Hey guys, welcome back to Middle Ground. Before we jump in we've got a huge announcement. A lot of folks have been asking for this for years. We're finally giving you the first-ever Jubilee podcast called 'radical empathy'. That's right, we are really proud and excited to share it with you guys. It actually features an interview with somebody in this episode, so stick around till the end and we'll tell you more about it. For now, enjoy the episode I don't think, I know for a fact it's a globe. The Earth is flat. It's like we have this picture of reality that's a big puzzle piece, and then one of those pieces just wasn't fitting. I'm always open to having a discussion with someone who is holding a wrong belief like this. I'm not. The evidence is so much. Nobody wants to be a flat earther, but if you showed me incontrovertible evidence, I would definitely go back. Who wants the ridicule? I'd like to tear them to pieces. I'm Jim Underdown, executive director of the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles and the chair of the CFI investigations group I'm Spencer Marks, one of the senior members of the CFI investigations group, science advocate. I am Ali Nayeri, I'm a theoretical physicist and I'm with the University of Irvine. I am Wendell Walton. I am a chief learning officer for a young startup. I'm Shelly Lewis. I'm a graduate of West Point, critical thinker and jumped out of airplanes. My name is Dan Glatman. I work as Dan the Water Man in the drinking water filtration industry, and I'm a truth seeker. Well, I've been a Christian for thirty years, so The Bible is a Flat Earth book. You have to take it literally. Like for example in Isaiah when it talks about how the earth is like a clay wet wax seal that stamped with upturned edges. That's just not some fancy story. That's a simile: "it is like". [Shelly]: Right, absolutely, and in Isaiah talks about too - and I'm a Christian - He who sits upon the circle of the earth. There's a difference between a circle and a ball. Well, exactly, if you look at the original Hebrew it means "disk". There's over 200 scriptures in the Bible that point to a Flat Earth So this notion that you need God or some higher power to create the Earth or the universe is very old and was initially posited by people of a pre-scientific age. Since then, we have learned quite a bit about the universe coming into existence when that happened. Modern humans don't get their cosmology, they don't get their physics, they don't get their knowledge of the universe from the Bible or any ancient text. It's sort of like the God of the Gaps. Once you know people used to believe that lightning was God's wrath and throwing these lightning bolts, but once we understood it was a natural process God shrank a little bit more because now we couldn't attribute those lightning bolts to God, we had to attribute that to the real science. And the other thing to the point about the Bible specifically for me is why is that one particular text the correct one. You choose to believe that, and that's fine, but there's so many other writings and so many other books. So why weren't they correct? Why is just the the Bible, correct? Well what you'll find in a lot of these ancient religions is they're all flat earth religions. All their cosmology goes back to being a flat earth with an enclosed system. So it's not just the Bible that teaches this. It's many different religious books. So one problem I have is to uh- trying to explain phenomena happen in nature by holy books. Those are religious books. Those are not books of science, and it is wrong to infer or deduct scientific readings out of those books. My name is Wendell, I am a logical, biblically-based and scientific Flat Earther. I didn't start out and no one starts out as a Flat Earther, but I had a lot of questions So I actually got to the point where I had to go out and and put my own eyeballs on it So we went out to an observation at Salton Sea and Things just didn't add up down there. So we've gone back Probably a dozen times and I can guarantee you that there is no curvature over distance. We have the advantage of information today that's outside of Channels 2, 4 and 7 and the few networks that are corporately owned. It's pretty easy to say YouTube isn't research but when you spend enough time, you're picking up quite a bit and with the discussion groups, panels We've gone against opposition, we've opposed ourselves Surprisingly enough flat earth is its own worst enemy so it's not that easy for us to come to consensus and we find that consensus is orchestrated and not actually scientific in any way. You know, my grandfather used to tell me growing up never believe anything you read in the newspaper. Right? He told that to me. Now what the age of the Internet it's like, you know How much of this misinformation are you getting there? And when you have like eyewitnesses taking video of something, you do have to take everything with a grain of salt That's why because of my um, my multimedia background I knew that all that stuff could be faked, you know, take it into Photoshop. Take it into After Effects Ok, this is at the core of the issue of why there are so many Flat Earth believers out there right now. The problem is the information from someone who decides to Start a website or produce a YouTube video is not reliable. When I have a toothache I go to a dentist, My car breaks down, I go to a mechanic. When you have questions about cosmology You should go to an astrophysicist. You should go to a physicist. You should go to people who have spent years and years studying these ideas, not some 6 minute YouTube video There is a percentage of people that if they saw a youtube video that was not within their scientific chops to refute on the face of it would believe anything out there. One of the things I will say is nasa.gov has their own documents out there that we get to vet Which is through the Freedom of Information Act and would you agree that NASA Documents if they're on display that we should be able to go and research inside there NASA is not proving that the earth is flat Well they say it in [inaudible] documents Well you should read what NASA says and you should listen to what NASA says. I would love to see your NASA evidence that the earth is flat. It's only they're contradictory issues that bring us here We're all familiar with the earth rise photo, right? The earth is rising over the moon. We're all familiar with it It's NASA. You can go out to the NASA site. You can download the original, right? I already know what you're gonna ask. So You bring up the luminance on it and you can see where it's cut out and pasted there They're showing us doctored images that are clearly doctored The Blue Marble is a very famous image from 1972 when you talk to the artist from NASA His name's Robert Simmon. He talks about exactly how it was created from data, and it's not a photograph whatsoever He added clouds, he added highlights. You take you know on your phone most phones have that panoramic image When you do that you're taking a series of picture and the phone cleverly stitches that together I'm just saying how it's presented. It's presented as a real photograph. So when NASA takes real Photos and they either clean them up for color or they stitch them together. So it's one large image It doesn't mean they're CGI. You're talking about composites I'm what you call a globe denier You could even get me into a virtual construct if I can't find the w- the borders myself It appears to me to be a stationary plane as opposed to the vastness of infinity of space I would find it to be an ice plane where we have a localized sun and our environment thrives there. You know these these particular people have misled us on television This is a brilliant opportunity to speak. We've been suppressed, censored by mainstream media Alternative media is that's just a thing of beauty for me I'm running Well, they uh they certainly think they're educated. And they're following quite a bit of the university system what we call scientism Right, scientism. obviously is the belief in what's what's written. Where we tend to be exploring in the field with physical properties. Not theories of any kind we're using actual measurements That are calculated not by our guidelines, but the guidelines of science as we know it I can only hope they're uneducated as opposed to disingenuous well That's the other thing too because we know that It was on a large scale the government has been disingenuous and they're, they're pushing a narrative, right? So it's, it's hard for us. I mean, I'm sure that you've met people too It's like look, are you just you haven't looked into it yet, or are you a shill? Are you - Are you part of a disinformation campaign? I don't think you guys are uneducated, I think you're wrongly educated I think the problem with what I've seen in the Flat Earth crowd is that it's not that they're under-educated, but they Instead of looking at evidence and letting the evidence guide to where the ultimate conclusion is They start with a conclusion and then they try to cherry-pick evidence to support their pre-drawn conclusion They cast away all the bits of evidence that actually is contrary to their beliefs I think that you're very well educated as well as you are Jim Certainly Ali is, he's probably got the best education of all of us Exactly, and he paid for it, too. But more and more professionals are coming on board. They're starting to question their reality So the thing of it is is once you start to really look take a hard look at the evidence and you are unafraid of just standing for the truth wherever that may lead you then people end up becoming flat earthers. I'm hoping to be able to tell our side of the story from the inside out. So many times Flat earthers are depicted from the outside in and I want to be able to share with others empirical data that proves the earth is not what we've been told. So when I was 12 years old, I went to Space Camp and I met Alan B. Shepard, (Wendell: ohh, nice) Yep, yep, and I wanted to be an astronaut and I wanted to be the first woman to walk the moon. So for me, I'm a glober. I went into this completely wanting it to be true and my husband told me he saw this thing about the fake moon landing. And I was like, you're absolutely crazy. There's no way that the moon landings are fake and then in 2010 My husband was killed and so I never really developed that until around 2014 when Flat Earth kind of came back up and that...sorry... and that little voice inside my head Said: remember the fake moon landings, remember when? That was brought to my attention and then I started really critically analyzing that and I would say You know just looking at that evidence if they can lie about the moon landings They can certainly lie about pictures and satellites and other things than so. I started going down that rabbit hole of Studying so that was my influence from my husband. How many lies does it take to make a liar, right? And being ridiculed for being inquistive Is pretty tough on us I wouldn't say that I've changed my mind because my mind isn't set. NASA is, is solely designed to change my mind It is from its inception from its discovery has been a television program It's been a space program to sell us on something that they've yet to actually show us Show me a globe spinning with clouds and a moon. Show me home And I think I could shut up quite easily I think I could shut up. The timing of your conversions is interesting to me. 20 years ago the flat earth world was tiny and insignificant Enter the advent of the internet - YouTube, online discussion groups, all these new available places where you could find information about everything This is true that The evidences you looked were not robust evidence and the sources you used They were not reliable sources again. But my problem is that, and I like you guys that you are very skeptical, but at the same time you're not skeptical about your belief system that should come first. You think that that's my foundation for why I believe the earth is flat and I'm telling you you're wrong I have evidence that proves it's flat. What type of evidence? That proves that's not a ball We're being misled, we're being deliberately less- misled by mainstream media, No, what's your evidence? We see too far. We see too far. We should not be able to see- I live in Dana Point Okay-- I can see San Clemente Island, which is 60 miles away So what? (That is pretty high) What do you mean "so what"? [Well, I'm on the beach] (It's 11 hundred feet tall) [I'm on the beach] Can you see a ship which is going? Oh yeah let's talk about the ship that goes over the curvature of the earth, I love that Science has said that when I see a ship go out of my field of view It's going over the curvature of the earth, correct? Yes. SHELLEY: But then I bring my p900 up and guess what, I can zoom it back in so is it going over the curvature of the earth or not? Absolutely. Oh not all the time? You don't see all the ship. The bottom part of the ship is hidden by the curvature. At that distance you shouldn't see the top of it either. If the earth were truly flat There would be really hardly any limit, you would be able to stand at the top of the Empire State Building and look toward Chicago a mere thousand miles away, and see the lights of Chicago at night No. Why wouldn't you? No because you have an atmospheric disturbance. It's very thick. I, I've been to astronomy since I was 10. It's faulty logic. It's completely faulty logic One of the big things I do is investigate extraordinary claims like flat eartherism or ESP or all sorts of different things The earth is undoubtedly a globe and not flat. This is well supported by gobs of science. What is the question? I don't understand the question. "Scientific consensus is possible" Possible anything is possible. I mean anything is possible I've got a, I've got a tremendous issue with consensus and peer review. I've been spending a lot of time Arguing the other, with people that argue the other side And I found that surprisingly consensus always wins it was shocking to me that the group with the majority has an incredible advantage As scientists, flat-earthers, truthers, punks We're at incredible disadvantage. Let's talk about scientific consensus for a second You're never going to get a hundred percent of anyone There is scientific consensus on a global earth, there's scientific consensus on evolution A lot of big issues. They use the word theory Do you know what a theory in science is an extremely Dan: And a fact is a fact Don't mistake this word theory. In science. It's not conjecture. It's an explanation By definition it's an explanation So this is something people maybe mistake they think theory is.. In science the word theory is the highest level that you can give something because it's so well supported What about a fact? That is a fact. It's not a fact you would call it a fact. You know, why? Do you know why? Because in science, there's always room for improvement There's always room to find better, to tweak, and find better information. So that is how science works. It gets better refined over time as opposed to Flat Earth Theory which never gets refined it simply is what it is. New ideas have limited access to media And limited exposure until we're in US University curriculums. We will continue to appear uneducated Well, that's not true. In the history of science we had many occasions that it, the ideas It was not welcomed by the society Iceland was one of them. Galileo. Galileo was one of them, but if your theory is an authentic one and It can be go through this hardship of scientific method eventually, will win. I used to believe that Science was after the truth, right? They just we all just want to know what the truth is Science has been trying so hard to divorce itself from the idea of a creator When God's intent was to create science to lead you to him, you know Sometimes things seem supernatural that we are able to explain later through, you know science Okay, understand. But there are other things as well that are supernatural, that go beyond the natural, that we can always explain Through believing in a creator, right? This is my big issue with science Scientific approach and non scientific approach. You are absolutely right, in science We are after the truth and we are hoping by each day We're getting closer and closer to the truth. We never get there, never. Well, I know that's true for you. No, no that's just science. That's-- that's you guys, you think you do have the truth Now, let's look at the evidences as you were mentioning. You do have the conclusion Let's find the evidence. This-- science doesn't work that way That's not true. That is not true- Well you're saying, you're referring to Jesus, who many Billions of people do not believe, including myself. And many more billions do. So what? So who's right? Of course I cannot- When you say that We start with a conclusion and then try to match everything to make it work, like that to me is complete dishonesty That is not true at all. That is what you are doing right now No, you're not You're making that assumption. No it's not my assumption So do you make assumptions or not? Does science make assumptions? Does science make assumptions? No, we're sure we do make assumption but based on things that are well supported and proven and reproven. Show me how you isolate gravity if gravity is an assumption, show me the scientific method how you isolate gravity? [inaudible] I kind of feel like I want to develop some of this stuff a little bit more It feels high-level, but I feel like there's so much that I haven't really even touched base on. Well, I mean I Certainly didn't think that anybody was gonna the side was gonna flip. Well, there's still time There's still time I have hope for you Wendller and Shelley I don't know about Dan But you know, it's certainly I'm glad it's a civil discussion certainly oh, yeah He flipped! The greatest moment in television history So, I mean, obviously any organization can be wrong with certain things and they may have individuals that lie or deceive or something. But as a general organization They're looking for the truth. Yeah, the idea that NASA and the government is lying to us about the shape of the earth is the height of conspiracy theories. In order for this to be true, the literally hundreds of thousands of people who at some point over the last 50 or 60, 60 years would have to have to be somewhat complicit in this and Nobody spills the beans at all is on the face of it completely unbelievable. The private does not know what the general is doing There's compartmentalization happening all the time (Of course) So it wouldn't be that far-fetched has the government ever lied to us is really the question at stake. We all agree on that Now we have nasa.gov Right and we- Oh absolutely they're not lying about anything they're completely transparent everything is true. We'd be foolish to think that's true I'm sorry This is a fallacy here. I'm sure it is- you were talking about the government. Now you're talking about an NASA-dot-GOV But this agency is scrutinized By thousands and thousands of scientists around the globe. You are dealing with smart people. Believe me you are-- I don't deny that. So it is very hard to do that once or twice. Maybe, not for the whole time What is the proof hundreds and hundreds of pounds of moon rocks and dust, and we have distributed those freely to PhD scientists around the world and not one of those geologists have said What is this ?? They're proven to be fake Collected on the ice in Antarctica and the Arctic as well There's also collected that you don't have to go to the moon to get moon rocks as a matter of fact all US Air Force photography prior to 1958 shows a Flat Earth only NASA shows us That is not true, that is absloutely not true NASA is lying to you my friend Not myself. We have a laser retroreflector On the moon that we're using now We still use to this day you it's sitting there you can find to the inch How far away the moon is No pictures of home. That only is there but My question to you is Why? Why would all these honest hard-working people perpetuate this massive fraud? Why would they do this? What's the benefit of it ? The benefit of it they make fifty two million dollars a day. Follow the money. No, the little guy-- the little guy- That's one thing. When you say all-- It didn't start out that way, and NASA I was not founded to proof the earth was a globe it had nothing to do with the way they were found Are you sure? Yeah positive. Really? Yes Somebody has to be a voice for reason and somebody has to be a voice for truth It's it would be a fantasy to believe that I would change anybody's mind from the other three However, if there's somebody sitting on the fence and this is the first introduction to this debate Perhaps they'll hear the reasonable voice and say that makes more sense than having this pizza shaped earth. I used to be a ball Earther. Everything you say right now is completely what I used to agree to. So I completely understand where you're coming from For me, I think the the correct way to do any kind of investigation or to examine things is by literally putting yourself in that mindset of the other person. So I do do that. I disagree with your position, but I completely understand from your perspective what you're saying. The trouble I have understanding your perspective is in the modern world unless you live in a cave somewhere you have to believe in science implicitly. I met a flat earther, a young woman who said I don't trust anything that science does and that's a problem because human beings can't replicate the whole body of science every single generation. At some point you have to trust What's already been discovered and proven and move on to the next thing. Otherwise, we're not going to advance at all. I mean when you turn that key ignition in your car you expect the car to start out and not blow up and not blow up because Science put you in that position So it's really hard to understand how people Would know in their hearts that science Achieves wonderful things and then just jumping ship when it comes to this other issue. We're not drawing conclusions We understand the mechanisms that made that car work There is no theories and no no disputed conclusions involved there. It's not a good analogy Can I admit a great compromise that we have to experience being against the grain people? We have to literally sit in a group and decide whether or not we can afford to have an opinion and that's-- that's tough. Actually, I- I agree with you there because we're the same thing I mean, I think skeptics go through this and atheists go through this. I don't believe in God. When I'm around religious people I take a chance socially when I tell them I'm an atheist so I know it takes some courage to follow your beliefs and I appreciate that. But I think I've done a lot of research in that Venue too and it's not something I choose to believe in. It's something I have to believe in based on the evidence. See what I get from you guys is that seeing is believing. So, how come you believe in God or Jesus? You haven't seen? Neither of them right? I've seen evidence though. Well exactly. So we are looking for evidence There are many many other evidences For earth not being flat My point is that these are these experiments Clearly show that the earth is globe and you don't need to go outside the globe to see it's a globe It's a conclusion. You told me you want the evidence. if you're saying that you look only to see something then I dispute your belief system in God and Jesus or Jehovah or Buddha or Azeris Torah, or anyone. You keep going back to religion as being our conclusion Because it's coming from you-- You think you do have the truth You quoted at the beginning of this, you quoted the Bible. Of course I did, but that is not the only reason I know what the shape of the earth is. And you keep -- That's fallacy. That's not fallacy. Actually, it is not fallacy It is a fallacy. I'm a Theoretical physicist What I'm doing is the combination of string theory and cosmology. So we try to understand what happened during the Big Bang, after the Big Bang or even before the Big Bang. Well, I hope I would be able particularly to the young generation To convince them that first they should think critically and don't believe anything. They shouldn't take anything for granted Look at the evidences and examine those evidences and throw away Those claims that are not evidenced base. Science not to put it down, but when you're talking about rocket science This is very difficult for the majority of people to understand and it's designed that way and So in a lot of ways hiding behind Rocket science is similar to religion if you look at the Catholic Church back in the days only we can interpret the Bible you have To listen to what we say So in a lot of ways We're getting that same notion from science that says only we can interpret what these numbers are You just need to trust us. But then when we actually do go and test some of their equations and they don't work Does that beg the question for us to go and test it ourself? Absolutely. I would say, you know one great thing about science is its predictability. Let's form some moment for a short moment assume that your model. This Flat Earth model is correct. I don't know What does it buy for us? What does what does it predict for us? So my question for you guys would be next time Bring me something from your theory your model that you can predict something which the globe earth Model cannot predict then I would change my mind And we just say that don't believe anything that I've said You got to do your own research and I think what you'll find is that You'll see that a puzzle piece doesn't fit and the only way you're going to do that is if you put your own eyeballs on it. I don't blame people for being skeptical. I'm skeptical about a lot of different things. I applaud that instinct in you, but you have to go beyond just Not believing in something, ask the hard questions Ask what qualifies a YouTuber or a book author? Anywhere else you're getting this information What qualifies them to make wide-ranging? Comments about the shape of the earth. Look anybody who can overturn Einstein or some major theory is going to be eventually written in the halls of science for the rest of their lives, but they have to come up with the goods they have to show Good science-based evidence that what they say is true and they have to withstand the test of time and peer review and the rigors of the scientific method. Thank you guys for watching this episode of middle ground that's right We know that one of the biggest requests we get is we just want longer episodes We wanna know more about these stories. We want to hear more about the middle ground So, we created a podcast called 'Radical Empathy' where we can do just that Shelly from this episode actually sat down with me and we had a conversation About her beliefs and how she came to be a flat earther. It's amazing You have to listen to it, but don't just take our word for it. We're gonna play you a little sample right now. All right This is John Regalado sitting with Shelly Lewis, and we are here to talk about Beliefs. Okay. I have studied that the earth is flat. Mmm, and I've come to the conclusion that I agree with that; This episode is amazing. There's our first one ever and you can find it anywhere You can spot mine and Spotify an apple stitcher wherever you listen to podcasts, but if you love it Please let us know in the comments there and also give it five stars Because if yours loved it, we're gonna do even more this is just a big test Yeah, we'd love to do a whole season of these for you guys. So thank you so much for supporting us We want to keep making new things for you and until next time
3 scientists vs a skydiving instructor and a waterboy
I really wish there was more discussion of why the government would want to perpetuate the “lie” that the earth is round. The only response was that NASA gets money? But, they’d still get money if the earth was flat, wouldn’t they?
The part when the flat earthers talked about the scientists being uneducated was sooo cringy
Oh man the smug smile on discount Ron jeremy's face while waiting to drop his 'logic bomb' on them was so fucking rich
SHOW ME HOW YOU ISOLATE GRAVITY!!!
Do these people think every other planet in our solar system is flat? They're observably globe shaped. If every other planet in our solar system is globe shaped why would Earth be any different?
Can any of these people tell me why my dad beat me as a child?
“I’m a West Point grad and I jumped out of airplanes”... so you’re qualified to eat glue and get scared of doors slamming?
This is not a debate and really, is a complete waste of time. People like this will never have their minds changed by facts, because they don't think rationally. They believe what they want to believe, and find facebook gibberish and like minded dolts to back up their belief. They think they are the smart/woke ones, and the rest of us are the gullible fools.