Tuesday, October 10, 2006
"If you've ever been to Kansas, you know the Earth is flat," wrote flat-earther Robert N. Bostom in a letter to the Kentucky Herald Leader. Bostrom's plea that, "If nothing else, we want views about a round Earth treated as the theories that they really are and not established fact," now finds its echo in attacks on the theory of evolution from Kansas to Ohio -- all orchestrated by the intelligent design "think tank," the Discovery Institute.
In 1885, William Carpenter published 100 Proofs the Earth is not a Globe. Reading Carpenter's proofs today, one finds all the wacky characteristics -- including the hoary "It's just a theory" meme -- of creationism and intelligent design already in place more than 120 years ago.
Here's reason No. 93:
We have seen that astronomers - to give us a level surface on which to live - have cut off one-half of the "globe" in a certain picture in their books. [See page 6.] Now, astronomers having done this, one-half of the substance of their "spherical theory" is given up! Since, then, the theory must stand or fall in its entirety, it has really fallen when the half is gone. Nothing remains, then, but a plane Earth, which is, of course, a proof that the Earth is not a globe.
Now RSR is not claiming that either rustic creationists or their super-sophisticated intelligent design theorist cousins believe the earth is flat -- only that they've appropriated the methodology of their flat earth predecessors.
You can read all of Carpenter's 100 proofs -- something well worth the investment of your time -- at Les Lane's website.
