Flat Earther
Flat Earther is a variously defined term that is used in relation to modern flat Earth societies.
Contents
Definition and usage
The term is often used in a pejorative sense to mean anyone who holds ridiculously antiquated views, even if they disagree with the flat Earth theory, which is commonly considered to be a pseudoscience.
The first use of the term flat-earther recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is in 1934 in Punch magazine: "Without being a bigoted flat-earther, he [sc. Mercator] perceived the nuisance..of fiddling about with globes..in order to discover the South Seas."[1] The term flat-earth-man was recorded in 1908: "Fewer votes than one would have thought possible for any human candidate, were he even a flat-earth-man."[2] And by the Flat-Earth Society in 1905: [3]
Scientific satire
In a satirical piece published 1996, Albert A. Bartlett uses arithmetic to show that sustainable growth on Earth is impossible in a spherical Earth since its resources are necessarily finite. He explains that only a model of a flat Earth, stretching infinitely in the two horizontal dimensions and also in the vertical downward direction, would be able to accommodate the needs of a permanently growing population.
Referring to Julian Simon's book The Ultimate Resource, Bartlett suggests "So, let us think of the 'We’re going to grow the limits!' people as the 'New Flat Earth Society.'"[4] The satiric nature of the piece is also made clear by a comparison to Bartlett's other publications, which mainly advocate the necessity of curbing population growth.[5]
Modern day pejorative usage of the word
Today, derogatory usage of the term "flat Earther" is most commonly affiliated with members and followers of the skeptical movement, who use it to suppress, if not eradicate, belief in alternative views that are at odds with the movement, such as health claims surrounding certain foods, procedures, and alternative medicines; the plausibility and existence of supernatural abilities (e.g. tarot reading) or entities (e.g. poltergeists, angels, gods - including Zeus); the monsters of cryptozoology (e.g. the Loch Ness monster); as well as creationism/intelligent design, dowsing, conspiracy theories, and other claims the movement sees as unlikely to be true on scientific grounds. The term is most commonly applied to believers in highly controversial theories that are especially at odds with the skeptical movement, such as HIV/AIDS denialism, Holocaust revisionism/denialism, Global warming skepticism/denialism,[6] vaccine hesitancy[7] and belief in the existence of controversial aspects of human races,[8] though such believers may not necessarily believe in the existence of a flat Earth.
Usage by Barack Obama
In 2013, Barack Obama, then the President of the United States, compared global warming critics to the Flat Earth Society.[9]
See also
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References
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- ↑ https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/07/the_flat_earth_slur.html
- ↑ https://www.christianvoice.org.uk/index.php/football-doctor-in-flat-earth-slur/
- ↑ https://qr.ae/pvYLgG
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/obama-calls-climate-change-deniers-flat-earth-society/2013/06/25/ba59942e-ddc6-11e2-b797-cbd4cb13f9c6_video.html
