From: Cory Przybyla (recherchetenet@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Feb 04 2003 - 18:19:05 MST
--- Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> That sounds like an attractive idea that upon
> reflection is highly
> defective. During the days when everyone thought
> the Earth was flat Gallileo
> would have been voted down. And, if he persisted I
> suppose he would have
> been censored and possibly even disciplined if he
> persisted further.
Although not of the original discussion, I see this
myth persist in numerous arguments over the falsity of
beliefs throughout history. Widely, it's not accepted
that the majority of people even back as far as
Columbus or through medieval times believed the Earth
was flat.
here's an excerpt of one article on it:
http://www.mercatormag.com/showissue.phtml?i=45
another reference to it, starting at the section "A
Summary of the History of Ideas about Earth's Shape":
http://www.okbu.edu/academics/natsci/hp/keas/papers/flat_overhead/flat_prelab.htm
here's an excerpt from
http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/preface.htm
that goes so far as to even challenge that the church
believed it.
"As an example off the top of my head, Umberto Eco’s
work shows that the Byzantine geographer of the fourth
century, Cosmas Indicopleustes argued that the cosmos
was rectangular, and this man has been presented as
the authority for the Medieval Church thinking for
centuries that the earth was flat. But Eco shows that
this is simply not true. Through all the argument, and
"intricate weaving," the true light has come out that
neither Cosmas nor Lactantius (the other authority
said to be the main thought behind the Church thinking
the earth was flat) was ever used or known until the
English publication in 1897! Not only Ptolemy, but
Eratosthenes, Pythagorus, Parmenides, Eudoxius, Plato,
Euclid, Aristarchus and Archimedes all knew the earth
was round. The only ones who didn’t really believe it
were Leucippius and Democritus.3 Macrobius and even
Martianus Capella were aware the earth was round.4 Yet
intricate and elaborate arguings were presented that
the Church in its superstitious stupidity thought the
earth was flat! This to show, apparently, that the
Church was so very unscientific. All the arguing in
the world won’t demonstrate the earth is flat, nor
that the ancients thought it was."
and so on...lots of google hits, and apparently some
books these authors list if anyone's so inclined to
explore this further.
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