I’m a skeptic, and I love the flat-Earth movement

By Craig A. Foster

The Denver Post recently featured an article about Coloradans who believe that the Earth is flat. As if that wasn’t surprising enough, some members of this community also believe that they are the recipients of flat-Earth prejudice, which I will now term “terrashapism.”

I don’t believe the Earth is flat; given my background, this is not surprising. I am a psychology professor who studies pseudoscience. I lecture about the fallibility of human intuition and the corresponding need for empiricism. I am a member of the National Center for Science Education. I am also a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a local group called Colorado Skeptics. Skeptics generally doubt claims that lack legitimate evidence, but support claims that do.

Accordingly, one might think that I would have nothing positive to say about the flat Earthers who meet just over my horizon. Not so. I love the flat Earth movement. As far as I’m concerned, flat Earthers are welcome to deflate the global Earth faster than New England Patriots footballs. To me, the flat-Earth movement isn’t a threat to scientific sensibility. That threat is already alive and well. Instead, the flat-Earth movement exposes the contradictions that many people create when they disparage flat Earthers, but tolerate or actively support other forms of pseudoscience.

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