Follow the links above to the blog of historian of science Darin Hayton and you’ll see just how few genuine examples of flat-Earth thinking there were during the middle ages, and how and why the myth has nevertheless become so prevalent.Ĭomparisons made between the stupidity or credulous superstition of medieval people (or Columbus’s doubters and Galileo’s critics) and today’s flat-Earthers fail, then, in several ways. Perhaps a more common, though equally wrong, historical myth is that almost everyone believed that the Earth was flat until the 15th century and that Christopher Columbus (or Copernicus) thought and proved otherwise. But it is nonetheless interesting that both claim to make scientific statements and make use of the name of a hero of science. Needless to say, there is plenty of confusion from both sides about what Galileo did, the nature of his heresy and the (rather good) reasons why astronomers rejected heliocentrism. They may be wrong, but they’re not all stupid, charlatans or simply “anti-science”. They are the ones daring to champion views that go against the consensus. Intriguingly, some flat-Earthers like to draw the comparison the other way: they are like Galileo, not his critics. Admittedly most commenters realise that in Galileo’s time it was known that the Earth was spherical, although their tendency to see debates over heliocentrism as a parallel example of a clash between the forces of reason and darkness is not much more historically sophisticated. In such debates Galileo and history are much used and abused.

How to prove flat earthers wrong