Shadow on Clouds

Before sunrise or after sunset, the Sun is below the horizon and not directly visible. But the sky and clouds above are illuminated because they are high above, and sunlight can reach them.

If there’s a mountain between the Sun and the clouds, it can cast a shadow on the clouds. The flat-Earth model assumes the Sun is always high above, and thus, this phenomenon cannot possibly occur in a flat-Earth.

The fact that a mountain can cast its shadow on clouds far above it is evidence that the Earth is spherical.

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The December Solstice, When the Sun Illuminates an Impossible Area in the Flat-Earth Model

The December solstice occurs between the 20th and 22nd in December, which is when the Sun reaches its most southerly excursion. Around this time, the northern hemisphere experiences winter, and conversely, the southern hemisphere experiences summer.

If we try to plot the areas that are having daytime and nighttime on the so-called ‘flat-Earth map,’ the Sun would appear to illuminate an impossible area, similar to Batman’s bat-signal. This fact tells us that the ‘flat-Earth map’ does not conform to reality.

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Grid Corrections — How the Spherical Figure of the Earth Affects Land Partitioning

Some countries decided to partition their territories into a rectangular or square grid. But the Earth is spherical, and it is not possible to divide a spherical surface into a perfect rectangular grid while maintaining the perfect angles, distances, and areas.

To solve this problem, land surveyors implemented grid corrections. Every certain distance, parts of the grid are shifted away from each other. Therefore, an equal area in each division is maintained as much as possible by giving up an entirely lined up grid.

If the Earth is flat, it is not necessary to have this compromise. It would be possible to divide the land into a perfect square grid system.

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“Earth is a Sphere” Semantic Games

The Earth is spherical, but not perfectly spherical. Its diameter is longer across the equator than between both poles. The shape is called ‘oblate spheroid’. The difference between both diameters is tiny, only about 0.33%. It is perfectly fine to say that the Earth is round or spherical.

Some flat-Earthers take this issue very seriously. They think if that’s the case, then we can’t say the Earth is spherical. They are wrong. If we can’t say the Earth is a sphere, then we can’t describe every other spherical object as spherical, because nothing is perfectly spherical.

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The Fallacy of Statement of Conversion

The fallacy of statement of conversion is committed when someone is taking a statement of conversion as valid without actually hearing a reason for the conversion.

Flat-Earthers often tell others that they used to believe the Earth is a globe, but now they ‘know better’ and believe in a flat-Earth. All this only tells us they changed their mind. Accepting this as proof of a flat-Earth would be committing the fallacy of statement of conversion.

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Apollo Mission Profile

The Apollo missions really happened and humans have actually visited the Moon. If someone fell victim to the flat-Earth conspiracy, then it would imply that they also fell victim to the Apollo moon landing conspiracy. But they are wrong. 

Someone usually fell for the moon landing conspiracy theory because of emotional appeals and confirmation bias, but also because of their ignorance of the Apollo mission profile itself.

The following is a very brief description of the Apollo mission profile, numbered according to the numbers in the illustration.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson and His ‘Pear-Shaped’ Analogy

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In a talk show, Neil deGrasse Tyson explained the figure of the Earth. He told the audience that the Earth is practically round, but it is a little farther from the center near the equator compared to the poles. And that in the southern parts, it is a bit farther from the center than in its northern regions. To illustrate the fact, Neil used the analogy ‘pear-shaped.’

Flat-Earthers really love to ridicule the ‘pear-shaped’ analogy. But they are mistaken. If they watch the entire unaltered video, they will find Neil explained the fact very clearly.

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The Cities of Punta Arenas, Dunedin, and Murmansk During the December Solstice

During the December solstice, on December 21, the Sun reaches its southernmost point. During this time, the northern parts of the Earth are experiencing the peak of winter, and conversely, the southern regions are experiencing the height of summer.

Most flat-Earth denominations picture the sun shining like a spotlight, and they can’t explain what is happening in the southern parts of the Earth during the December solstice.

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The Reason We Cannot See Earth’s Curvature When Standing on a Beach

We can’t directly observe and subjectively perceive the curvature of the Earth from a position close to the surface. And this matches the expectations in the spherical Earth model.

Flat-Earthers often take the fact we can see the curvature by standing on a beach as ‘evidence’ the curve doesn’t exist. They are, once again, wrong.

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Fisheye Lenses Can Make Curved Lines Appear Flat

A fisheye lens distorts images. It results in images having barrel distortions. In a fisheye lens, a straight line can appear curved. But some flat-Earthers don’t realize that the opposite is also true, a fisheye lens can easily make a curved line look straight.

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Curvature Calculators and Atmospheric Refraction

Atmospheric refraction causes a distant object to appear higher than its actual position. As a result, the object can be physically behind Earth’s curvature but is still visible because the light coming from it is refracted by the atmosphere.

There are many curvature calculators and simulation tools that don’t account for refraction. They would give us the correct results indicating the object’s physical positions but fail to show us the correct apparent position of the object when visually observed.

Flat-Earthers are often too happy with the calculator showing them the results they want to see and fail to see the reason for the discrepancy.

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The Lack of Stars in the Pictures of Space

In many pictures taken from space, stars are not visible, even with a dark sky. The reason is that stars are very dim compared to the primary object in the pictures. If the camera is set to take a correctly exposed image of an object that is much brighter than the stars, then the stars would not be visible in the picture. The same thing would happen everywhere, in space, or on the surface of the Earth.

Flat-Earthers often take the lack of stars as fakery. They are wrong. This is simply a limitation of any camera.

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Ice Shelf: Not the Giant Ice Wall Surrounding the Earth

An ice shelf is a thick floating platform of ice. Ice shelves are found not only in Antarctica but also in Greenland, Canada, and Russia in the north polar region.

Flat-Earthers often show off pictures of an ice shelf as ‘proof’ of the existence of the mythical giant ice wall surrounding the Earth. They are wrong.

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Sextant: Determining Latitude from The Positions of the Stars

Long before GPS, navigators used a device called ‘sextant’ to determine the angle of a celestial body. From that data, the latitude of their current location can be determined.

This can only happen if the Earth is spherical.

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The Long Chains of Ad-Hoc Hypotheses to Defend the Flat-Earth Model

The flat-Earth model survives not because the Earth is flat, but because every time a problem is found, its proponents would quickly invent an ad-hoc hypothesis to explain the problem away. In turn, if they discover another problem in one of these ad-hoc hypotheses, they would be happy to invent another ad-hoc hypothesis to explain the problem away. And so on, and so forth.

These ad-hoc hypotheses are there to save their core belief —that the Earth is flat— from being falsified.

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The Earth is Spherical and The Mississippi River Never Flows Uphill Anywhere

The Mississippi River never flows uphill, or in other words, ascend to a location farther from sea level anywhere in the Mississippi River basin.

Flat-Earthers often claim that if the Earth is spherical, then the Mississippi River will have to flow uphill to overcome the curvature of the Earth. They are wrong.

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Atmospheric Refraction and the Position of the Sun in the Flat-Earth Model

If the Earth is flat, then the Sun would have been visible from the entire Earth, but that’s not the reality. So, to rescue the concept of the flat-Earth from being falsified, they invented an ad-hoc hypothesis that the Sun appears to set because of perspective and refraction.

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Orion EFT-1, Apollo and the Van Allen Radiation Belts

On December 3, 2014, NASA published a video describing the Orion EFT-1 mission, narrated by a NASA scientist, Kelly Smith. The mission was the first unmanned flight of the Orion spacecraft.

Some unscrupulous flat-Earthers decided to turn the video into ‘evidence’ that NASA never went to the moon. They cut down the video to the ‘important’ parts and added in prejudicial narration and subtitles. There are countless of such videos on YouTube, and at some point, it was nearly impossible to search for anything educational about the Van Allen radiation belts on YouTube.

They are wrong. There are, in fact, two Van Allen radiation belts. Apollo traversed the outer belt that has lower radiation level in a hurry, while Orion was deliberately sent into the far more dangerous inner belt. They are named ‘belts’ precisely because they are like the real belts. It is possible to bypass the most dangerous parts of the belt, just like Apollo did.

Orion EFT-1 is not ‘evidence’ that the Apollo mission didn’t happen.

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Confirmation Bias

Humans have cognitive biases that can affect our judgments. One of these cognitive biases is the confirmation bias. Because of the confirmation bias, we tend to seek the information confirming our preexisting beliefs.

Confirmation bias is a fact of life, and all humans have it. Confirmation bias can result in different subjective opinion from a different subject. A characteristic of any pseudoscience —like the concept of flat-Earth— is that they don’t try to minimize the confirmation bias, but they actually encourage it.

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The Length of Daytime and Nights in the Flat Earth Model

The majority of the flat Earth models place the Arctic Ocean in the middle of the flat Earth, and Antarctica at the edge of it. The Sun is pictured floating and moving in a circle above it. The Sun’s area of light is limited to a circular area below it, like a spotlight.

A problem: a simple observation of day and night cycles in a different area of the world cannot be explained in this flat Earth model.

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