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Why do some people still insist that the Earth is flat?

Although human beings have traveled in space rockets to reach the moon, that we have satellites that allow us to study our planet and that we have definitely made great scientific advances, there is a surprisingly large group of people who still proclaim that the Earth is flat , ignoring all the scientific evidence that determines the opposite.Find out why.

The reasons why some still claim that the Earth is flat

Celebrities such as basketball players Shaquille O'Neal, Draymond Green and rapper BoB, whose real name is Bobby Ray Simmons Jr, have publicly admitted their position in favor of this theory and they are not the only ones.

There is a whole modern society that defends the archaic belief that, after all, our planet is not a flat sphere, but rather a large flat circle.The modern hypotheses that follow this statement began with the writer Samuel Rowbotham , who published a pamphlet entitled Zetetic Astronomy, that later expanded to the book "The Earth is not a Globe", in which he proposes that the Earth is a flat disk centered on the North Pole and limited along its southern edge by a wall of ice, the Antarctic, with the Sun and Moon at 3,000 miles (4,800 km) and the "cosmos" 3,100 miles (5,000 km) on Earth.

Why do some people still insist that the Earth is flat?

These conclusions are based on the Bedford Level experiment, a series of observations carried out by Rowbotham along a 9.7 km length of the Old Bedford River at Bedford Level, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, to measure the curvature of the Earth, however, Alfred Russel Wallace denied these results by adjusting the method that Rowbotham used to avoid the effects of atmospheric refraction.

The Flat Earth Society argues "that our senses tell us that we do not live in a spherical heliocentric world » and that the evidences that refute his hypothesis can be easily fabricated.In addition, they point out that a globe-shaped planet does not match the sacred writings.According to his point of view, the images of space travel have been manufactured and the money invested has been embezzled for decades.

Why are there so many people who still believe in this? The psychologist Aleksander Neveyev explained that this responds to several reasons.First, he points to the fact that we currently receive a lot of data in the form of “information packages” from third parties, so although it is normal that we no longer need learn everything from their own experience, however, people can distrust the information that others who are not their senses give them, for fear that it will be manipulated.

Also, He pointed out that our mind has a system of errors: cognitive and heuristic distortions (of discovery).So because of these distortions we are prone to believe our version of the facts about the rest , instead of trying to refute our own beliefs.

What do you think? Do you think we have been deceived and the Earth is flat? Or do you think it is shaped like a balloon as we have seen from the images taken from outer space?

If you were interested in this article, discover:

-How did it develop Life on earth? Science has a new answer

Images: Wikimedia Commons/geralt

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