Neil deGrasse Tyson blames U.S. schools for flat-Earthers — and teachers aren’t amused
Neil deGrasse Tyson, perhaps the most famous astrophysicist in the world and a seemingly affable guy, upset teachers and started something of a Twitter frenzy with a tweet blaming U.S. schools for people who believe the world is flat:
With this tweet, which had more than 72,000 retweets and more than 188,000 “likes” late Friday afternoon, Tyson was expressing alarm at “flat-Earthers,” people who believe the Earth is flat and who have been able to grab some headlines in recent months as videos insisting the Earth is not a sphere have become popular on social media.
The Daily Mail recently ran a story titled, “Inside the World of flat Earthers,” and the famous former basketball Shaquille O’Neal was in the news a few months ago when he said the Earth was flat — and then later said, “I’m joking, you idiots.” And the Courier just published a story noting that flat-Earthers had posted signs along a highway in Scotland urging people to research the flat Earth.
Flat-Earthers believe NASA is part of a broad conspiracy to fake the evidence of a spherical Earth, and there are societies of people, such as this Flat Earth Society, that produce materials “proving” the conspiracy. For example, this is the description of one of the podcasts available on this group’s website:
In this series we will be dispelling a number of globularist claims. This week we take a look at lunar eclipses in the ball model and using the Parallaxian mind-set put forth by Samuel Rowbotham showing the globe earth theory to be incoherent with observed phenomena.
Tyson’s tweet blames America’s schools — most of which are traditional public schools — for Neil deGrasse Tyson blames U.S. schools for flat-Earthers — and teachers aren’t amused - The Washington Post:
