Re: Time to ask yourself....

From: Cory Przybyla (recherchetenet@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Feb 04 2003 - 18:19:05 MST

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    --- 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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