Hi everybody.
My name is
Robert Carter.
I’m a speaker for
Creation Ministries International
out of our US offices right
here in Powder Springs, Georgia.
We’ve come out to
this nature area
because that is the
topic of today’s talk.
Earth.
This is Earth folks.
What is this? How is it made?
What is the nature of reality?
Those are the things we’re going
to get into as we discuss
why some people believe
that the earth is flat.
I recently gave a talk on the subject
at our Creation Superconference.
We liked that so much
I want to share it with you.
There was about
600 people there.
But before we
get into it
I want to explain to you
what the audience was seeing
when they came
into the room.
Flat earthers will say that NASA has no
picture of the earth from outer space.
That is completely
untrue.
We humans have
sent a satellite
into outer space
and we got it between
the sun and the earth
at a place called
a Lagrange point.
It’s a point where the gravity from
the sun and the earth are balanced.
And so just with a little bit of
finagling of little teeny rocket engines
you can keep a satellite
right in one place.
And it has a camera.
And that camera is pointing
directly at the earth.
The camera is between
the earth and the sun.
And every hour it takes a
high-def image of the earth
and sends it
back to us.
You can see clouds moving. You
can see the earth turning.
And the coolest thing
about the video
is that the moon photobombed
the DSCOVR satellite.
So you might
be wondering
why does CMI care about
the flat earth or not?
Well this is a
really big deal.
This is a really
important topic.
It’s influencing
a lot of people.
It influences the way we think
about the nature of reality,
about the
nature of God
about how we
do science.
And since we are a
science organization,
and we like to talk
about science,
this is a really
fascinating idea.
It has it has captured a
lot of people’s attention.
In fact it has trapped
a lot of people
in a specific way of
thinking that is wrong.
So what I hope to do is
unpack this a little bit
and share with you a
couple of really key ideas
that you can use to know that
the earth actually is round
to explain why
people are saying it
where they’re
coming from
and just …
I’m going to fill it up with a lot
of really interesting tidbits
about astronomy,
gravity, and science.
I hope you enjoy it.
How do we know
what we know?
How do you know?
Well obviously you have to use your brain, right?
You have to think.
But,
sometimes learning stuff feels like
you’re drinking from a firehose.
And in the modern
digital world
there’s a firehose
of misinformation.
Everybody has an opinion
about everything.
How do you know
which is right?
That’s a tough
question isn’t it?
Sometimes people speak very confidently
but they’re talking nonsense.
I would put Richard
Dawkins in that camp.
But also within
our community
we see this
happening also.
I mean in a Christian
community,
and specifically people who are
Christians and flat-earthers.
There is a problem
that we all have
and that is we’re not an
expert in everything.
And when someone
speaks authoritatively
Blah blah blah. I
know this stuff.
You’re just a peon.
What do you know!
We don’t often have enough knowledge
to refute what that person’s saying.
And that makes
life difficult.
Politics, religion, science,
that’s really hard stuff.
Hopefully you’re learning
stuff at this conference.
It’s why we’re here,
to help you answer questions
and things like that.
But here’s one of the most
pernicious problems we have.
Humans by nature
self-segregate.
We normally hang around with people
that listen to the same music,
maybe grew up
at the same,
eat the same foods,
have the same sort
of a cultural thing.
It’s uncomfortable to be around people
who are really different than you,
for most people.
Just part of
human nature.
But the problem is
in the modern world
we are separated
algorithmically
because Google and
Facebook and YouTube
aren’t going to feed you
information you don’t like
because then you’ll
leave their website.
So we are pigeon-holed,
categorized,
and fed a bunch of stuff that
drives advertising dollars to them.
It is not surprising
then, that
the flat earth idea was essentially
non-existent before the rise of YouTube.
I’m going to give
you two big ideas.
The first big idea I’m
going to give you
— and we’re going to use this
throughout to test different things —
it’s called the ‘two
world’ fallacy.
That is what
I call it.
Imagine two worlds
— and I developed this
to explain evolution—
Imagine there’s a world of evolution
and the world of creation.
Is it fair to say, like
an evolutionist would,
Every bit of information I find that
supports evolution disproves creation.
Is that fair?
Is it fair for me to say everything I find
that supports creation disproves evolution?
No, because of this …
Joel hinted at this
in his last talk.
We can talk about
natural selection.
Natural selection
is in both sides.
I have no problem with natural
selection whatsoever.
It’s just mathematical.
It’s common sense.
And natural selection
is not evolution.
You see there is a zone of overlap
between any two competing ideas.
I call this non-discriminating
information.
It is information
you cannot use
to make a decision between
the two theories.
If you want to know which one is right
you have to ask the right question.
The question has to be a question that’s either
right or wrong in one side or the other.
Flat earth ideas have no
supporting evidence whatsoever.
Literally zero.
Geocentrism is
harder to refute
because it’s
almost intuitive.
It looks like things are
going around the earth.
It’s almost biblical
because the Bible uses language
that’s kind of equivocal.
And you know you can read it as if
everything goes round the earth.
But in the same way,
if you listen to my
speech throughout the day
you could accuse me of
being a geocentrist.
I talk about sunrise
and sunset.
I’ve got my
Google phone.
You realize this is a geocentric
reference idea right?
It’s telling me how to drive on the
earth as if the earth is not moving.
It’s not telling me make sure you match the
rotational orbit, rotational speed of the earth
or the motion of the solar
system through the heavens
or else you’re
going to fall off.
You know that’s not
part of our model.
We use this geocentric thing
as a shortcut all the time.
Okay.
As I raise up
some points
— I’m going to go back to this …
remember the two circle idea —
Where does this fall
on the spectrum?
And I’m going to try to bring up a
couple of very easy things that
absolutely destroy the
flat earth concept.
And a couple that absolutely destroy the
idea that things go around the earth.
It’s going to take me a while to
get there, but just follow me.
Okay? We’re okay
with this so far?
Here’s another
idea for you.
Defining the word
science is difficult.
What if science
—to use a definition I
might attempt to try—
What if science is just an
interpretive filter of reality.
It’s a way
of thinking.
A way of taking information, categorizing
it to try to make sense of it.
Imagine that reality is
these vertical red lines.
Imagine that your concept of
science is the diagonal lines.
Can you see that
even if you are kind of
wonky in your understanding
you might get some
things right.
That’s evolution.
Evolution absolutely
gets some things right.
And that’s all the evolutions
like to talk about,
and it’s all in the area of
overlap between the two theories.
I could listen to an evolutionist
talk for a long time before I find
something I disagree with them about.
There’s a awful lot of things they say I’m like
“yep yep yep yep sure enough true uh-huh”.
It happens all
the time.
But it doesn’t mean their
entire theory is right.
Starting from that
idea of naturalism
they ran a long way before they
ran into modern technology
which refutes naturalistic
ideas of origins—
the origin of information, the origin of life,
the origin of complexity,
the origin of the human mind.
Evolutionary theory
can’t handle that.
Now,
I’m not claiming I
have a perfect filter,
I would not do that.
That would be hubris.
I’m not going there.
I’m not claiming that I
understand everything correctly.
But can you see that
the closer you get
your filter to reality
the more you’ll be
able to explain?
This is science. This is
how science progresses.
A scientific theory
or idea or hypothesis
that has a very high
explanatory power
is usually assumed
to be correct.
Okay?
The reason why modern science
has rejected geocentrism
is because after
centuries of work
it fell apart.
The reason why science has never supported flat
earth is because there’s nothing to support it.
Now,
I might be making some of
you angry, forgive me.
I don’t like calling people out.
I’m going to have to …
In a couple of slides from now
I’m going to say something
maybe a little more harsh
than I normally do
but it’s for a reason.
You’ll see.
There’s a risk that
any teacher runs.
This verse
troubles me greatly,
sometimes keeps
me awake at night
James 3:1
Not many of you should become
teachers, my brothers,
for you know that we who teach will
be judged with greater strictness.
There is a danger
to being a troll.
A danger of judgment.
I am actually doing this with a
tremendous amount of trepidation.
I’ve been worried about
this talk for a long time.
Not that I don’t know my stuff.
Not that I haven’t studied a lot.
But,
if I’m claiming other
people are trolls
I had better make sure that I’m
being really careful with my words
and really accurately saying this is
what the person teaches and believes.
I do not see any accuracy coming at
me from the flat earth community.
Completely
misunderstanding,
deliberately
maligning my words
and twisting
things around.
But I’m trying to be
fair to the other side.
Okay.
There is some homework that anyone has
to do before they engage in this topic.
I’ve spent too much time on
this, more than I should have.
Jonathan Sarfati and I have done several
very important and very long articles
very detailed with lots and
lots and lots of information.
I cannot possibly
regurgitate all this.
It’s there for you.
In fact I’m going to skip over some
really important parts of this idea
because there’s some other
things I want to talk about.
But it’s all in
these articles.
Why the universe does not
revolve around the earth
That was our first one
one we wrote together.
It was like 32 pages in Word, and
then we added more to it later.
2nd one: Refuting
Absolute Geocentrism
We waited till we got responses back and
then we addressed those specifically.
Another one, and this
is surprising because
all of a sudden
— it was like 2 or 3 summers
ago, I don’t remember exactly —
we had a whole bunch of CMI
speakers all at the same time say
you know I just ran
into a flat earther.
We had never
heard of this!
I mean we kind of heard about
it because we know that
the secularists manufactured this
flat earth myth that never existed.
Columbus, the people in Columbus’s Day,
nobody believed the earth was flat.
It’s an urban myth invented to
try to discredit Christianity.
Go to creation.com and you can
look that up for yourself.
I don’t have time to
deal with it here.
But, all these flat
earthers started popping up
and people were like “Yeah, this person asked me
at a church and they’re like challenging me.”
“What on earth
is this?!”
And so when enough of that happened we realized
something, that there was a trend going on.
So we wrote an article called “A
Flat Earth and Other Nonsense”.
Then I wrote an article that … I actually
used my children to help in an experiment:
“A Direct Test of
the Flat Earth”
Now another article I want
to highly suggest is called
“How to Think, Not
What to Think”
That two-circle illustration
I just showed you?
That was first presented
in that article.
I think that’s a very powerful
test of any idea.
Does it really
cut the mustard?
Does it really split
the difference?
Is it a valid
question?
Those are hard
to come up with.
But you know there’s three types
of scientific experiments.
Type 1, type 2, type 3. Sometimes
people say type A B C.
But type 1 is an experiment where
it actually separates two theories.
Yes and no for both.
Those are hard to find.
The 2nd type of experiment is:
Yeah it disproves this theory,
but it really doesn’t say
anything about this other theory.
That would be the
Michelson-Morley experiment,
where they point an
interferometer in all directions
and they notice that the
light speed didn’t change.
What does that mean?
Either the earth
isn’t moving
or light speed is the
same in all directions.
It disproved the ether but it
didn’t prove the earth was moving.
The 3rd type
of experiment
—and sadly as a scientist,
I will admit to you,
I have done some
of these before—
is a faulty experiment where the conclusions
have nothing to do with what you’re testing.
Scientists do this:
“Whoops, wow, that was
absolutely ridiculous.”
Why did he even
think that?
Because science is a process
and you learn as you go.
Okay? So I’m admitting
that I’m not perfect here
but those three types
of experiments —
we’re going to try
to find type 1.
We’re going to end up
with a lot of type 2.
Almost all the flat earth objections to
the idea that earth is round are type 3.
And yet we’re in the age
of information. Sigh!
I call this Carter’s theorem
of information contamination.
There’s a young man
in this room —
I didn’t ask permission to mention
his name, but Jonathan thank you.
May you have a promising
career in mathematics.
He helped me formulate
that formula.
Basically it’s
this idea:
For every true
postulate that exists,
there will eventually be at least one
YouTube video claiming it is not true.
In mathematical terminology: The
limit, as time approaches infinity,
of the probability
of a false claim
equals 1.
For every false claim you will be able to
find someone who claims to believe it.
The problem is you cannot separate
the true believers from the trolls.
It is not possible online to know if that person
really believes what they’re saying or not.
And that’s one of the hardest
things about this whole thing.
I know that there are trollish
flat-earthers out there,
who are just yanking
people’s chains.
And there are some
people who believe it.
I don’t know what the ratio
is but everywhere I go—
In fact I was at a homeschool
conference in Texas couple weeks ago,
and three lovely women,
nice nice home school moms,
very normal young
middle class, you know,
husbands a professional …
So they come up to me,
and they’re like “ha-ha-ha,
NASA”, as if NASA’s a swear word.
“What?” “Oh yeah!
There’s a …”
“Oh, you know what
they do over at CERN!”
“Yeah? You mean the
big atom collider?”
“Oh yeah, CERN!” As if CERN
was like a swear word,
like it’s part of this gigantic
government conspiracy.
And sure enough, we got into
it and didn’t take very long …
They didn’t say the
earth was flat,
they said, “You know, I don’t know
what the shape of the earth is.”
I’ve not
experienced it.
Oh wait. That’s a
psychological …
there’s a philosophy here
that we’re going to get into.
Another problem is
that someone can float
an idea in 30 seconds
that might take you three
days to figure out.
I’m game.
Here’s two memes.
Now I don’t know who made these. I
just stole these off the internet.
I might have done some
copyright infringement.
It doesn’t say copyright
there so I just took them.
Alright.
Pilots blackout
at 9 Gs.
The earth spins
at 1,000 mph.
You know that’s
true right?
24,000 miles circumference
thereabouts.
24 hours. That’s
about 1,000 mph.
Well if pilots blackout at 9 Gs, how
come we don’t blackout at the equator?
Come on. What’s
the answer?
Yeah, they’re mixing
apples and oranges here.
Pilots can fly at multiple times the
speed of sound and not blackout.
But at a much slower
speed / velocity
if they do a hard turn
they might blackout
because it’s the acceleration
not the velocity. Ah, boom!
Have a look
at this one.
Child on a
merry-go-round,
fearing for his life
at a very slow speed.
But the earth spins
at 1,000 mph.
How come we
don’t fly off?
How come wind doesn’t
rip the earth apart?
How come? How come?
How come?
What’s the answer?
Well how fast would the
merry-go-round have to spin
to produce the same amount of centripetal
acceleration as the spinning earth?
Actually it’s
59.1 seconds.
So yeah, I’m a
nerd, I like math.
I like challenges.
See these sort of things are
the sort of things that like
nerdy scientists, engineers and physics
majors throw at each other in the
break room and they all laugh.
“Ha ha ha! Yeah the kid would fly out! Why
don’t we fly out there! Ha ha ha ha!”
But then some people
actually do it seriously.
So the solution … There’s
a formula right there.
I worked through it.
It turns out that if you
weigh a hundred kilograms
—that’s 220 pounds—
you would weigh 12 ounces less on the
equator than you do at the North Pole.
Woopty-do.
This is true by the way.
We can measure this.
We know that you actually
weigh less at the equator.
There’s two
reasons actually.
1) Because the earth spins the
earth is flattened a little bit.
It’s not a sphere. It’s
an oblate spheroid.
And the equator is farther away from
the center of mass than the poles are.
And you weigh more at the
poles because you’re closer.
But when you factor in
the shape of the earth
it doesn’t account for
all the weight change
because you
are moving.
But it’s only a fraction
of what you weigh.
How fast would the
earth have to spin,
or how fast would a
merry-go-round have to spin?
Well if there was a 3m
meter merry-go-round
—that’s just easy
number mathematically—
— it’s kind of big for
a merry-go-round—
but literally, you’d have to
turn once every 59.1 seconds.
That would be the most boring
playground ride in existence.
In fact you would have to stare
at it to see if it was turning.
You ever stared at a second
hand to see how fast it goes?
Yeah it’s moving. Oh wait.
Yeah it is moving! Yeah yeah.
But it’s not because you
can see it move, usually.
It’s usually because now it’s in different
place than it was just a little bit ago,
and the relative movement you can
notice much easier than looking at it.
This idea that we would
fly away is a lie.
Most people who are promoting
flat earth ideas don’t know that.
But the person who put this
together probably did.
A lot of this information is coming out
of skeptical websites, just for fun.
They’ll float something out
there and see how far it gets.
It may just connect
and go viral.
Will the flat
earthers pick it up?
Will the Christian
flat-earthers pick it up?
Yes.
That is definitely
happening.
But I’m here to tell you
that there is a better way.
There is a place where we can
have the Bible and science.
It’s a happy place.
You have the Bible, history, science all
wrapped up with a nice neat bundle.
It’s not driven
by fear.
It’s not driven by
conspiracy theory.
It’s not driven by
distrust and authority.
It’s actually
driven by trust,
trust in the Creator
who created a world
that we can understand.
We can know that some
things are true.
We can safely assume that
some other things are true.
But we have to learn
where to draw that line.
And that’s often
difficult.
Hence the
creation/evolution issue.
But there are some things we really
don’t have to struggle with.
Here’s my basic
assumption.
The universe behaves in a consistent
logical and discoverable way
because of the
nature of God.
He is consistent.
He is logical.
He is the one in whom there
is no shadow of turning.
He cannot and will not do
anything against his own nature.
Thus when He created
the universe
He would have done so according
to his basic character traits.
The universe is discoverable
and knowable because “God”.
That thought is what drove
the Scientific Revolution.
Modern science was founded by that
kind of a philosophical idea.
It’s actually coming straight
out of Christian philosophy.
So men like
Johann Kepler —
amazing amazing
astronomer!
He discovered the three
laws of planetary motion
that drive how all …
Anytime we want to send something into
outer space we have to account for these.
He says of his work it was like
thinking God’s thoughts after Him.
But it wasn’t
just Kepler.
Almost all of the founders of modern
science were Bible believers.
Now some we might debate a little bit
about what they actually believe
but then they by and large
held a biblical world view.
Have you ever struggled
in science class?
Remember those horrible formulas?
Ugh!
Remember all those
letters in the formulas?
Most of the letters are the
initials of a Christian’s name.
“Oh!”
That’s a cool thought.
Yet I had a flat
earther on Facebook…
I spent a lot of time on Facebook
discussing these things.
This person said
I believe the Father of Lies
could have reverse-engineered
his model so all the math works.
Is that true?
Can Satan build something so sophisticated it
would actually explain the way things work?
Or how about this:
Who gave us the ability
to think, God or Satan?
God did.
Who put in us a desire to explore
the world, God or Satan?
God did.
It’s part of the Dominion mandate.
Go look that up on creation.com.
Who created
this world?
Oh!
Can Satan deceive people into thinking a
completely untrue thing about an obvious reality?
Yeah!
Which is why the Hindus
teach earth was flat.
“Ooh, it’s Eastern philosophy!”
It’s not Christianity.
For 2,000 years no Christian
scholar that I’m aware of
and I’ve looked and Dr Sarfati’s looked
at … even much more than I have …
No Christian scholar of any repute,
maybe with too little minor examples,
has taught that the earth is flat.
It is unanimous in Christian
tradition that the earth is a globe.
Can Satan deceive millions
of people about simple math?
No.
Obvious realities are
obvious realities.
1 + 1 = 2
(Well except for really
high values of one.)
I’m sorry, nerd Joke.
The flat earth idea is
driven by zetetic astronomy.
It’s this idea:
I perceive something to be true
therefore it must be true.
That’s close
to being real.
That’s close but
it’s not right,
because what if you and I
perceive something different.
Let me introduce you to what I
call the ideocentric model.
Now ideo is the Greek word
for pertaining to self.
It’s not idiot. It’s
not stupid model.
It’s the pertaining-to-self
model. Ready?
The universe? I know what the
universe revolves around.
That spot right there.
And you can’t
prove me wrong.
Watch, I can make
the universe spin.
Did you feel it?
It makes me dizzy thinking of how
fast the universe spins around me.
I get in the car. I push
down the accelerator.
I can feel the gravity tendrils
holding me back, resisting
me accelerating the whole
universe behind me.
Prove me wrong.
Do I have a volunteer
that can prove me wrong?
Someone raise their hands.
Anyone.
I won’t embarrass
you too bad.
Yes sir, stand up.
Ready?
You and I are going to turn
around at the same time.
I’m going to spin the universe,
you’re not. Ready? Go!
The universe spun!
Okay!
Sir, did I spin
the universe?
No, I did.
No, I did!
No, I did!
Yeah, well I
have more mass.
What do we do when two different ideas
are sitting there and they conflict?
How do we
rationalize this?
Is one right and one is wrong? Not
in this case—they’re both wrong.
But I don’t know that.
I think the universe
spins around me.
That’s zetetic
astronomy.
We are too small to be able to measure
single-handedly the size of the earth.
You either have to take two
measurements at two different times
or two different measurements
at two different places.
And it might help if you have
another person that you trust
to go someplace else to take
a measurement with you.
The question is too big for
a 5½ to 6 foot tall human.
We need
something more.
We need to be able to add information
from various observers together.
This is why it took them
centuries to figure out
that the sun does not
go around the earth.
It was not easy.
Here’s a basic
flat earth model.
They believe in
different things.
This is not the old ‘sun-goes-underneath-the-
earth-and-gets-hauled-then-pops-up-again’.
That’s, nahhh.
Because everybody knows that the sun has
to rotate above the earth like this.
They say it’s about
3,000 miles up.
Now I can apply
math to that.
Oh yeah.
And they say it’s about
25,000 miles in diameter.
Notice we’re talking
about “miles”?
Ugh! Miles!
We’re scientists. We
talk in kilometers.
But okay, miles. We’ll
go with miles here.
3,000 miles up. 25,000
miles in diameter.
I don’t care what
the numbers are.
Give me any
numbers you like.
I will apply a little
bit of trigonometry
and I will tell you where
the sun is supposed to be
at any time of day.
And I know the
sun never sets
because at sunrise the sun
should be 19° above the horizon.
And at midnight it should be about
that far above the horizon.
And it’s close enough
for me to see.
Ah, but the solution to this is the sun
is not a round ball, it’s a spotlight.
So you can’t see
from the side.
It’s funny that,
you know.
Someone handed me
this flat earth model
and for the life of me I can’t
figure out how to put it together.
Throw away joke.
So one has to
explain then
how the sun, that’s round, even
if it’s a spotlight, can do that.
On the equinoxes exactly
½ of the earth is lit up
and that slice
rotates around.
Or this:
At the June solstice the
entirety of the North Pole,
— for anything within
the Arctic Circle —
is lit up for
24 hours.
The entirety of anything
south of the Antarctic Circle
— which is most
of Antarctica —
um, is …
(Antarctic Circle which
is most of Antarctica)
is in darkness
for 24 hours.
And then six months later
it would look like this,
where all of
Antarctica is lit up
and anything within the
Arctic Circle is dark.
How does a ‘spotlight
sun’ do that?
Mendacious.
Straight lie.
Very popular flat
earth youtuber.
They have modeled
the flat earth
and they take a half a
glass dome, half a sphere
put it on top of the earth and
shine a flashlight onto it
and makes all sorts
of weird patterns.
“Look at that.
See that?”
“The sun can make
these shapes.”
Why is that wrong?
No. Because in the
flat earth idea
their sun is inside the
glass dome, not outside it.
Pah!
Eratosthenes, one of
my scientific heroes …
This is, um … He
died in 194 BC.
He was the head librarian at
the Library of Alexandria.
He calculated the circumference
of the earth very accurately.
Right? 200 BC, right? We already
knew how big the earth was.
What he did was he knew that there was
well up in Aswan, also called Syene,
where the sun hit the
bottom of the well.
We can debate if that actually happened but
you know he said there’s this well there.
And because he was
a head librarian
and they did very detailed
surveys of Egypt every year
and he had
those records
he pretty much knew exactly how far
it was from Alexandria to Aswan.
And he said well if that day
the sun is straight up …
he had a shadow and he
measured on that same day
and said oh it’s
about 7 degrees.
That means I’m
about 7/360ths
of the way around the
earth from this place.
Oh!
Now I’ve just got to multiply
the distance times that ratio
and he calculated the
circumference of the earth.
That’s cool.
Now where does the flat earth
idea of 3,000 miles come from?
I believe, I’m
not sure but
I believe what
they’re doing is
they’re taking
Eratosthenes’ numbers
and flattening
the earth out,
so about 800 km
and about 83°.
You can use calculations
to figure out that
h in this case would
be about 3,000 miles
or 5,000 km.
Let’s use km.
That’s science.
The problem with this
for us here is that
we’re about the same latitude
as Alexandria, Egypt.
People don’t
realize it, but
if you go from Atlanta or here,
Myrtle Beach, and you go east
you don’t hit Europe
you hit Africa.
And this is within maybe 1° or 2, maybe 2°, maybe
a little more than 2°, of Alexandria right here.
So these numbers apply to us and much
of the continental United States.
If we fix this
at 3,000 miles
we’re going to get
— any set of sticks going
across the earth —
you’re going to
get these angles.
Problem is
that angle will change based
on the height of the sun.
Right?
And you can measure it at different
places, and you know what?
You get different answers
at different places.
We know what angles,
what angle it is.
In fact the angle is exactly
equal to the latitude
on a sphere.
This is not debatable.
This is something anyone
can do in their backyard.
We’ve known this
for centuries.
This is science,
and it’s just like one of
those so plain facts that
it’s not even worth
talking about.
But, I’m a nerd,
so I did this.
I calculated the sun angle
for various latitudes
or basically distance
from the equator
— because there’s no really
latitude in a flat earth concept —
and the angle.
So it depends upon how
far away the sun is.
So this is between 1,000 miles
up and 1,000,000 miles up.
The angle
changes, right?
But then I said yeah, but the angle
actually equals the latitude,
so on the top on this one I have
distance, on the bottom I have latitude,
— because they’re exactly
parallel to one another —
and you get this
nice straight line.
Well if you take their 3,000 mile figure
and our measurements of the angle
you know they will be right at some
point north of the Arctic Circle.
You can set this angle to be correct
at some point on the planet
but you’ll be wrong at
every other latitude.
Direct test and a failure
of the flat earth concept.
I’m trying not to say flat earth model.
It’s not a model.
It’s not fair to
use that word.
Now,
there was a point today
in southeast Cuba,
I believe it
was 1:32 pm,
where the sun was exactly
overhead one farmer’s field.
Straight up.
The sun actually followed a line across the earth.
It’s called the tropic.
You’ve all heard of the Tropic of
Cancer in the Tropic of Capricorn?
Those are the places that are the
farthest north and south on the earth
where the sun goes straight overhead.
But there’s a daily tropic, and today’s
tropic went right across Cuba.
Well using a little bit of math
and their flat earth model,
There’s Myrtle
Beach on there.
There’s the tropic of today. There’s the equator.
There’s the North Pole.
Look at all these distances!
And they say 3,000 miles?!
I can calculate where the earth was, where
the sun was supposed to be at solar noon,
in fact, using a
little bit of math
—very simple easy math— at
anytime during the day.
I made a Excel
spreadsheet
where you can type in what your latitude
is and what the Tropic of the day is,
Whoosh!
I can tell you where the earth … where the sun
is supposed to be in the flat earth concept
and in the global
earth reality.
In red is …
Ah, let me explain my machine
that’s been sitting over here.
We were going to do this tomorrow.
It’s going to rain tomorrow.
I’ll have this out
probably Thursday.
It’s going to be cloudy but
there might be enough sun.
This is an
amazing machine.
I didn’t know if it was going
to work or not when I built it.
If you line this up
pointing due north
There’s a hole right here and underneath
there there’s an angle measurement.
So there’s 0, 20, 30,
40, 45, 90 degrees.
This is called
the azimuth.
It’s the angle from
north where the sun is.
Well it also tilts and you
can see a protractor.
There’s a little
line right there.
You can measure what’s
called the elevation.
With those two — with the azimuth and the
elevation — you can know where the sun is.
I had a pinhole here which is projecting
onto this … onto a plus shape right there.
But I call this a
‘Sarfati modification’
because good
Jonathan over there,
he realized that with this
length (this is about 1/3 m)
so a 3-diopter reading glasses
from the dollar store
actually projects a focused
image of the sun right there.
So now we can also measure the relative
size of the sun throughout the day.
And I added a polarized
pair of sunglasses
so no one welded their
retinas with the … ah …
Yeah, you got
the point.
So with this machine I can measure
the azimuth and elevation.
You can see that at noon these two
models are very similar to one another.
Why? Because this experiment … because
Eratosthenes was about our latitude.
But when I
measured it,
even though they were very
similar to one another
my measured points
followed the global earth
not the flat earth.
Now give me any
flat earth model.
I’ll change the
parameters in my thing.
I don’t care how
big this earth is.
I don’t care how
high the sun is.
We can test it.
And that thing just happens to
be accurate enough to do it.
And I can’t believe it.
I’m shocked.
Anyway this will be
out on Thursday.
We’ll have some pieces of paper
where you can go anytime you want.
Take these two
measurements.
Measure in this millimeter scale
what the size of the earth is.
Write it on a piece of paper, drop it in the box,
and we’ll see how close we can get as a group.
Okay?
Oh by the way,
The size of … the sun should
also change size over time.
In the flat earth model the sun gets
closer and farther away, right?
Well in ours, no. It’s always
93,000,000 miles away.
It doesn’t change size
throughout the day.
Careful!
There are memes
out there.
Here’s two examples.
“Oh the sun does get smaller as
it gets towards the horizon”
“because it’s getting closer
to the vanishing point,”
“it’s getting farther
away from us.”
Really? Look at
that upper picture.
Where’s the
sun in there?
I don’t know,
it’s overexposed.
Look at the lower picture.
That’s nonsense!
If you are a flat
earth supporter
I’m putting you
on notice:
If you post anything like this
online you are lying.
Okay?
Why?
Because I can take lousy
pictures like that too.
This is Monday morning, right
outside my hotel room here.
But I was also here
on Sunday morning,
and we had …
I can’t believe it. And I can’t
believe my cell phone can do this.
Now I had to get up at 5:45 in
the morning to do this but …
First, question:
How come before sunrise
those clouds are lit up?
Aha, yeah, because the
earth is actually curved.
Second: There’s
a horizon.
There’s no horizon in
the flat earth concept.
A horizon is a place where the shape of the
earth actually interferes with your view.
Notice,
if the sun is getting smaller
because of perspective
how come the bottom half of the sun has
so much perspective you can’t see it
and the top half
is right there.
Also notice the sun
hasn’t changed size.
Nor will it,
all day long.
In fact it’s easier to
do it with the moon.
The sun is harder because digital
cameras get overexposed.
I can’t believe this!
Awesome!
This is a direct refutation
of the flat earth idea.
You’ll see a lot of flat
earth supporters saying
“The horizon is flat, the horizon
is flat, the horizon is flat.”
“See that? Earth
isn’t curved!”
Well of course the
horizon is flat.
Duh!
You know why the
horizon is flat?
Because the horizon is a
tangential slice of a sphere.
Stand anywhere on earth where
you can see the horizon,
point at the horizon,
turn in a circle.
Oh, it’s flat!
It doesn’t matter
what altitude.
A guy up in outer space, right, he’s on the
international space station floating in the air:
You can go like this.
Go …
It will be flat.
Always.
Now does it curve yes it does.
Um,
Dave how high did
you say you flew?
[Pilot, offscreen]:
About 50,000 feet.
Right.
Air Force pilot:
50,000 feet.
That’s twice as high as a
commercial airliner, thereabouts.
That’s way high.
He said he could
see the curve.
But it doesn’t curve as
much as you think because …
they put into her mind it should
curve, right? It’s round.
Uh uh!
It curves this way.
Oh! So when you look
at that perspective
it separates from the horizontal line
much less than you actually think
because they’ve put this
false idea into your head.
Alright.
There is no horizon
in the flat earth.
Obviously this
is not flat.
The Bible talks about
sunrise and sunset.
From the rising of the sun to its setting
the name of the Lord is to be praised!
That word? It’s the same word they
would use for like get up out of bed.
It’s to rise up.
It doesn’t rise
in a flat earth.
It had to come around.
It only rises really
when it gets overhead.
Now we have this thing
called the ecliptic.
This is the path that
the sun follows.
This thing can measure that.
In fact …
Oh, man!
Two nights ago:
It was amazing!
Right at sunset:
Mercury, the Moon, Venus,
Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.
Phgh!
I don’t think I’ve ever
seen that all my life.
I was always looking at stars. I
don’t think I’ve ever seen that.
And all of those things
follow the ecliptic.
That is
a circle, slightly tilted because
the earth is actually tilted.
Okay.
Here’s one more easy flat
earth model disproof.
Okay I used that word “model” again.
I shouldn’t use that word “model”.
That is, anytime you look
at the sun or the moon
no matter where you are, no matter what angle
you’re looking at it, it’s always a circle.
It can’t be a spotlight because a spotlight
would be oval when it’s over here
and then round when
it’s overhead.
Any slice you take through
it is always circular
which means it
is a sphere.
Unless the universe
is a mirage.
But that’s Eastern
mysticism, not Christianity.
Oh, by the way one of the big
promoters of the flat earth idea
is a yoga instructor, martial arts
instructor, living in Thailand.
He’s American
but he’s full of
Eastern mysticism.
Another big flat earther
is an anti-Christian.
And he said if you believe the
Trinity you’re a heretic.
These two people are the people
that started the whole …
well not really
started, but
they were the biggest popularizers
of the flat earth idea on YouTube.
Today people go “Oh no! I’m not one of …
I don’t believe that! I’m not … no no!”
No, you owe what you’re
saying to these people.
By the way I took my kids
down to the local library.
I had my son put his
finger on Johannesburg
and I took a string
and stretched it
to all these
different cities.
And then I calculated the great
circle route from all these cities.
And I compared them.
And when you compare the flat earth
distance to the great circle route
guess which one
actually …
Well yeah, okay.
That’s on creation.com: “Direct test
of the flat earth model”. Right there.
Okay. What
we’re seeing
is an existential
crisis in philosophy,
a tremendous failure
of critical thinking,
an incredible application
of subjective reasoning,
arbitrary hunting and picking for
things that seem to support the theory
which don’t.
And it seems to be that in
order to believe flat earth
you had to be preconditioned
with a different conspiracy.
Men didn’t walk
on the moon.
9-11
One of the other …
There like testing
grounds and this is just
and this is just
something that comes up.
And you have to reject
biblical principles.
We simply cannot reject 2,000
years of Christian scholarship.
We cannot blithely read
the Bible in English
and assume we understand the subtle
nuances of the underlying languages.
This flat earth idea hits on
multiple important topics
including exegesis,
logical analysis,
biblical perspicuity
biblical inspiration,
textual preservation …
Are those
important issues?
Yeah, they might not
be salvation issues
but they’re really important stopping
points along the way aren’t they?
Really, we’re dealing with the difference
between operational and historical science.
I have no problem with
the way things work.
Observing, testing,
repeating things today —
this is the foundation
of modern science,
called operational
science.
Now evolution is
historical science.
So some … like this. Let
me give you an example.
This man built a
steam-powered rocket.
The dude built a
steam-powered rocket!
And launched himself!
Wow! That’s some
smarts, right?
But he says:
“I don’t believe
in science”
says Hughes whose main sponsor for
the rocket is Research Flat Earth.
“I know about aerodynamics
and fluid dynamics”
“and how things move
through the air”
“about the certain size of
rocket nozzles and thrust”
“but that’s not science
that’s just a formula.”
“There’s no difference science
and science fiction.”
Hmm!
What has he done?
He’s blended historical and
operational science and he says that
since evolution claims to be
science, science is wrong.
That’s not true!
Whisssht!
Everything he listed here
is operational science.
Science works, and
it works well.
For you fans of
King James —
the King James
Bible that is —
there’s a picture of King James.
What’s he holding in his hand?
The globus cruciger — a symbol of Christ’s
authority over the earth, which is a globe.
There’s no time in the Christian era
where people thought the earth was flat.
The problem with
geocentrism, the main one,
is that it is a
descriptive model.
It’s kinematic. You know
that word kinematic.
You’ve been to
the movies.
You’ve been to
the cinema.
The same word — the
moving picture show.
A kinematic model is
just descriptive.
The problem with the Tychonian view that,
you know, the sun goes around the earth
but Venus and Mercury go around the
sun and everything else goes …
The problem with this is
it’s just descriptive.
And, these orbits
are circular.
We now know the orbits
are not circular.
They’re actually ellipses, and one of
the foci of the ellipse is on the sun.
Weird.
Oh yeah.
“We don’t have any pictures of the earth.”
Like this picture of the earth taken from behind Saturn?
“No.” Okay.
Here’s the big … my ‘big deal’
problem with geocentrism,
the idea that the earth
is in the middle.
This is the distance from the
earth of all the planets.
We measure this with high school
algebra and trigonometry.
That red line?
If these things have to go around the earth and
get back to where they started in 24 hours
that red line, anything above it the object
has to move faster than the speed of light
to get back to its starting
point in 24 hours.
We know what happens when
we accelerate things.
Hence, you know,
atom smashers.
The reason that that
thing at CERN is so big?
It’s because when you accelerate a particle to
relativistic speeds it becomes very massive.
You can’t bend its trajectory
with even a giant magnet.
So you’ve got to
make a big ring.
If Neptune weighs as
much as a hydrogen atom
it would take more energy than
the energy in the universe
to make it go in a circle,
in that much time.
In fact, there is no known substance
that could possibly hold Neptune.
There’s no
crystal sphere.
It’s not possible.
Covalent bonds will break.
In fact the forces required
would separate protons in a nucleus
because the strong force wouldn’t
be strong enough to hold them.
It would rip apart protons into quarks.
It would probably disintegrate quarks.
There’s nothing in physics saying
this is even remotely possible.
So what holds it together? Let
me mix some metaphors here.
Perhaps transparent
adamantium.
Sorry!
The modern idea
is geokinetic.
I think this should be ‘pankinetic’ —
everything moves — but geokinetic.
Everything is
free to move
and the solar system follows
Newton’s laws of gravity and motion
with Einstein’s
modifications.
What is this a
picture of?
If you took a picture of the sun
exactly one year apart, every year,
the sun wouldn’t always
be in the same place.
In fact the sun
wobbles more …
The sun is about
that wide.
It wobbles more than
its own radius.
Why?
Because it depends upon where
Jupiter and Saturn are.
Yeah, because gravitationally
they pull the sun.
The sun wobbles as
those things orbit it.
Why does the position of the sun
in the sky have anything to do with
the position of Saturn and Jupiter?
Oh yeah, gravity!
Flat earth has no
concept of this!
Geocentrism has no way to explain this.
And yet this is operational science.
I’m going to claim
that Newton’s three laws of motion
and Einstein’s modifications
give us the best predictive
engine in history.
A simple idea:
All things are attracted
to all other things.
And a simple formula:
That the force of gravity depends upon the two
masses divided by how far apart they are.
There’s couple squared’s in there
but so what it’s easy math, right?
So check this out.
There’s the sun in the
bottom left corner.
We’ve known about Jupiter for a long time.
We’ve known by Saturn for a long time.
Now as these astronomers are plotting
the positions of these planets
they said “Wait
a minute!”
“They don’t … They’re not
in the right place!”
According to gravity theory they should
actually … But no, there’s something wrong!
And they use that
to discover Uranus.
They use the gravitational anomalies of two
seen planets to discover an invisible planet.
And when Uranus had gone less than
¾ of the way around, they said
“After we count for Saturn and
Jupiter, Uranus has got a wobble.”
“Oh!”
So a scientist wrote the
Berlin observatory.
They said, “Hey, point your
telescope right there.”
And Neptune was discovered
that very night.
James Bradley strapped a
telescope to his chimney.
And every night for 20 years he
looked through his telescope.
And he could wiggle the
eyepiece a little bit.
He only … he
measured two stars.
One on each side of the
North Pole, the North Star.
And they’d pass over
his house every night.
And for 20 years he measured them and he
realized he had to wiggle his eyepiece.
Why?
Because we’re moving.
In fact he calculated
the speed of light.
What’s the speed of light?
3x10^8 meters per …
Oh. 2.951729!
Here’s the sun. Here’s the earth.
Six months later there’s the earth.
If you take the angle to
a star six months apart
with a radius of 93,000,000 miles,
or whatever it is in kilometers
that star should move.
If you’re moving that
star should move, right?
Right?
Unless it’s
really far away.
Or unless the earth
doesn’t move.
Well if those stars wiggle
then we should do it,
then the earth
should be moving.
Friedrich Bessel in 1838 made
the first stellar parallax,
a measurement of a
star called 61 Cygni.
He said it was ten
light years away
and it moved
.00009 degrees.
It’s really far away.
But here’s a map
of multiple stars
and where they are in the
heavens, how far away they are.
And we know that
because of geometry.
But they’re moving with
respect to themselves
meaning there’s no crystal sphere
in which they’re embedded.
By the way the European Space
Agency has launched a satellite
that’s going to measure tens or hundreds
of thousands of parallax measurements
of nearby stars.
We know how far away they are and
they move in a predictable manner.
Absolute geocentrism cannot
explain this in any practical way
and flat earth is
not even close.
There are comets that go beyond
Neptune and come close to Earth.
If these
things orbit …
if the whole universe is
going around the earth
that comet has to get beyond light speed and
come sublight speed to get close to Earth.
It would need
a warp drive.
But in the
end, so what?
The flat earth concept, even
geocentrism, do nothing.
The earth system could still
be millions of years old.
It could still allow
time for evolution.
It does not preclude
other worlds.
And the concept of a
flat earth with a dome
with God sitting on his throne,
the earth is his footstool.
Maybe his name
is Elohim.
Maybe he goes “Hey God Joshua next door,
hey look at my world I’m covered 70% in water.”
“Oh yeah? Well I got
deserts in my world.”
And Joe over here says “Oh no! I’ve got a
whole bunch of purple people in my world!”
Why not?
The earth is a tiny little
place in the flat earth model.
It’s a little
petty god.
Almost like a
Mormon god.
A Mormon god who is not in
control of the universe.
Who’s trapped in
the universe.
Who is only the god
of a little planet.
But you might become a god
with your own planet later.
Your own little
petty god.
No! Our God created this universe
he’s outside the universe.
The universe exists
because of him.
He is all-powerful
and all sufficient
and He didn’t create this tiny
little 25,000 mile diameter dome.
That is not the
biblical thought.
By the way I skipped over the 200 verses
that supposedly prove the flat earth.
Go to our Flat
Earth article.
Jonathan actually read
through all of them
and then we categorize them into which
logical fallacy they’re applying.
Most of them have nothing
do with flat earth.
Some of them actually have
nothing to do with anything.
And some of them
are just lying.
You check it
out yourself.
I’ll leave you
with that.
Now, how does one
become a flat earther?
1. Cult-like
brainwashing.
You watch the flat earth
videos and you know
the guys
they just talk like there’s
something just bursting out of them
and it’s powerful and
they’ll talk for 30 minutes
before they say anything.
I’m not kidding you.
30 m, 20 m, hour maybe before they say anything
you can actually get your brain around and test
but by that point your brain is mush,
because no one can think that long.
And almost all flat earth
videos are like 3 hours long.
You get into this you’re going
to go down the rabbit hole.
I do not recommend it.
Now I’m not talking
from on high but
I don’t recommend you actually
tangle with these people
because everything they say
will take you hours to answer
and down down
down you go.
There’s too much lying
misinformation.
If you’re tangling with a flat
earther or someone like that
understand they think
they’re special.
They think God has revealed something
to them that you don’t have.
And incautious exploration
has trapped many people.
Teenagers, young people, people without
any formal scientific training.
Not that formal scientific training means
anything but we do learn how to think.
If you know someone in
this position, love them.
Don’t necessarily
engage them.
That would just
antagonize them.
Love them.
Support them.
Give them some thought bombs
every once in a while.
Show them that you are
stable and rational.
I have not yet seen
someone come out of this
because it is
in fact a cult.
Now there’s no primary leader and
they’re not stealing everybody’s money.
And there’s not necessarily
any sexual deviancy.
Put those parts of
normal cults aside.
And they have the same strategy
as the misinformation …
You have to spend so much time learning the
stuff you kind of forget the rest of the world.
Checkout “Spacecraft Earth” by a pioneer
in the space industry — fantastic book.
Checkout Spike’s
three DVDs.
Look at “Alien
Intrusion”.
Look at “Starlight, Time
and the New Physics”.
Check out “Light-Years?
No Problem!”
Check out “The Stargazers
Guide to the Night Sky”.
I read this at a homeschool conference.
This is my kind of astronomy. Cool stuff.
And you might look at “Our
Amazing Created Solar System”.
Thank you.
Go to
CREATION.com/store
Links to the resources are also in
this video’s description below!
