Talk:Flat Earth

Lactantius

The article presently cites Lactantius’s opposition to the habitability of the Antipodes as evidence of his opposition to a spherical earth. That is non sequitur. A better citation needs to be found, one in which he opposes earth’s sphericity. Strebe (talk) 20:37, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Although the quotation given in the body of this article does not include this language, it is present in the text of the citation given: "that the crops and trees grow downwards? that the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? And does any one wonder that hanging gardens are mentioned among the seven wonders of the world, when philosophers make hanging fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains?" TomS TDotO (talk) 22:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

So it's not enough to say there aren't any people in the Antipodes, that the Antipodes is uninhabitable, that it's a stupid idea, you need someone to say "the earth is flat" before you will believe them?? Chris55 (talk) 22:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

If Lactantius was using the argument that the Antipodes were uninhabitable as an argument that the earth were flat, then cite it. Otherwise it’s just an argument that the Antipodes are uninhabitable, which in fact was a major controversy even where the sphericity of the earth was not. As far as I know, Lactantius did argue that the earth is flat, but this passage demonstrates no such thing. Let us find one that does, or else remove it. The controversy of the Antipodes and the flatness of the earth were two distinct matters and must be considered distinctly if these articles are to be credible. The scholarly literature does not treat them as the same matter; we must not either. Strebe (talk) 23:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your difficulty. The quotation I gave above is available online, and the footnote gives the url. Speaking of trees growing downwards at the Antipodes, and rain, snow, and hail falling up, and seas and mountains hanging - all of that sounds to me like a list of things that Lactantius thought were demanded by a spherical earth, but unbelievable, not merely conditions that made the Antipodes uninhabitable. TomS TDotO (talk) 23:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

And I do not understand your difficulty. The article entry assumes that Lactantius argues for a flat earth because he argues against the habitability of the Antipodes. The argument against the habitability of the Antipodes is not necessarily an argument against the sphericity of the earth. Assumptions are unwarranted, both as a logical argument and as Wikipedia policy. I do not accept the assumption. Scholars do not accept the assumption. Plenty of medieval scholars believed in a spherical earth but did not believe the Antipodes could be inhabited. As far as I know from what I have read, Lactantius did in fact argue for a flat earth. Why are we not citing a passage of Lactantius that illustrates directly that he advocated a flat earth? The cited passages argue no such thing. It is non sequitur. Strebe (talk) 00:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Lactantius says that on the other side of the earth, if there is another side to the earth, rain falls up. The problem with rain falling up is not that it makes the land unfit for habitation, but that it's wrong. Rain can't fall up to the land. TomS TDotO (talk) 03:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

You are confusing an argument about gravity to an argument about a flat earth. Just because people understood the earth to be spherical does not mean they understood that gravity pulls toward the center. If Lactantius advocated a flat earth then we are obliged to (a) Give a quotation where he states he is arguing for a flat earth or against a spherical earth; or (b) Cite the scholarly works that show the modern consensus that Lactantius believed the earth to be flat. The quotation in the article is about the habitability of the Antipodes and a confusion about gravity. It does NOT indicate Lactantius’s belief in a flat earth. Strebe (talk) 04:21, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I can't see anywhere in the article where it says, implies or "assumes" that Lactantius argued that the Earth was flat, or that it could not possibly be spherical. The article does cite Lactantius as an example of someone who "directly opposed the round Earth". It seems to me, as it apparently does to TomS TDotO and Chris55 that the passage cited provides a perfectly reasonable justification for that assessment. It is simply not true that Lactantius did no more than argue against the habitability of the antipodes. He also—as TomS TDotO has already indicated—explicitly ridiculed the arguments that had been proposed to support the notion of a spherical Earth, including the idea that objects fall towards the centre of the Earth rather than the "bottom" of the universe. In my opinion, that's quite sufficient justification for classifying him as an "opponent" of the notion of a spherical Earth, which, as far as I can see, is all the article currently does.

One could reasonably argue that the article's classification of Lactantius as an opponent of the idea of a spherical Earth relies on an "interpretation" of a primary source and consequently needs to be supported by a reliable secondary source. But I can cite you any number of good secondary sources which support that "interpretation". Bede and Genesis (p.30) by Calvin Kendall, for example, is one. Others are very easy to find.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 04:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh my god. What is so difficult about this? I AGREE that Lactantius thought the earth is flat. I AGREE that his arguments were tendered in the context of demonstrating that the earth is not spherical. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the evidence in the article for Lactantius’s belief does not demonstrate to the casual reader that Lactantius believed in a flat earth. The most you can deduce from the citation is that Lactantius did not believe the Antipodes could be inhabited and that he was confused about gravity. Where is the statement from Lactantius that THEREFORE the world is flat? The article needs LACTANTIUS’S deduction that THEREFORE the world is flat, not OUR insinuation that he believed it and not quotations that can be interpreted other ways. Strebe (talk) 04:21, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you actually read what I wrote? Can you point to anywhere where I (or the article for that matter) say or imply that Lactantius believed the Earth to be flat? One can oppose the notion that the Earth is spherical without necessarily having any coherent belief about what its shape actually is.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 04:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

That does not change the debate at all. Where is the conclusion from Lactantius that THEREFORE the world is not spherical? Strebe (talk) 04:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

If you read Lactantius III XXIV in any of the online versions you will see that it is a sustained argument, too long to include in the article, as Tom points out. Perhaps his key statement in this regard is "Thus the rotundity of the earth leads, in addition, to the invention of those suspended antipodes." That's why he rejects the premise. Chris55 (talk) 08:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Then that is the quote that belongs in the article, not some random snippet from which a passing reader could draw other conclusions. Something like, “But if the earth also were round, it must necessarily happen that it should present the same appearance to all parts of the heaven; that is, that it should raise aloft mountains, extend plains, and have level seas. And if this were so… there would be no part of the earth uninhabited by men and the other animals. Thus the rotundity of the earth leads, in addition, to the invention of those suspended antipodes. …But I should be able to prove by many arguments that it is impossible for the heaven to be lower than the earth.” Strebe (talk) 09:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy with that. It's also useful mentioning the issue of heaven not necessarily being "above" the earth. Chris55 (talk) 09:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I would be just as happy (happier, in fact) to do without a quotation altogether, and simply replace the current one with a citation to a good secondary source. As far as I can see, there's no single brief quotation you can give that will not allow "a passing reader" to "draw other conclusions" (to quote Strebe above), and I really don't see that the quotations suggested as replacements for the current one will do any better job in that regard. The reference in the first sentence of the current quotation to the concepts described in the preceding paragraph as "these marvellous fictions" is about as close as Lactantius comes to explicitly denying that the Earth is spherical, and this is echoed in its final sentence where he accuses his targets of "defending one vain thing by another". Nevertheless, I don't see the role of such a quotation as being in any way to prove that the assertions made in the article are correct. So if we must have a quotation I don't really care all that much about what it is.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 22:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This seems quite reasonable to me, as long as we retain the link to the text of Lactantius, for those who want to see what he wrote, rather than relying exclusively on interpreters. 23:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC) Sorry, I forgot to add my signature here. TomS TDotO (talk) 00:51, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. I'm very much in favour of citing the primary sources relied upon by any cited secondary source, and of including a link to an online copy whenever one is available.

David Wilson (talk · cont) 00:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I, too, prefer an authoritative secondary source. Experts know how to read the primary sources; lay people do not. And yes, a link to primaries, both in English and Latin, would be the right thing to do. Strebe (talk) 01:12, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Ancient China

While the Ancient China section cites Joseph Needham in the argument that the Chinese believed the world was flat, at least one other article on Wikipedia citing Needham as a source suggests that Shen Kuo believed in 1088 that the world was round ( Dream_Pool_Essays#Astronomy ). Additionally the Wikipedia article on Chinese Astronomy cites more contradictory evidence in the section on eclipses ( Chinese_astronomy#Lunar_and_solar_eclipses ). Furthermore, that article cites foreign influences to Chinese astronomy, such as that from India where the earth was believed to be round from at least the Gupta Dynasty before 500 CE ( http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/asia/7/FC51 ), well before the Tang Dynasty in China (after 618 CE) when Chinese astronomers incorporated Indian Astronomy ( Chinese_astronomy#Indian_astronomy ). Toomuchhiking (talk) 08:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The quotations you cite are interesting in that they show that Shen Kuo understood perfectly well the reason for lunar eclipses. However they don't explicitly infer from that that the earth is a ball, as well as the moon and the sun. A great deal is made of the curved shadow of the earth on the moon, although because the earth's diameter is 3.6 times that of the moon the effect is subtle, and certainly less than the normal phases of the moon, and he doesn't draw attention to that.

It's an odd thing that they worked out independently the idea of a rectangular grid for latitude and longitude in the same way as Marinus and Ptolemy but used it to support the idea that the earth was square. To my mind the only explanation is the compartmentalised nature of Chinese thought: only at one or two periods did they seriously become a sea-faring nation and the knowledge of the sea was not part of their culture, unlike the Greeks to whom the seas were second nature. Chris55 (talk) 09:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You're right. I still struggle with the idea of China's knowledge of the earth lagging 2000 years behind the west, but it sounds like if at times in Chinese history it was known that the world was round, there isn't much (at least English language) evidence floating around to support that. Toomuchhiking (talk) 09:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

asinine!

the fact they even have this page is unbelievable we all know for a fact that its round of course i know at the time they dint but since about 1786 we all know that the world is round!--Zed127 (talk) 17:00, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The Flat Earth idea is notable, and should be included in Wikipedia. And if you had read the article, you would know that even the Greeks knew the Earth was round, well before 1786. Harutsedo2 (talk) 02:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Near East section

I am very new to wikipedia so I will do my best follow community guidelines and explain my issue with this section. While doing some research, I came across this article. Unfortunately, due to the awkward wording:

"The Hebrew Bible carried forward the ancient Middle Eastern cosmology"

the article gives the impression that the writers of these verses of scripture intended to reflect the idea of a "flat earth." However, because of the age of these passages, the poetic nature of some of them, and the simple fact that they are of scripture, the intent, or rather, the interpretation of such becomes a complicated issue. Indeed, theologians, scholars, and common-people alike agree that the majority of the Bible's content can be interpreted in various different ways to support virtually any viewpoint one has. Thus, to ensure that the scope of the article remains of a completely historical nature and not a theological one, I feel it is best to either remove this portion or revise it to only state that the early church used some feel these portions of scripture support the idea to defend their view of a "flat earth." TonyaFL (talk) 18:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

A fair point, and welcome to Wikipedia. Note that “some feel” is “weasel-wording”; we’d want to avoid that and we’d want to cite sources, particularly given the contentious nature of the topic. Please contribute if you have citations to offer. Strebe (talk) 20:04, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Islamic view

In Sura 79 Ayat 30 the Quran states that God shaped the Earth like a sphere, as the term "Dahaha" in the Ayat could bear that meaning. Here is a source http://dawahtips.blogspot.com/2009/03/quran-7930-is-earth-egg-shaped.html could someone add that to the article please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lexmlo (talk • contribs) 18:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you not add that yourself? Except that you'll probably have to find a better reference than that, as sites like blogspot don't usually meet the criteria for WP:SOURCE. Tim PF (talk) 19:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Jagged 85 cleanup

As some of you may be aware, following the RFC/U last year, there is now finally a serious Cleanup underway and it is a Herculean task. I know this article has always been attended to by quite a few attentive and knowledgeable users, so I'd like to ask you whether there are still any issues left from Jagged's editing. Below are all of Jagged 85's edits. Please check them and whatever is problematic or might only appear problematic should be removed immediately:

• Flat Earth (35 edits, 13 major, +2875) (+95)(+37)(-9)(+781)(+8)(+17)(+1)(+2143)(-6)(0)(+705)(+1204)(+10)(0)(+2273)(+207)(0)(+10)(-7)(+2875)(-437)(+2116)(+1385)(+617)(+59)(+2)(+435)(+38)(+2151)(-698)(+76)(-71)(+1458)(-213)(-233) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:15, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Following is a summary of above. Each item is a diff showing the result of several consecutive edits to the article by Jagged 85, in chronological order.

• Flat Earth: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]

Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

View of a spherical Earth - Origin

Cnrwil004 (talk) 13:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)In it is stated on pg 1 that the "notion that the earth is essentially spherical dates back at least to the sixth century B.C., when Anaximander and Thales of Miletus, two of the earliest classical Greek geometers, recorded their belief... Pythagoras in the fifth century B.C., further propounded this idea..." This appears to contradict the statement that "[t]he paradigm of a spherical Earth was developed in Greek astronomy, beginning with Pythagoras (6th century BC)..."