>>It's time to put on our thinking caps and
interpret the significance of what we've been
exploring. Unless it explains, history is
trivial. Did you find much this week that
needs to be explained?
What surprised you this week? Did you make
any unexpected discoveries? What was the most
meaningful part of your explorations this
week?
In your exploration of Stonehenge, you encountered
many different explanations of how Stonehenge
was used. Interpretations of Stonehenge have
varied immensely over time, and continue to
be disputed even today. Without written texts
from its makers to guide us, how can we take
steps to ensure that our interpretations are
warranted and not merely subjective speculations?
How might we minimize our inherent human tendencies
toward presentism and rational reconstruction?
Did it surprise you to discover that people
in the Middle Ages knew the Earth was round?
Was their evidence for the spherical Earth
convincing?
Had you thought of those arguments before?
If not, why not?
When you watched the flat Earth video, were
you surprised by the narrator's contention
that students in medieval universities understood
more about observational astronomy than university
students do today? Granted that it was intended
to be provocative, do you think he went too
far? What was the point he was driving at?
Remember George Gamow, the eminent 20th-century
astrophysicist? Just try to count the errors
in this brief opening paragraph from his article
on gravity published in "Scientific American,"
in March 1961. Gamow wrote:
"In the days when civilized men believed that
the world was flat,
they had no reason to think about gravity.
There was 'up' and 'down.'
All material things tended naturally
to move downward, or to fall,
and no one thought to ask why.
The notion of absolute up and down directions
persisted into the Middle Ages,
when it was still invoked
to prove that the Earth
could not be round."
Where does one even begin to clear up the
confusion in cases like this? First of all,
we've seen that ever since Aristotle, people
have had a lot of reasons to think about gravity.
Aristotle's theory of natural place explained
why earthy things naturally move downward.
When Gamow describes Aristotle's theory, he
fails to grasp that this very theory of natural
place requires the Earth to be round. According
to Aristotle, the Earth could not possibly
be any other shape. Aristotle's notions of
up and down directions persisted into the
Middle Ages, along with the understanding
that the Earth must be a globe. The round
shape of the Earth could not be doubted wherever
Aristotle was accepted. So all this leads
us to a puzzle:
Can you explain how an imminent modern scientist
like Gamow could be so wrong about the history
of science?
If the Flat Earth Myth is not medieval belief
in a flat Earth, but rather the mistaken modern
notion that people in the Middle Ages thought
the Earth was flat when they actually knew
the Earth was round, then what are the implications?
Are you puzzled by why the Flat Earth Myth
is so durable?
Are you disturbed by what the Flat Earth Myth
suggests about our understanding of the history
of science?
If so many people get the story of the shape
of the Earth wrong, and if so many people
hold unwarranted beliefs about Stonehenge,
then what else in the history of science might
we be mistaken about?
In his book Inventing the Flat Earth, medieval
historian Jeffrey Burton Russell concluded
with a poignant observation. I can do no better
than to quote his words:
"The search for truth is long and laborious
and easily set aside.
And since the present is transformed
day by day, minute by minute, second by second,
into the past,
while the future is unknown and unknowable,
we are left on the dark sea without stars,
without compass or astrolabe,
more unsure of our position
and our goal than
any of Columbus's sailors.
The terror of meaninglessness,
of falling off the edge of knowledge,
is greater than the imagined fear
of falling off the edge of the earth.
And so we prefer
to believe a familiar error
than to search,
unceasingly, the darkness."
How can we be more like the figure in the
woodcut, and push through the darkness to
see new worlds beyond?
