Late last night I finished reading an interesting book by Christine Garwood entitled Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea. In it Garwood presents the reader with a detailed exposition on Flat Earthers, individuals who, since antiquity, have insisted that the planet Earth is not round (globular). Instead, Flat Earthers have campaigned that the planet is flat and shaped like a disc. Because the earth is flat, the North Pole is at the center of the disc and the South Pole is actually a ring of ice beyond which none can travel.
In 19th and 20th century iterations, these campaigns have been closely aligned with fundamentalist Christianity and the quest to disprove science while simultaneously proving that Bible-based claims about the natural world are accurate. With the emergence in the late 20th century of a new concept -- known as creationism, Garwood's study is of particular interest because, as she puts it, "flat-earth believers might be classed as extreme creationists" (34). Indeed, there appears to be a correlation between belief in a flat earth and disbelief in Darwin's theory of evolution.
That correlation began with the ideas of George McCready Price, a Seventh Day Adventist who was also a geologist. A quick Google search shows that many of Price's works are readily available through retail sites such as Amazon.com. Apparently his ideas were strong enough to influence others when they initially surfaced in the middle part of the 20th century, and in 1961 a book entitled The Genesis Flood was written by John C. Whitcomb, Jr. and Henry M. Morris based on some of Price's concepts. According to Garwood, Whitcomb and Morris' "book revived Christian belief in a literal reading of the . . . special creation laid out in Genesis (1:1-2:3), emphasized a young earth (of no more than 10,000 years in age) and explained the palaeontological record with reference to a fossil-producing Flood" (356). By 1972 at least three separate creationist organizations were formed to promote and disseminate creationism to the public.
Garwood contends that while creationists and Flat Earthers "recoil" at association with each other, there are "some general similarities between the two campaigns" (356). Most notably, both groups agree on "the authority of the scriptures as a scientific guide to the natural world . . . and the impossibility of reconciling orthodox science with the Bible" (356). The latter is a posture Garwood identifies as "warfare mode" (65) which has the unfortunate consequence of polarizing the debate into two distinct camps. Either one must believe in science and scientific methodology OR one must believe in the Bible as the sole source of knowledge about the natural world. There is no middle ground between science and religion in this colossal polemic struggle.
In addition to Garwood's treatment of creationists and Flat Earthers, there is a third term which is worth mentioning. That term is zetetic, which comes from the Greek word zetein and means to seek or inquire. Apparently the word and its associations have been around for about 2,500 years, but in the mid-19th century one Flat Earther in particular "employ[ed the term] as the foundation for an attack on orthodox science and the idea that the earth was a globe" (40). As a result, zetetics became a potent form of challenge and subversion against science and the scientific method in the Flat Earth movement.
Ironically, claims Garwood, the ideas embraced by creationists and zetetics also bear similarities even if their adherents won't admit it. "At a base level, . . . creationists [and zetetics before them] assert that if conventional science is true the Bible must be false; that one cannot believe the Bible and the theory of evolution [or] the theory that the earth is a globe; that the Genesis account of creation [and] the earth is flat is what the Bible teaches; that evolution [and] a globular earth is only a theory; that evolution [and] a globular earth is anti-God; that evolution [and] a globular earth is a satanic device; that children are being corrupted by the theory of evolution [and] the theory of a globular earth, and that the theory of evolution [and] the theory of a globular earth is a source of social evil, [and ultimately] the cause of imminent chaos and collapse" (357).
While Garwood attempts to point out the distinct differences between the three camps --- creationists, zetetics, and Flat Earthers --- she also knits their similarities together to show the origins and relationships in a compelling fashion. Furthermore, because this is an exposition on the fine line between science and faith, the reader is guided into the liminal space between astronomy and quackery on the one hand, and religion and lunacy on the other. Perhaps it's also worth noting here that there is a Flat Earth Society webpage being run by individuals out of Alaska even as we speak. Clearly the idea has about the same shelf life as a Twinkie. Joking aside, I wonder if Sarah Palin is a member.
Ultimately what each one of us have to decide is "how [to] receive and reject knowledge and how [to] accept what is truth" (360). While this book is fairly easy to read, some of its concepts are not. As a result, I found my mind muddling it over even when I wasn't reading. As whacky as the idea of a flat earth may be to our 21st century reality, the only way to really understand it seems to be to get inside the mindset that claims the earth is flat, the planet does not move (indeed, that it isn't even a planet) and that the moon landing was a hoax. However in that direction, some famous personage of the past said, lies madness. Therefore I will stick to what I was taught: the earth is round, it revolves around the sun and the moon landing nearly 40 years ago today was a real event.
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