ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK "200 PROOFS EARTH IS NOT A SPINNING BALL"

 

 

This book was published in 2015 by flat earther Eric Dubay and since then this book has been praised by many flat earthers who use it as one of their main references to demonstrate (according to them) that the earth is flat.

 

But the reality is that this book is pretty mediocre.

 

First, because Eric Dubay does not deepen his explanations but only makes small statements, to the extent that this book is barely made up of 35 pages and more than half are images.

 

And second, because its supposed two hundred tests are easily refutable, which by the way has been done by several science communicators.

 

For example, the writer JW Adams published in 2018 a book entitled "A Logical Response to Eric Dubay's 200 Proofs".

 

The researcher Sergio Alejandro Chifflet dismantled each of those aforementioned tests, and his explanations you can read them in his blog (link).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT KNOWS THE EARTH IS FLAT

 

This is a constant assertion that flat earthers repeat and one of the arguments they use to support this asseveration is that inside previous US presidential plane (the “Air Force One”) there is a map of the flat earth.

 

Above I put a photo taken in 1966 where President Lyndon Baines Johnson appears on the right, and below I put another photo taken in 1963 where President John Fitzgerald Kennedy appears on the left.

 

 

 

 

This second photo has been used by flat earthers to make memes that according to them support their belief that the earth is flat.

 

And they have even published videos:

 

 

 

 

In summary what the flat earthers try to say is:

 

“What better proof that the earth is flat than the fact that a flat earth map is aboard the mythical Air Force One! If the President of the United States has that map on his official plane, what other proof is needed?"

 

 

 

But if you look more carefully, you will notice that the map that appears on the presidential plane does not correspond to the map used by flat earthers.

 

 

Since in the map of the flat earthers the North Pole is in the center, while in the map of the presidential plane the city of Washington is in the center.

 

In the map of the flat earthers Antarctica surrounds the Earth, while in the map of the presidential plane Antarctica appears as a large island under America; which creates a big problem for flat earthers since there is no a "wall of ice" that prevents the water from the oceans from being lost around the edges of the planet.

 

On the flat earthers map, Australia is on the opposite side of America, while on the presidential plane map, Australia is on the left and has an enormous size since it exceeds the size of America.

 

 

 

These differences are due to the fact that these maps are not a true representation of the Earth, but are projections of the world globe on a disk.

 

Cartographers call these types of projections "azimuthal equidistant projections" and in the case of the presidential plane this projection is centered on the United States, while in the case of flat earthers this projection is centered on the Arctic.

 

 

 

 

And to give you more examples, if it had been the government of France, then it would have used this projection:

 

 

 

And if it had been the Australian government, then it would have used this projection:

 

 

 

But this does not mean that the governments that use these maps, they accept that the earth is flat. They use this type of projection when they want to position their country in the center and put the other countries around them.

 

The disadvantage of these types of projections is that they generate gigantic distortions, such as:

 

·        The colossal size of Australia when the projection is centered on the United States or Europe.

·        Or Antarctica, which, from being an island, becomes a circle when the projection is centered on the North Pole.

·        Or the strange shape that continents take when the projection is centered on Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

The flat earthers in their profound ignorance of cartography, they confuse the azimuthal equidistant projections of the spherical Earth with their "flat earth", and is why they say such tremendous absurdities as they put up.

 

And for the anecdote, I heard that later that map was removed from the presidential plane for diplomatic reasons, because it generated an unpleasant impression for the governments of other countries.

 

But continuing with the way of reasoning of the flat earthers, I would reply to them that the real reason was because: "the United States government no longer believed that Earth was flat and that is why it removed that map from Air Force One..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN THE PAST THE NEWSPAPERS SUPPORTED FLAT EARTH

 

"Before the powerful people banned them, the newspapers did accept that the earth is flat."

 

This is what the flat earthers want us to believe and to support this claim they rely on a map of the flat earth that New York Journal published in 1897, and which the flat earthers often bring up and also use to make memes that according to them support their assertion:

 

 

 

 

They have also posted videos:

 

 

 

 

But if you read what that newspaper says, you will realize that the matter is very different, and to prove it, I invite you to see page 22 of the publication of Sunday, January 31, 1897, which you can download in this (link).

 

There you will see that on this page there are several articles, and at the top in the right column there is an article that deals with flat earthers, and which I will transcribe you below:

 

«

 

THE EARTH FLAT

 

Enthusiasts Who Will Attempt: to Prove This Very Curious Theory

 

Experiments are soon to be made on the coast of Florida for the purpose of demonstrating that the earth is not round, but flat. Strange as it may seem, there are still a great many people on this terrestrial ball who deny that it is a ball of any sort. The celebrated Professor William Carpenter, who died in Baltimore, last September, was by no means the last of his faith.

 

In a picture of the earth as these unique theorists believe it to be — or some of them, for they do not all agree the "South Pole" is seen as a wall of ice surrounding the circular earth. This conception certainly fits well with the idea of the vastness of the Southern, wastes of ice which have turned back all explorers.

 

The hardy searchers for glory have come much nearer to the North Pole, and have made the region around It seem small and, familiar compared to that at the South, which is the true "terra incognita." In the flat earth picture, the North Polar Region is seen to be a small region of eternal cold in the centre of the circular world.

 

Alexander Gleason, the sage of Niagara Street, Buffalo, gave long and hard study to this great problem of the earth's surface, and spent much money in publishing books and collecting information. At one time he advertised in a New York paper for sea captains who had made the trip from the West African coast around Cape Horn, his desire being to prove that the distance was much greater than it would be if the earth were a sphere. The information which he obtained seemed to be satisfactory to himself, thought it did not convince many scientists and geographers.

 

The principal arguments advanced by the Flat earth theorists are that a ship might seem to sail around a ball when it merely sailed around a circle; that all the effects of day and night could be produced by a fixed sun shining down upon a circular earth revolving like a card on a pin, and that the longest rivers have a descent of only a few feet.

 

They say that the phenomenon at sea of the ship "rising" or disappearing is to be explained by refraction, and that if the earth were spherical the compass would not point north and south.

 

These theorists assert that Sir Isaac Newton was crazy, and Galileo and Columbus mistaken; that if the earth were a revolving globe, a projectile thrown vertically upward would not fall on the spot from which it was hurled.

 

And all of these propositions are hacked up by copious quotations from the Bible such as the four angles, at the four corners of the earth, the four winds of heaven, the angels that ascended and descended, etc. The underside of the earth having no sun is, say by these dreamers, the place of darkness and damnation, and that it is reached only though the bottomless pit. »

 

 

 

This article was later published by other newspapers: The San Francisco Examiner, The Osage County Chronicle, Vermont Journal, London Daily Mail, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

As you yourself can see, the article is not in favor of flat earthers, but on the contrary, since it considers flat earthers as religious fanatics who know nothing about science but instead have a very overflowing imagination. And this shows you how extent flat earthers manipulate information to pretend that the documentation is in their favor, when in reality it is the opposite.