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| source: What Happened On The Flat Earth This Week? |
In the course of his research, Dr. Fetzer has met many intelligent researchers, and more than one of them have encouraged him to look into an old claim which is recently gaining new popularity, namely that the earth is not a spinning ball but a motionless plane.
And I have to give him credit for his reaction: Rather than dismissing the notion out of hand, as I would have done, Dr. Fetzer said, "Find me a guest who can present this point of view succinctly, and I'll give him half an hour on my show."
Then he did a show in which the first 30 minutes were dedicated to his guest's assertions about the shape of the earth, the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, the evidence supporting the "flat earth model," and some of the implications of this hidden "truth."
To my amazement, Dr. Fetzer didn't interrupt. He never said a word until the guest had finished. Then he presented a brief rebuttal, giving the names, dates, and descriptions of experiments which established the curvature of the earth, its rotation about its axis, and its orbit around the sun -- more or less what you might expect from a man who has spent most of his adult life teaching university-level courses on the history of science.
I can't say that Dr. Fetzer's rebuttal made any impact on his guest, nor that the guest's presentation made any impact on Dr. Fetzer. But that podcast had a profound impact on me, and it's no exaggeration to say I could not have become delusional without it.
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