On this blog, we examine some wild geological and historical theories. Some of them turn out not to be true. Others are inconclusive. We engage in a healthy skepticism about overconfident scientific pronouncements about everything from the human mind to the dating of human history.

Despite this healthy skepticism, we do try to use sound reasoning and pay attention to evidence. For this reason, there are certain wild historical theories that I’ve never felt the need to engage with. One of these is the flat-earth theory.

Luckily for us, someone has already done the work for us.

“Reflections on the Flat-Earth Movement” by Dr. Danny R. Faulkner

Faulkner got interested enough in the flat-earth movement to study it. In this short piece, he gives a handy overview of the movement and a critique of its reasoning. The reasoning appears to depend on a radical skepticism not just about things that have earned some skepticism like social science and carbon dating, but about any and every kind of research or scholarship.