- Dec 2023
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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for: science and religion, flat earth misconception, DH, Deep Humanity - science and religion - historical relationship
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summary
- Dutch historian Jochem Boodt explains how fake news isn't something new, but as old as the history books!
- Science and religion were not antagonist in early Western history, as is believed today. This was fake news fabricated in a fascinating way.
- He uses the example of the common misconception that before Columbus, people thought the earth was flat.
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- Nov 2023
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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The flat earth myth and the myth of a Catholic Church fighting against real knowledge gets taken up by another scientist. William Whewell. And this is, again, a very influential figure. This guy even invented the word scientist. And with his history of the inductive sciences, he actually has proof of Christian backwardness. He introduces two Christian authors, and they become a poster childs 00:08:04 for Christian bigotry. Really evil figures. Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes.
- for: etymology - scientist, William Whewell, myth - flat earth - William Whewel, myth - flat earth - Christian villains - Lactantius - Cosmas Indicopleustes
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We're in the time of the French Revolution now, a time where revolutionaries break with superstitions from the past. They will only be guided by reason. You have this extremely decorated French historian and geographer that's on a mission. A mission to fight the church. 00:07:15 He published this book on the cosmographical opinions of the Church Fathers, and he really goes for it. He writes how until recently, all science has had to be based on the Bible, and geographers were forced to believe Earth was a flat surface. According to him, this was all because of three irresistible arguments persecution, prison and the stake. I
- for Jean-Antoine Letronne, myth - flat earth, book - The Cosographical opinions of the Church Fathers
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there is this French scientist that introduced the idea that medieval people thought the earth was flat, and he believes religion was to blame. He was influenced by an age old movement that created the idea 00:04:30 of dark ages and the rule of the church and suppressing knowledge. If you go all the way back to the 1300s, we find one Italian poet that was quite sure of himself. Petrarch identified two times in history. The time of the Greeks and Romans that was an enlightened age. And basically everything after the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a dark age
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for: Jean-Antoine Letronne, Petrarch, myth - flat earth, myth - dark ages
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historical myth - flat earth
- historical myth - dark ages
- During the French Revolution, the French historian and geographer Jean-Antoine Letronne promoted the myth that the people of the middle ages believed in a flat earth.
- He was influenced by the Italian Petrarch who promulgated the myth of the dark (in contrast to the light) ages
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This myth is mostly the blame of the novelist Washington Irving
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for: Washington Irving, book - the History of New York, book - A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus
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comment
- Irving was a American writer who wrote fiction for the intent of stoking nationalism. He bent the truth in many ways.
- Among his most famous and impactful historical lies that Irving fabricated in his book on Columbus was that prior to Columbus, the majority of educated people thought the earth was flat. In fact, most educated people believed the earth to be round during the time of Columbus.
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interesting fact: knickerbocker
- The term knickerbocker originated in the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker that Irving chose for his book "A History of New York"
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Tags
- myth of the flat earth
- myth - flat earth - Jean-Antoine Letronnne
- Washington Irving
- myth - dark ages - Petrarch
- myth - dark ages
- etymology - scientist - William Whewell
- French Revolution - enlightenment - reason - Jean-Antoine Letronne
- myth - flat earth - Christian villains - Lactantius - Cosmas Indicopleustes
- Jean-Antoine Letronne
- book - The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus
- book - A History of New York
- myth - flat earth
- myth - flat earth - William Whewel
Annotators
URL
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- Oct 2023
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dhayton.haverford.edu dhayton.haverford.edu
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Hayton, Darin. “Washington Irving’s Columbus and the Flat Earth.” History of Science blog. Darin Hayton, December 2, 2014. https://dhayton.haverford.edu/blog/2014/12/02/washington-irvings-columbus-and-the-flat-earth/.
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the Columbus myth is alive and well in the United States
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By the time Andrew White wrote his A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) (online here), Columbus’s struggles to overcome a medieval Church that believed in a flat earth had become historical fact.
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By the latter 19th-century, the supposed truth of the Columbus story had completely replaced the historical truths. In works like John Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) (online here) we read nothing of the reasoned objections raised by the Council at Salamanca or of Columbus’s errors. Instead we learn that his proposal’s irreligious tendency was pointed out by the Spanish ecclesiastics, and condemned by the Council of Salamanca; its orthodoxy was confuted from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Prophecies, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the writings of the Fathers—St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St. Basil, St Ambrose.
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Lactantius, of course, and now Cosmas Indicopleustes, who says nothing about antipodes but offers an easily mocked tabernacle-shaped world and flat earth.
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Within a decade, William Whewell had published his History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) (online here). In a section on antipodes, he admitted that most people throughout history had known the earth was round.
Link to https://hypothes.is/a/hvDAtHT0Ee6_Z3em_Dz4bg (Columbus & Washington Irving)
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The seeds of the Columbus myth seem to grow from Washington Irving’s biography of Columbus, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) (online here). Alexander Everett, Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain, had invited Irving to Madrid in the hopes that Irving would translate a recently published collection of documents on Columbus.
Source of the Columbus/Flat Earth portion of the bunk theory.
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- Oct 2022
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books-scholarsportal-info.proxy.library.carleton.ca books-scholarsportal-info.proxy.library.carleton.ca
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By the way, the flat-earth story promoted by Columbus fans is a flat-out lie.
Flat earth always been a lie
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- Jul 2022
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Like other informed people of his time, Columbus knew that theworld was round.
Were there uninformed people of his time who didn't think the world was round?
The myth about the flat world was primarily an invention of Washington Irving. Good to see him tangentially deflating this myth here.
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- Aug 2020
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www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
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Flat Earth “Science”—Wrong, but not Stupid. (2020, August 22). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8DQSM-b2cc
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- Aug 2016
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motherboard.vice.com motherboard.vice.com
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There are technical, scientific, and cultural factors that are instructive in exploring why humans, and Earth as currently constructed, aren’t well-suited to having a universal language.
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