krosero

The first Google hit for "Christopher Columbus" is a Wikipedia entry for him.

The second is an entry about him at Enchanted Learning. On the Google search page, the entry reads (emphasis mine):

Christopher Columbus: Explorer - EnchantedLearning.com
Christopher Columbus: Explorer. Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was an Italian explorer who realized that the world was round and sailed across the ...
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/exp...columbus.shtml - 33k -

But when you go to the article, the part about the flat earth has been taken out:

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was an Italian explorer who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, hoping to find a route to India (in order to trade for spices). He made a total of four trips to the Caribbean and South America during the years 1492-1504.

I'm not that internet savvy, but doesn't this suggest that Enchanted Learning has only recently made that correction?

I've started asking people what they remember being taught about Columbus in grade school. The 3 people I've asked (from a secular, a Christian and a Muslim background) all say that Columbus had trouble finding support for his voyages because of a belief that the earth was flat and that he would fall off the edge of the earth.

Antipope, do you remember what you learned in grade school?

Kevin Rosero

Amaleq13

You might take your own advice since the article contradicts you:

Antipope Innocent II

If it does, then it's good that this kind of low-level information source is finally correcting this myth about people in the Middle Ages believing that the Earth was flat.

I think "grade school" in the USis what we call primary school here in Australia, so I'm pretty certain I was fed the whole "flat earth" thing like everyone else. In high school my history teacher taught a lesson about how what "everyone knows" about history is often totally wrong and used the "Medieval flat earth myth" as an example. I still come across plenty of people who look confused when I tell them that people in the Middle Ages knew the Earth was round. The myth has become part of our popular culture.

krosero

Yes, I'm always forgetting that there are different terms for these things. In the U.S. we also call it elementary school.

So it's part of our popular culture, for sure. Who can forget Bugs Bunny doing his rendition in "Hare We Go"?

But would you say that this myth is getting more widespread, or less (or neither)? I mean, is popular culture catching up with academia on this or do you think that they're just going their separate ways with it?

The three people I asked so far had no attachment to the myth; they let it go instantly.

Thanks in advance for your answers. By the way, regardless of the dispute you're having with a few people, I'm finding your posts tremendously informative. I'm taking a pleasure in them that has nothing to do with the ideological; they simply make the subject matter interesting and make me want to learn more.

Kevin Rosero

Antipope Innocent II

Actually, I think that cartoon has done more to perpetuate the myth than just about anything.

I've seen a few snippets in the popular media along the lines of "You may have always thought this was true, but ... " On the whole though I'd say most people still believe the myth.
That's what I've found as well. The only people who fight against the idea are those who don't like the thought that the wicked old Catholic Church wasn't as ignorant or evil as they like to think.

No problem. History is history and warped pseudo history is warped pseudo history whether it's being indulged in by fundie Christians or fundie anti-theists. As an atheist, I think it's important that atheists get their history right - ie as it was, not as we'd like to pretend it was.

We're meant to be the smart ones and have no excuses for indulging in myths and lies, no matter how convenient they may be.

krosero

I find myself asking, why should the truth be so ideologically unattractive in this case? What I mean is that we have, potentially, two ideological narratives.

One is in existence already and we're familiar with it: classical learning from the Greeks was lost to religion and superstition until the modern world embraced the ancient learning that was lost. This is a narrative told very well, for instance, by Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

The other, closer to the truth, could look something like this: classical learning, in this case the discovery of the shape of the Earth, found general acceptance (earlier than in the other narrative) and never really let go of its hold; it has been spreading since it was first advanced.

The second does not seem, on its face, to be any less of a celebration of classical heritage than the first. I make that point because as a theist, I often observe atheists taking pride in the classical world and achievements like that of Eratosthenes (and rightly so). Why, then, should the truth seem so unattractive to some? Why is it less of a celebration to say that Eratosthenes' achievement was embraced than it is to to claim that his knowledge was lost, ignored, resisted, or belittled?

From where I observe this, the reason that the former narrative has more appeal to some (a minority, thankfully) is that it provides a certain stick with which to beat the Church, a stick that the second does not provide.

I do not mean, with these comments, to say that we should present things in an ideologically attractive form, one way or another. As far as I'm concerned, ideology is the problem, and the only, best reason to learn anything is because it's the truth. I'm just making these comments because I am trying to understand what this resistance is about.

Kevin Rosero

Toto

But you yourself have noted that there is not very much resistance.

You would need to find cases of people who resisted the new information and investigate their psychological stances to understand, and then you would just know something about them in particular.

Ray Moscow

Well, I could not find (so far) an argument for a "flat earth" by anyone from that period by just surfing around the web, so I think you are right (unless I find differently from other sources).

Furthermore, how this "medieval flat earth" myth was concocted seems to have been well researched and documented.

So, it seems clear: Learned people in the Middle Ages knew and maintained that the earth was a sphere.

Ray

Chili

Maybe lot of pple went to heaven in those days and they are the ones to declare the world as flat in retrospect. And, of course "learned people" never get to heaven as learned people.

krosero

Your point is well taken. I'll keep it in mind as I watch the debate.