church. Not one.

Jeffrey Burton Russell is notable for currently trying to sweep this particular bit of christian dirt under the rug. Russell's motivation can probably be summarized as this: Flat-earth thinking by early Christians is a black mark on Christianity and the Bible. It is an embarrassment and source of much ridicule by non-believers that must be covered up. -Quote. His works referenced in the entry are copied and referenced almost excluseivly on young earth creationist and fundamentalist christian web sites(what a suprise). Hardly supriseing given his background;

Ph.D. from Emory University, a school "founded at Oxford by the Methodist Church. In fact hes spends of lot of time trying to bury christianities dirty laundry with books and lectures papers etc. Witch craft-heresy etc are other favorite topics of his, and his view on many of these and other topics is much like his view on the flat earth 'myth' as he calls it. Most of the excesses of christitanity are exaggerated, overblown, etc etc or simple fabriactions by christian-bashers in his view- This entire entry reads like an excerpt from his book, i say get it cleaned up or delete it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.64.223.203 (talk • contribs) 09:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

nonsense. the article is perfectly fine as it is. But you are welcome to cite specific references to the effect of your claim that "nor is there any dispute that the dark ages church essentially held this view". I think you may be confusing "Flat Earth" with the "geocentricity" debate: it is well known that the church made a fool of itself in that respect, but that doesn't impinge on the sphericity question. dab (ᛏ) 09:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
For an anonymous writer to dismiss Russell, a distinquished medieval historian as a mere apologist for Christianity goes beyond the pale. It may be "a matter of *fact* that many ancient cultures had flat earth cosmologies" but that does not apply to the Early Middle Ages, where numerous scholars quoted ancient writers like Pliny and Macrobius on the sphericity of the Earth. To describe the Early Middle Ages as the "Dark Ages" and a "repressive brutal theocracy" tells us much about this anonymous writer's POV and limited historical awareness. The present article, on the other hand, accurately expresses (and cites) the mainstream opinion of medieval historians. --SteveMcCluskey 12:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


there is nothing wrong this article it is not christian pov ect. it is history. Anyone fealing elsewise is under the many common lay assumptions concerning the subject. As a history major i can verify that i have learned from multiple nonreligous proffessors that the context of this article is truthfull, nonpov and historically accurate. Topic closed - Ishmaelblues


indeed. and while the Roman Catholic Church certainly doesn't do very well in terms of common sense or brotherly love particularly, say, AD 1450 to 1750, it is just as historical a fact that it was also denigrated in ridiculous proportions by the barbarian hordes of Wicca/Feminism/PCness, say AD 1970 to 1990, whose hysteria was only matched by their cluelessness (e.g. The Burning Times). That is to say, although the church did make a fair attempt at being evil, it doesn't automatically follow that anything you read anbout just how evil it was has any basis in reality. dab (ᛏ) 17:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earliest source of Ship on the horizon example?

I've been going along with the common knowledge that the disappearance of a ship over the horizon is in Aristotle; after all its been in Wikipedia since Ed Poor's revision of 22:35, 12 February 2003. Tracing down Dbachmann's request for citations from Aristotle, I couldn't find that example in Aristotle.

Does anyone know of the earltgotiest source for a distant ship being seen hull down on the horizon (or the equivalent, the peak of a tower or mountain first appearing as the observer sails toward it on a ship)? --SteveMcCluskey 01:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

the points observed are obviously true, and it stands to reason that they were observed very early on. But the article currently claimed that they were discussed by Aristotle. We need to find the relevant passage (work, chapter, paragraph) and clearly state what is in Aristotle and what isn't. dab (ᛏ) 08:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Further reading shows that the Ship on the Horizon example is not in Macrobius or Martianus Capella. This increasingly looks like a late medieval demonstration of the Earth's sphericity.--SteveMcCluskey 16:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, something like it is in Ptolemy's Almagest, and a clear statement is in Sacrobosco's Sphere. I've replaced the Aristotle claim with a discussion of Ptolemy. --SteveMcCluskey 00:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thank you, your effort is appreciated. I really like the way the article is shaping up right now. dab (ᛏ) 18:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation of Augustine

[edit] Citation currentlly displayed in this article:

(...) some of the Church Fathers questioned their existence and even the roundness of Earth. Saint Augustine (354-430) wrote:

"Those who affirm [that the antipodes are inhabited] do not claim to possess any actual information; they merely conjecture that, since the Earth is suspended within the concavity of the heavens, and there is as much room on the one side of it as on the other, therefore the part which is beneath cannot be void of human inhabitants. They fail to notice that, even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round or spherical in form, it does not follow that the part of the Earth opposite to us is not completely covered with water, or that any conjectured dry land there should be inhabited by men. For Scripture, which confirms the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, teaches not falsehood; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have set sail from this side and, traversing the immense expanse of ocean, have propagated there a race of human beings descended from that one first man." (De Civitate Dei, 16.9)

Augustine denied that the antipodes were inhabited by men, not the idea of a round Earth. However, the phrase "even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round" (Latin: etiamsi figura conglobata et rotunda mundus esse credatur sive aliqua ratione monstretur) suggests that he was sceptical of the claims of the philosophers that the Earth was round, and perhaps that others were as well.

[edit] Citation displayed in the Antipodes article:

Saint Augustine (354–430) argued against people inhabiting the antipodes:

But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they say that the part which is beneath must also be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled.

Since these people would have to be descended from Adam, they would have had to travel to the other side of the Earth at some point; Augustine continues:

... it is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man.
(Reference: De Civitate Dei, Book XVI, Chapter 9 — Whether We are to Believe in the Antipodes, translated by Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D.; from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College)

[edit] Question:

It's just a wrong impression due to the fact that I'm not a native English speaker, or the two translations above are a little too different from each other? Which is the best quote? To find a really good translation seems important, since the article, based on the citation, stresses that Augustine appears to be skeptical of the idea of a round Earth. For instance, Augustine sounded "less skeptical" to me in the version from the antipodes article. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 01:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW, Augustine makes reference to a round Earth in other texts. In his commentary on the Literal Meaning of Genesis (an earlier text compared to the citation above), he treated the Earth as a globe:
"At the time when it is night with us, the Sun is illuminating with its presence [other parts of the world....] For the whole 24 hours of the Sun’s circuit there is always day in one place and night in another." "Although water still covered all the Earth, there was nothing to prevent the massive watery sphere from day on one side by the presence of light, and on the other side, night by the absence of light." (Augustine, Literal Meaning of Genesis, 30, 33) [4]
--Leinad ¬ »saudações! 02:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image overload

Stylistically, I think we shouldn't let this article get out of hand by putting up repetitive images. We only need one T-O map, whether it's an early one to make a historical point, or a later one chosen for artistic merit is a matter of judgement. Eventually adding additional images (and other material as well) doesn't improve what is really a good article. --SteveMcCluskey 22:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. I think image density is about right now. There are only two T and O maps: one to illustrate the lead section, and another to illustrate the Early Middle Ages. One of August's successful featured articles, New Carissa, uses an identical photograph twice for a similar purpose. My browsing of recent Featured Article logs suggests to me that the consensus is for images of around this number, where copyright concerns allow it. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 04:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Steve, I agree with Hrothulf concerning the number of images... If you are worried about my addition of new text in the article, you'll be glad to know that my changes are almost done for now (latter I'll think about summarizing some of the less critical content, and, of course, other editors can do so as well). --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 16:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
PS.: On the other hand… Thinking about how the article would look with just one picture in each subsection of the Middle Ages section, I can imagine it looking pretty good too. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 17:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should we define article's focus?

The recent addition of a paragraph on Indian views of the spherical earth, and the removal of a summary paragraph on Medieval European views suggests that this article is in danger of drifting off topic.

Should we define its content more clearly. As I see things, there are several topics it dealt with before the recent change.

  • A discussion of the evidence that people in the European Middle Ages believed that the Earth was Flat.
  • Modern Flat Earthers
  • Flat Earth in Literature and Popular Culture

It could conceivably discuss, but doesn't:

  • Those ancient cultures that believed in a flat earth (there is a brief mention of China).

For the moment, I'm going to revert the recent change -- since it deals with the question of a spherical earth. I propose also to add the following sentence to the introduction, but for the moment I'll leave the draft here for comment.

This article deals with the various ancient cosmologies holding that the Earth is flat, with evidence for and against the belief that people in Medieval Europe believed that the Earth was flat, with modern believers in a Flat Earth, and with the use of the idea of a Flat Earth in literature and popular culture.

--SteveMcCluskey 21:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


Hi, Steve. I once said that this article should elaborate on the views of non-Europeans. However, seeing the article currently so well developed and self-contained, I don't think so anymore. Instead, we can create a separate article (say, the "shape of the Earth in history") for explaining in more detail the ancient cultures that believed in a flat/hollow/spherical/eliptical Earth, etc. while letting the current article deal primarily with "the 19th century myth of the medieval flat Earth" and its related issues. According to this idea, our current article should say in the introduction something like:
"This article focus on the views about the shape of the earth during the history of Europe and the modern popular misconceptions in regard to the medieval Christian view of the subject. See shape of the Earth in history for more information on other cultures."
I also think this delimitation of the topic is a clear way to explain why Europe should have its "round earthism" so well detailed here, while many other cultures are not mentioned in regard to that. What do you think? --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 05:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


I have often felt that when visitors to a page keep adding material of a much broader nature than the people who actually worked intensively on the page intended, the best way to defend it is to rename it. If you feel this should focus on Europe only, why not move it to something like European flat earth theories? But I don't think an initial section on "primitive" and very ancient cultures would spoil this piece. It would be a mistake, though, to delete the section on the European middle ages. --Doric Loon 08:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the good comments, Leinad and Doric. Clearly, the article should have the modern historical theory of the Medieval flat earth as a major part of its focus. And perhaps that's the way to go about it, make it clear that were dealing with a modern historical theory. Maybe we should split the article into three articles with a redirect page.
  • Medieval Flat Earth (historical theory)
  • Flat Earth (primitive cosmologies) -- I don't really like the word "primitive"; any better ideas?
  • Modern Flat Earth theories
The fiction and popular culture section could go in either the Modern theories or primitive cosmologies articles. We should decide.
One minor advantage of this division is that it avoids the use "Europe", since many of the advocates of the Medieval "Flat Earth" theory (e.g., Andrew Dickson White, Washington Iriving) were Americans as are many of the modern Flat Earthers. --SteveMcCluskey 18:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I’m focusing too much on this because of my background as a psychologist, but I'm wary of using the words “medieval” and “flat Earth” on the same title because of the persistence of the misconception in today’s popular views. We don’t know how many will simply look at the title and, while assuming it is a confirmation of his idea of widespread medieval flat earthism, will look no further... (remembering that such name will be inserted in other wikipedia articles in the "see also" section, for example). Another concern of mine is to allow the page to show up in Google and other search engines when people use the term “flat earth” in them. I don’t know if it will still happen if Flat Earth becomes only a redirect. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 20:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I've decided to put up a quick definition of the article's scope, incorportating ideas from the discussion. The article seems to have drawn a bit of attention lately and some definition might be helpful. --SteveMcCluskey 00:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm opposed to moving or splitting the article. It is fine as it is, and offtopic additions should just be reverted. dab (𒁳) 09:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review passed

Meets criteria of a good article. It is a) relevent b) well written c) well organized and d) well researched and referenced. Well done to those that contributed. -- Jayron32 02:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Controversy

This is the most pov arguement I have ever seen. You all treat the flat earth theory like its absolutely false!! Grow up, this is wikipedia, were supposed to provide a balanced pov article by gathering sources for BOTH sides, no matter who its from.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Surcer (talk • contribs) 02:42, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't think the NPOV principle means that. Are you suggesting that if one nutter claims that 2+2=5 then Wiki articles on maths are obliged to say "2+2 is believed by mathematicians to make 4, though there is some controversy about this"? There is a fairly widespread myth that people in the Middle Ages believed in a flat earth, but there is an absolutely rock-solid scholarly consensus that the myth is nothing more than an urban legend, started maliciouly by people we know of for motives we know of, and believed only by people who have never checked the facts. This is not a case where there are two sides of an argument to balance. --Doric Loon 09:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Hold on a minute - I've just read your addition to the article; what you are saying is that the world really is flat - or at least that it is a respectable view to say so. In that case what I just said about NPOV is doubly true. I don't suppose anyone will mind you adding more material on modern flat-earthers, but to start it with the words "While a number of scientists have spoken in favor of round earth theory, the flat earth theory has had its supporters as well" is a wonderful example of the absurdity of trying to be even-handed in the face of sheer silliness. --Doric Loon 09:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Doric's read on the NPOV policy is right on. In fact, as Jimbo has said, "If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, then whether it's true or not, whether you can prove it or not, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, except perhaps in some ancilliary article." [5] For a historical article like this one, however, it is reasonable to discuss these modern theorists, since they reflect a historical phenomenon.
I was tidying up the references, and found that Carpenter's One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is not a Globe was published by the author.[6] By the Reliable Sources policy it can only be used as evidence to define Carpenter's beliefs, not as evidence in support of his claims that the earth is flat. --SteveMcCluskey 15:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biblical interpretation paragraph

For what it's worth, I felt that a few words about biblical interpretation were in order, as an explanation of why advocates of flat earth existed in the early church. Maybe the paragraph belongs in another section, but I thought it needed to be mentioned because the flat earth was, after all, a view associated with the Church. -Amatulic 23:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a view associated with the church only in modern times. If you need to see citations of theologians and bible quotes to this affect look above in the talk page. Apparantly it keep getting removed so this article can demonstrate a POV of history which was not entirely accurate. This is a well written article but there is an inherrent POV in allowing this article to blame early Christianity for propegating the flat earth stuff when Early Jews and Most Christian Theologians had demonstrated the Bible to speak of a round Earth. Even the Bible quotes are wrong, using modern English translations to imagine a mideval interpretation? Very POV and historically inaccurate.. --Home Computer 14:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Chrysostom

It's not at all clear to me that St. John Chrysostom ever really advocated for a flat earth. The Ethical Atheist appears to be the source of the statement in the article [7], but his sources do not support the assertion. He relies on a second-hand quotation for some reason from the homilies on Hebrews. The quote can be found in its original context a short way down the page here [8] (see esp. footnote 2991) and it's clear that the pronoun "it" refers to the heavens, not the earth -- but that's evident even from the section the Ethical Atheist quotes. The various instances of the expression "corners of the earth" from Adversus Judaeus are most likely figurative. The rest of the quotations refer to Greek philosophy, which with a few exceptions the Church Fathers naturally believed to be erroneous. Whether this was supposed to include "natural philosophy", which we would now call science, is not at all clear. (Nor were the quotes strictly correct. Classical philosophy was never really forgotten, least of all Plato. It is most natural to read St. John as talking here about currency in intellectual circles, not censorship as such.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commentary removed from article intro

Commentary by IP user "J.Curtis" removed from article lead para for consideration here:

New Addition: The notion of people believing the earth being flat is generally taken out of proportion. Yes, it mayy be true that that was one possibly theory, but the belief as a whole is largely whole. Firstly, we must look at the philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas. In some of his writings we read "...we know this just as we know the earth is round." Secondly, sea-faring men have known for a very long time. As a ship sails away from port and out to the horizon, what is the last thing those from the shore see of that ship before it sails out of view? The top of the mast as it goes over the curve of the earth. Logical-thinking sailors and portmen worked this out centuries ago.

Secondly, "flat earther" was a derogatory name derived from Darwin's time. Darwin's supporters invented a civilization from history, and claimed that they believed the earth was flat (a truly absurd belief, they say), and thusly created an insult for those that did not follow Darwin's theses, likening said unbelievers to the ignorant "flat earthers" of the past. Suffice to say that said "flat earthers" never existed. It is a myth that people ever believed the earth was flat as a univeral belief. The only time it may have been speculated upon was during relaxed philosphical ponderings between philosophers and thinkers around a hearth. Be weary of this when reading the below.

--Moonraker88 19:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zork

I'd never heard of Zork until I read this article: it seems rather complex, but is Quendor actually flat (the map is caled "Quendorglobe"), or do its inhabitants believe it to be flat, or is it just that the whole Zork universe extends from the centre in two dimensions, so unless someone discovers it to be a topologically closed system, it cannot be shown that it is not flat? 193.63.239.165 17:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Medieval Muslim World

When this section was moved from Muslim flat-earth theories (see Talk:Muslim flat-earth theories#merge) into the general article on the Flat Earth, there was little consideration of the historiographic core of the Flat Earth article, i.e., the nineteenth century claims that people in the Middle Ages believed the world was flat. These positions carried with them various attitudes to religion -- Washington Irving's discussion carried an Anglo-Saxon Protestant opposition to Late-Medieval Spanish Catholicism, while Andrew Dickson White's carried a broader secular opposition to Chrisitanity in general.

This raises the question of whether there was a similar argument in the Islamic world; did secularists or adherents of one particular sect accuse others of believing that the world was flat. Some discussion of the relevance of belief in the Flat Earth to Islamic thought seems important. Was there a tension between "science" and "theology" in Islam that reflected itself in discussions of the shape of the Earth?

On a different issue, the claim that Muslims considered the Earth round since they taught "that celestial bodies are round" misses the point, since for Medieval thinkers the Earth was not a celestial body. --SteveMcCluskey 18:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've returned to this issue, since User:Brian Wiseman has restored material about Muslim teachings that the celestial bodies are round. One passage: "the sun and the moon. They float, each in a Falak. Ibn Abbas says: A Falaka like that of a spinning wheel" doesn't refer to the earth, but to the sun and moon being carried in celestial circles or spheres. This is the standard model of Greek and Arabic planetary astronomy. I've removed the two paragraphs on this matter. --SteveMcCluskey 02:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
It was a quote from Ibn Taymiya. Regardless of what Ibn Abbas says, Ibn Taymiya lived in the Medieval era, so his opinion is considered. --Brian Wiseman 17:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The exact text that you have deleted is:
Ibn Taymiya (died 1328 CE), said: "Celestial bodies are round - as it is the statement of astronomers and mathematicians - it is [likewise] the statement of the scholars of the Muslims; as Abul-Hasan ibn al-Manaadi, Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm, Abul-Faraj Ibn Al-Jawzi and others have quoted: that the Muslim scholars are in agreement (that all celestial bodies are round). Indeed Allah has said: And He (i.e., Allah) it is Who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon. They float, each in a Falak. Ibn Abbas says: A Falaka like that of a spinning wheel. The (word) Falak (in the Arabic language) means that which is round." [1]. Many Muslim scholars declared a mutual agreement (Ijma) that celestial bodies are round. Some of them are: Ibn Hazm (d. 1069), Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200), and Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328).
I am not in a position of evaluating what Ibn Taymiya had said, but obviously he himself believed that the earth is not flat. --Brian Wiseman 00:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Brian: You're probably right that Ibn Taymiya believed that the earth was round, as did almost all the heirs of the Greek philosophical and astronomical traditions. My problem with the texts I deleted is that they don't say anything about the shape of the earth, speaking as they do of the celestial bodies. I would welcome texts by medieval Muslim theologians, philosophers, or astronomers dealing explicitly with the shape of the earth. --SteveMcCluskey 00:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I think you are right on this. At least in this quote, it does not clearly say that the earth is round. --Brian Wiseman 18:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
More importantly, I would welcome citations of published discussions by historians of medieval Islam that could provide historical insights into medieval Islamic views on the shape of the Earth. --SteveMcCluskey 17:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Galileo

I've removed the discussion of Galileo and the Flat Earth. Galileo's well-known problems with the Church concerned his advocacy of Copernicus's heliocentric system and had nothing to do with the shape of the earth. The closest thing I can find to such a claim in the source cited is this comparison of the effect of Galileo's discovery of the moons of Jupiter: "We can imagine what it was like for people--probably something like when people learned that the Earth was round, not flat."

For further detail on Galileo see the Wikipedia article (a Featured Article) and the sources cited there. --SteveMcCluskey 22:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted this for the second time and posted a note on User talk:Devmoz. --SteveMcCluskey 17:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Isidore Discrepancy

This article rahter confidently declares that "his other writings make it clear, however, that he considered the Earth to be globular.". This is in flat contradiction with all other articles about the man- in his own article, we have:

"Unfortunately his classical learning failed him when it came to world geography; he misread his sources to say that the earth was flat, inventing the T and O map concept, as it is now known. For several centuries this nearly came to replace the traditional view that the earth was round, as stated for example by Bede in his The Reckoning of Time."

While in the T and O map article, we have:

"'The [inhabitated] mass of solid land is called 'round' after the roundness of a circle, because it is like a wheel [...] Because of this, the Ocean flowing around it is contained in a circular limit, and it is divided in three parts, one part being called Asia, the second Europe, and the third Africa.'"

Going on to say:

"Isidore misinterpreted the word "Orbis" from classical texts to mean "wheel" instead of sphere, and thus the idea of a flat earth persisted, increasingly rarely, into the High Middle Ages with some Latin scholars."

Etc. Either this article here is right and all the other articles on the man require changing (being completely inacurate) or all the other articles are accurate and this one is telling porkies, based on (as far as I can tell) a single citation. I'm no expert, but scholars of this nature do not, on the whole, aggree with each other- I think something needs fixing here. Patch86 16:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

McCready, William D. "Isidore, the Antipodeans, and the Shape of the Earth." Isis. 87.1 (1996) states that there are divided opinions about the subject and: According to the [...] I think, now prevailing opinion, Isidore could not possibly have thought the earth to be flat. If he did, says Wesley Stevens, he stands as "a remarkable exception to the Hellenistic tradition, surviving in both Greek and Latin descriptive literature, which almost uniformly discussed the earth as a globe and the heavens as a sphere." So I would think other articles need updating, at least mentioning the possibility of Isidores spherical earth opinion. → Aethralis 19:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent Contradiction

This article contradicts the information on Spherical Earth, where it claims "The concept of a spherical Earth was espoused by Pythagoras apparently on aesthetic grounds, as he also held all other celestial bodies to be spherical. It replaced widespread belief in a flat Earth"

This article suggests it was a misconception that belief in a flat earth was widespread. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thedreamdied (talk • contribs) 19:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll clarify the point a little by talking about "earlier belief" rather than "widespread belief." We're dealing with a historical process. Prior to the Greek philosophers, the common conception was one of a flat earth. After them, the belief of the educated shifted to a spherical earth. --SteveMcCluskey 17:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Going to make the change, I can't find the passage in your quotation "It replaced widespread belief in a flat Earth". There's no problem and nothing to change. --SteveMcCluskey 17:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, I see the problem was in the article Spherical Earth; I've made the change there. --SteveMcCluskey 17:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Apologies, wasn't trying to cause trouble. Just wondered was all. Thedreamdied 20:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] article is confused about Disc Vs. Sphere

practically every passage in the article is confused about discs as compared to spheres. in many cases historical texts are described as promoting sphericity when in fact the quoted text is either ambiguous (between sphere and disc) or clearly describes a disc.

"Isidore's disc-shaped analogy continued to be used through the Middle Ages by authors clearly favouring a spherical Earth, e.g. the 9th century bishop Rabanus Maurus who compared the habitable part of the northern hemisphere (Aristotle's northern temperate clime) with a wheel, imagined as a slice of the whole sphere."

that passage states that a "disc-shaped analogy" was used by authors who favored a spherical earth. that is incomprehensible: a simple geometric figure like a "disc" can't and doesn't act as an analogy for a sphere. secondly, if Maurus compared the habitable part of the northern hemisphere with a "wheel" which was part of the "sphere", he would have been talking about a disc or a wheel. however, a slice of a sphere wouldn't be habitable, except on the edges. in order to make this supposed "slice" large enough for the edges to encompass the known habitable portion of the globe, it would have to be so thick as to not be a wheel at all, but to be a half or 2/3 sphere. sorry if my description is confusing, but it's the article itself which is confused.

many other passages in the wiki have the same problem. it's especially problematic considering a recurring theme seems to be attributing sphericity to ancient religious authorities via confounded arguments and ambiguous citations.

there's also a case of an ancient religious scholar speaking of the absurdity of "people walking upside down" on the other side of the earth, and the wiki attempts to state that he favored a spherical earth. however, it seems that he was talking about the two sides of a DISC, since if he thought the earth was spherical, he already have to accept the notion of people in northern norway and people at the tip of south africa as having very different (though not opposite) orientations.

for these reasons the wiki is utterly confounded at best, and extremely misleading at worst. 71.232.78.168 20:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources list

I see a couple of general sections into which this article could be vaguely divided as:

  • Flat Earth Theory (about the theory itself, not the history)
  • Western Classicism (covering Ancient Greece and Rome)
  • Non-Western views (covering non-Western early flat earth theories)
  • Middle Ages (who supported it, who didn't)
  • Circumnavigation of the Globe (Columbus, Magellan, circumnavigation of Earth)
  • The "Flat Earth Myth" (about the belief that most people believed that the earth was flat, Irving's book, various science-against-religion prototypes, and the prevalence of this)
  • Flat Earth Society (about the Flat Earth Society)

Of course, with subsections.

Here's a brief compendium of sources (ones from outside the article, for now. )In general, those in the "Myth" section can be used in the "Classicism" and "Middle Ages" section, with caution. Any sources cited in these documents can be used, usually. The "Society" section can be used for another article, Flat Earth Theory.

Important: that the Ancient Hebrews considered the Earth flat or not is more of a feature of the Middle Ages than of the Hebrew's time.

Theory [9] - antipodes [10] (also FES) % % % %
Classicism The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (book) % % % % %
non-Western [11] (Arab) % % % % %
Middle ages [12] [13] [14] [15] % %
Globe Find sources about Columbus, etc.
The myth [16] [17] [18] [19] % %
The society [20] (FAQ) [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
Others [26] (not flat) [27]  ? % % % %
  • A list of references: [28]
  • Also [29]'s reference list might be helpful.

GracenotesT § 21:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Hm, I realize that flat Earth in literature might need to be addressed, so long as it basically refers to a flat Earth, and not a flat world, or is not on Earth clearly influenced by the flat Earth theory. GracenotesT § 21:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Gracenotes. I guess I read the article differently than you do. I see it as adressing the Flat Earth myth from beginning to end. I sometimes think that if that were the title for this article, it could hold its focus more clearly.
I see two problems with your suggested sources.
  • First, almost all the sources you give are web based sources, some of which are reprints of nineteenth century histories.
  • While web-based sources are more convenient, they tend to fall into the area of self-published sources, and so should be treated with caution.
  • Nineteenth century histories should also be treated with caution. Few people would cite a nineteenth-century physics book in a science article, but there is an unfortunate tendancy to cite nineteenth-century history books in history articles.
  • Secondly, the article is already very well documented from modern printed sources.
Perhaps a way around this would be to add some of your items to the External Links section.
--SteveMcCluskey 23:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The list is incomplete, by the way. I would like to work on the article, but can't seem to find the time and mood. Do you think that it would be beneficial to split this article into two separate ones, Flat Earth and Flat Earth myth? GracenotesT § 05:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chrysostom & Cyril

I have added a citation for John Chrysostom's views, and modified the statement of them. The text cited shows that Chrysostom subscribed to the view that the Earth was supported on the waters gathered below the firmament. I edited the statement of his beliefs to remove the stronger statement that he "saw a spherical Earth as contradictory to scripture", since the cited text doesn't support it, in my opinion, and I know of no other writings of his that do.

The previous version of the article contained an unreferenced statement that Cyril "saw Earth as a firmament floating on water". I am very sceptical of this claim for the simple reason that when the word "firmament" appears in the writings of the Church Fathers it invariably refers to the heavens, not the earth. In his History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler J.L.E.Dreyer merely says that Cyril "lays great stress on the necessity of accepting as real the supercelestial waters". As a reference he cites lecture IX of Cyril's Lectures on Catachesis. In paragraph 5 of that work we find the following:

For what fault have they to find with the vast creation of God?-they, who ought to have been struck with amazement on beholding the vaultings of the heavens: they, who ought to have worshipped Him who reared the sky as a dome, who out of the fluid nature of the waters formed the stable substance of the heaven. For God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water [italics appear in the original]. God spake once for all, and it stands fast, and falls not.

I suspect the claim about Cyril's views in the previous version of the article derive from an out-of-context misreading of the text italicised in the above quotation, so I have commented them out. It seems to me that the claim should not be put back into the article until someone can come up with a reliable reference to support it.

David Wilson 19:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] second picture - text wrong

text scould read 'manuscript of Macrobius's commentary on Dream of Scipio,' etc , not 'manuscript of Macrobius's Dream of Scipio,'. Dream of Scipio is a work by Cicero. Aleichem 08:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

"The late development of European vernacular languages also provides some evidence to the contention that the spherical shape of the Earth was common knowledge outside academic circles. At the time, scholarly work was typically written in Latin. Works written in a native dialect or language (such as Italian or German) were generally intended for a wider audience."

This passage seems totally irrelevant to me as to the belief in a physically flat earth, and it doesn't even make sense to me. It should be reworded or removed. Does it mean that info about a spherical earth was published in non-Latin sources? I don't get it. Grandmasterka 13:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to resolve the intent of the scrambled syntax. SteveMcCluskey 23:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lactantius

The previous version of the article provided evidence for Lactantius's views by citing an on-line copy of Chapter III of Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom for the quotation it had given. I have replaced this with a direct citation to an on-line copy of The Divine Institutes itself, the work in which Lactantius actually wrote the quoted text.

But anyway, whoever copied the quotation from White's book into the previous version of the article had omitted several sets of ellipses, thus effectively transforming a series of separate and accurate quotations by White into a single block of text which constituted a complete misquotation of Lactantius. I have now replaced this misquotation with an accurate one, preceded by a brief summary of the text which leads up to it.

I have also deleted a gratuitous reference to the Christian Answers web page about the flat earth myth. The information given on that page is far from accurate, and the ostensible purpose for citing it is already well achieved by the direct citation to Lactantius's own words.

David Wilson 18:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Worldwide View" Template

A {{globalize}} template saying: "The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject." has been posted since 14 Feb. Since the article explicitly says that it is about "views about the shape of the earth during the history of Europe...," a worldwide focus would be inappropriate. Barring convincing arguments to the contrary, I plan to remove the template shortly. --SteveMcCluskey 19:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem is, it shouldn't be just about views during the history of Europe. So we need to add more about things from other parts of the world and then remove that sentence (and rewrite the intro.) There is no reason this page should be just focused on Europe when I'm sure the subject has been written about in many other places. It can be predominantly European if that's where most of the writings are from, but I'd leave the tag up for now. The article even admits it doesn't have a worldwide view... Grandmasterka 23:43, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we could solicit help from various religious Wikiprojects? We could see if there are any Hindu or Buddhist writings about this, for example. It could be of great benefit to this article. Grandmasterka 23:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I had this homework on Earth and/or astronomy

Do you know what led Eratosthenes to the conclusion that Syene was in a direct line between the sun and the center of the earth....? And what were the two findings the world believed about Aristotle's astrology findings? If you could answer these questions by the time you get this you are sooooooooooooooooooo helpful. THANK YOU......!!!!!!!!!! ~**Kaneisha Ellis--4.225.86.178

[edit] Augustine

The quotations cited by the current version of the article as justification for the claim that Augustine "explicitly describes the Earth as a globe in his writings" do not in fact provide any support for it. Here is the first:

"At the time when it is night with us, the Sun is illuminating with its presence [other parts of the world....] For the whole 24 hours of the Sun's circuit there is always day in one place and night in another."

One problem with this is that the latin word "mundus", which has here been translated as "world", more often than not refers to the whole unverse rather than just the earth by itself. Admittedly the word is ambiguous, and in some contexts was used to refer to just the earth alone. But unless one presupposes that Augustine believed the earth to be spherical I see no reason to prefer that reading here. Indeed, the full quotation from J.H.Taylor's translation of De Genesi ad Litteram is:

"At the time when it is night with us, the sun is illuminating with its presence those parts of the world through which it returns from the place of its setting to the place of its rising. For the whole 24 hours of the Sun's circuit there is always day in one place and night in another."

and if this is an accurate rendition of what Augustine meant to say, then "world" here cannot possibly mean "the earth", since it is clear from his next paragraph that Augustine would have regarded the idea that the sun passed through the earth as absurd. Augustine's original latin, though, is perhaps somewhat more ambiguous:

"... eo tempore quo nox apud nos est, eas partes mundi praesentia lucis illustret, per quas sol ab occasu in ortum redit; ac per hoc omnibus viginti quatuor horis non deesse per circuitum gyri totius, alibi diem, alibi noctem",

since "per quas" could possibly be interpreted as meaning "over which" (or even "under which"!) rather than the "through which" of Taylor's translation.

However, even if one interprets the word "mundus" in this text as referring to the earth, I can't see how it shows that Augustine believed it to be spherical, let alone that he was "explicitly" describing it as a globe. While he clearly thought that the sun revolved round the earth during the course of a day, such a belief does not at all imply that he must have believed the the earth to be spherical. Anastasius, for example, was one of the Church Fathers who thought the earth to be flat, but that the sun passed under it during the night. And regardless of what shape Augustine believed the earth to be, he would surely have recognised that there would always be some part of it exposed to the rays of the sun.

The second quotation is:

"Although water still covered all the Earth [sic. this is a misquotation of Taylor's translation, in which the word "earth" is not capitalised], there was nothing to prevent the massive watery sphere from day on one side by the presence of light, and on the other side, night by the absence of light."

In this case there is no ambiguity whatever in what "watery sphere" refers to. The quotation comes from Book I, chapter 12 of De Genesi ad Litteram, where Augustine is discussing the nature of the light created on the first day of creation, before the sun and moon had been created, before the firmament had been created to separate the waters above it from the waters below it, and while the earth was still "without form and void". There is no doubt at all that by "massive watery sphere" (L. "aquosa et globosa moles") Augustine was here referring to the entire universe, as he supposed it to have existed at that time. The expression therefore tells us nothing at all about the shape which Augustine might have believed the earth to have assumed on the third day of creation, when the "waters under the heavens" were "gathered together" and the dry land appeared.

It is also worth noting that "all the earth" (L. "totam terram") is ambiguous in the above quotation, since the latin word "terra", besides referring to the planet on which we live, can also refer to the heaviest of the four Greek elements---the one which they supposed to be the major constituent of solid matter. Either meaining of the word would make sense here, and I can't see any way of knowing for certain which one Augustine intended.

Unless someone can come up with an appropriate quotation in which Augustine does in fact explicitly describe the earth as a sphere, I propose that the current claim that he does so be replaced with something like the following:

The above-quoted passage seems to suggest that Augustine did not consider the arguments and evidence for the sphericity of the earth to be conclusive. However there is clearly nothing in it to indicate that he believed the earth to be flat. Nor has such an indication been found in any of his other writings.

If there are no serious objections, I shall make the change in a few days.

David Wilson 13:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

David:
This is a classic illustration of the danger of citing primary sources, which is one of the major problems with this article. When we engage in discussions of what Augustine means by terra or mundus or aquosa et globosa moles, we're really engaging in original research. What we really need here are citations of recent reliable published secondary sources discussing Augustine's views on the shape of the Earth. SteveMcCluskey 17:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
"This is a classic illustration of the danger of citing primary sources, ..."
Not really. In this case it seems to me to be more an illustration of the dangers of not checking sources to verify that they do in fact support the claims made for them. One does not need any specialised knowledge to read these quotations in context and see that they do not support the claim that Augustine believed the earth to be spherical, let alone that he "explicitly describes the Earth as a globe in his writings".
"When we engage in discussions of what Augustine means by terra or mundus or aquosa et globosa moles, we're really engaging in original research ..."
Yes, but the changes I am proposing to the article do not rely in any way on what the outcome of such "original research" might turn out to be. The quotations do not support the claims made for them regardless of how one resolves the ambiguities in the meanings of "world" or "earth", and in the case of "massive watery sphere" ("aquosa et globosa moles") there is no ambiguity to resolve. Its meaning is perfectly clear from its context. All this can be checked by simply going to a library and reading the relevant sections in Taylor's translation of De Genesi ad Litteram. It requires no specialised knowledge at all (beyond the ability to read and understand plain English) to see that the quotations do not support the claims being made for them. "Original research" is not required, any more than it is in going to a library to check a printed secondary source.
What we really need here are citations of recent reliable published secondary sources discussing Augustine's views on the shape of the Earth.
I doubt if there are any which will come to any firmer conclusions than those contained in the text I have proposed as a replacement for the current unsupported claims made in the article. The fact is that the passage from the City of God, currently quoted in the article, seems to be the only thing Augustine wrote where he gives any real indication of his views on the shape of the earth. That does not provide much material for discussion.
I get the impression from your comment that you are objecting to the change I have proposed. Is that correct? If it is, I really don't see the grounds for your objection.
David Wilson 16:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
"I doubt if there are any [recent reliable published secondary sources] that will come to any firmer conclusions than those contained in the text I have proposed."
It turns out that I was mistaken in my doubts about the existence of such a source. Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, published in 1999, contains an article on Augustine's cosmography which does come to a firm conclusion about his views on the shape of the earth. Surprisingly (to me, at least), the conclusion is that he viewed the earth as a flat disc surrounded by a vast ocean.
The article was written by a Professor Leo C. Ferrari, Professor Emeritus of philosophy at St. Thomas University, who cites another article of his own in the journal Augustinian Studies (vol 27 (1996), 129-177) for the detailed arguments by which he arrived at his conclusions.
In both articles, Ferrari acknowledges that most scholars had previously assumed that Augustine had accepted the common view of his educated contemporaries---namely that the earth was a spherical body situated in the centre of a very much larger spherical universe. He notes, however, in his Augustinian Studies article that practically no previous scholarly analysis of Augustine's picture of the physical universe had ever been carried out. The article reports the details of such an analysis by himself.
It's difficult to determine how widely Ferrari's conclusions have been accepted by other experts on Augustine's work, but they have clearly been sufficiently well received for him to have been asked to write the the article on Augustine's cosmography in the above-mentioned encyclopedia. In view of all this I would now propose to replace my previously suggested modification to the wiki article with something like the following:
Scholars of Augustine's work have traditionally assumed that he would have shared the common view of his educated contemporaries that the earth was spherical. This assumption has recently been challenged, however[1][2]
Notes and references
  1. ^  Cosmography, in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids MI, 1999, p.246
  2. ^  Leo Ferrari, Augustine's Cosmography, Augustinian Studies, 27:2 (1996), 129-177. Ferrari undertook a detailed analysis of Augustine's references to the physical features of the universe and concluded that he viewed the earth as a flat disc surrounded by an immense ocean.
David Wilson 17:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Please note that Ferrari does not say that Augustine thought that Earth was flat. He says (in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia) "essentially flat". This is somewhat ambiguous ... but I admit I haven't read his article in AugStud 27 though. Thanks for interesting references anyway. → Aethralis 21:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
He also says "essentially flat" in the summary and conclusions of the Augustinian Studies paper. I don't think the difference is all that important, but in the interests of accuracy I have inserted the word "essentially" before the word "flat" in the brief summary of Ferrari's paper given in the wiki article. -- David Wilson 12:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Ferrari and the Flat Earth Society

David, I thought your proposed change was a reasonable one until I found the following biographical information in the University of New Brunswick Archives and Special Collections description of the Ferrari manuscripts that they hold:
Outside scholarly pursuits, Ferrari took an active role in the community, sitting on the executive committee of several societies and organizations. For a number of years he served as president of The Flat Earth Society, an organization dedicated to renewing "faith in the veracity of sense experience," which he helped found.
I did some digging into the reception of his article and encyclopedia chapter; I didn't find them in the Arts & Sciences Citation Index or in J-STOR. None of the four reviews of the encyclopedia provide any basis to evaluate Ferrari's Cosmology chapter.
With that background, I'd have to be very cautious about considering his two papers as reliable sources. --SteveMcCluskey 03:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Ferrari's association with the Flat Earth Society of Canada did give me some pause for a day or two. However, after a bit more digging I found this web page and this one, which seem to indicate that the whole thing was nothing more than an elaborate joke. So I don't think this can be cited as grounds for considering Ferrari unreliable.
On the other hand, I wasn't much impressed by his Augustinian Studies paper either. While it's certainly not the work of a crackpot, I nevertheless found it unconvincing. Its main conclusion, though, depends crucially on the interpretation of some passages from fairly obscure works of Augustine's which I haven't yet had time to check. -- David Wilson 12:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flat earth

Before humans were moved to Earth, they lived on a planet that was tidally locked. The far side of the planet was always dark and cold and no-one dared to go there, like it was the edge of the world.. There was a huge disaster on the planet and humans were saved and transported to Earth, but many of them remembered life on their original planet and the stories were passed on from generation to generation. -Lapinmies 11:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] China

Sorry for not mentioning it earlier, but I was the one who recently added about half the info there on China.--PericlesofAthens 23:20, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] remove popular culture

Is that list really helpful, it seems like two or three entries could be made into a paragraph, and the rest just go. It doesn't have a point other than mention anything that has a flat earth imagery, which is quite superfluous (as much as I like Pratchett and Tolkien). FlammingoHey 22:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalisation

This needs to be made consistent. I propose "flat Earth" rather than "Flat Earth" or "flat earth". Any other views? Itsmejudith 10:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not a Good or an Important Article

Unless I am completely confused about the standards, this article clearly doesn't meet the standards of a good article about science. I have marked it for repetition, which it does several times through out. I would have cleaned it up myself, but I don't want to accidentally delete something that someone else considers important. Without a cleanup this article should be downgraded.

Of course, some degree of repetition is to be expected between introductions, but it seems like everything is said twice. The article itself makes a compelling case for not being important to science, since it contends, correctly, that flat earth theory was never current since, from at least the 4th century BC it has been widely known that the earth is round. While interesting, this article should not be a feature related to science. Cleaned up it could be one for history or folklore, though. Lorinhobenson 18:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Lorinhobenson. About the importance of the article, notice that it is the importance to the history of science (and not to science alone) that the tag above is measuring. Much of its importance to the history/historiography of science comes from the modern myth regarding the supposed "medieval flat earthism" and how it was first propagated in the 19th century by the proponents of the conflict thesis. About the repetition, I encourage you to trim the article. If something one feels as important is deleted it can be easily reintroduced latter. --Leinad ∴ -diz aí. 17:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I did some of that cleanup of repetitive material and worked to provide a less-confusing chronological history of Classical views. —Blanchette 20:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Flat_Earth"
Personal tools