Is evolution the new Flat Earth?

[Angrboda]

I mean there is hardly any evidence to support evolution, except for appearances, and likewise for Flat Earth. People saw that the ground looked flat and theorized that the world must be flat, and Darwin saw that animals looked similar and he postulated that they must have come from each other, so appearances led to the formation of both theories. Of course, there are more similarities such as both theories being completely wrong, but I'll stick to the appearance of things being the driving force behind the formation of both theories, to make my case. What ye say, ye sons and daugters of Japeth, Shem, and Ham?

Actually, as late as the 19th century, the question of the earth's flatness was not entirely settled. One of the most colorful and well known flat earthers was Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1884) who with his Zetetic Astronomy propounded long and hard for the earth's flatness, and not without some success, and not entirely without evidence. In the famous Bedford Level experiment, Rowbotham sighted a boat as it sailed down river, and the result was that the boat remained higher in view than was predicted by the globe theory. Despite repeating the experiment several times, his claims were largely dismissed until in 1870 a wager was offered in the matter, and Alfred Wallace Russell took up the challenge. It took a court to settle the matter in favor of Wallace. But that wasn't the end of it, as in 1904 the experiment was repeated with a camera using a telephoto lens, and seemed to confirm Rowbotham's earlier claims. The exact causes of the anomalous results are likely due to optical effects the flat earthers did not take into account.

Of course, science has passed flat earthers behind, but it would be slander to accuse them of a theory based on no evidence. The "theory" of the earth's flatness versus the theory that it is a globe was hardly "scientific" in the sense that evolution is a product of advances in the philosophical sciences (remember, until the 18th or 19th century, there was no "science" -- only "natural philosophy") and mathematics. Beliefs about the shape of the globe, as with many matters, was relegated to the province of revealed knowledge, convention, and common sense. It was a different time, with different ideas of what constitute truth and knowledge, and it is disingenuous to compare the "theories" of that age with theories developed out of post renaissance knowledge.

What's remarkable however is that, even if the majority of flat earthers -- especially those equipped with the knowledge of an alternative theory -- based their conclusions on ignorance, as seen, that isn't always the case. Moreover, judging the quality of their arguments is difficult, given the hindsight of modern science, but more importantly given our historical ignorance of both the actual arguments used, and how they compared to standards of knowing and arguments of the time. Most have probably never heard of Samuel Rowbotham and his Zetetic Astronomy, and arguing that those who were skeptics of the globe theory did so without evidence is an argument from silence; the dead flat earthers are powerless to rise from the grave to defend themselves of the charge. (Although if Christ was a flat earther, you might ask him when he returns.)

It is a pleasing irony though, that an argument meant to impugn evolutionary theorists by analogizing their science to flat earther ignorance is itself based on an obvious ignorance of the matter in question. But then, pontificating ex cathedra about matters you know nothing about is to be expected of buggers like you.