Just realised something hilarious, with all the flat earth chats I'm in, my evidence for the earth being a globe that I forward results in me getting banned or kicked most of the time.

Not one flat earther has been banned in this chat and they've all left on their own. Interesting right? It's like they're deliberately trying to block out the truth, the cold hard evidence...

The Lake Pontchartrain causeway and transmission lines demonstrate Earth’s curvature. Flat-Earthers attempt to dismiss it using aerial photos where it is more difficult to see the curved landmarks over water.

On the other hand, from these alternative vantage points, it becomes easier to reveal the horizontal curvature by magnifying vertically. Because of the possibility of lens distortions, some of the images are inadequate evidence of the curve. However, all of them are insufficient evidence of a flat Earth.

Evidence that the horizon doesn't rise to eye level.

Many different map projections are created to preserve different properties of the sphere-like body at the expense of other properties. Some of the resulting distortions are acceptable, and others are not. A projection type can be suitable for a purpose but not for others.

Flat-Earthers claim the so-called ‘flat-Earth map’ is distortion-free and use it as proof of its correctness. In reality, a map can only be distortion-free if the actual shape it represents is also flat. There are many ways we can use to show that the “flat Earth map” is, in fact, distorted.

Every map of the Earth has distortions due to the fact it is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object. It does not mean a distortion-free representation of the real Earth does not exist: we call it a globe.

Usually, the tourist trap operator will guide the unsuspecting tourists to a sink supposedly placed directly on the Equator. They will then release the plug and show that the water does not form a vortex. Afterward, they will show a sink north of the Equator and another south of the Equator and demonstrate that the water spirals in a different direction.

In reality, this is only a parlor trick. These people make the water spin in a different direction by how they pour the water. Pouring the water to the right of the drain will make the water spin counterclockwise and vice-versa. Furthermore, when the water drains without spinning, it is because the water is already in the sink. They let the water sit for some time before unplugging the sink.

Scientists have been debunking this myth for some time. For example, Alistair Fraser from PSU debunked this myth in 2003 or earlier, far before the birth of the modern flat Earth craze in the late 2010s.

The myth began from an experiment by Ascher Shapiro from MIT, where he demonstrated that the Coriolis effect can be observed in a bathtub-sized tank. This is, however, an experiment done in a very carefully controlled environment, very different from our everyday bathtub.

Apparent motion is the appearance that celestial objects move due to the motion of Earth. If all the objects that appear in the sky are moving similarly, then it is far more likely that the movement is only apparent and caused by the motion of the observer.

Flat-Earthers claim that the motion of celestial objects “proves” that Earth is stationary, and the celestial objects are moving. By the same “reasoning,” we can conclude that the train we are in is stationary, it is just all the objects outside, as luck would have it, are moving in a very similar fashion.


Flat-Earthers would say that we know the train is moving from different observations, like that we can feel the train is accelerating. However, the same thing can also be said for the motion of Earth. While the movement of celestial objects is only indirect evidence we can infer from, we can directly know the Earth is rotating from the Coriolis effect, the Eötvös effect, and gyroscopic precession. And we can directly know Earth is in motion around the Sun from observations like stellar parallax, stellar aberration, and the Doppler effect.

Camera zoom works by enlarging the center portion of the image, or in other words, by making its field-of-view narrower. Zooming in on the setting sun will not reveal more of the sun and will only enlarge the size of the sun in the resulting image.

Flat-Earthers claim that zooming in on a setting sun will reveal the full sun and somehow lift it out of the water. In reality, they used incorrect exposure settings, making the sun still above the horizon appear already half-obscured by Earth’s curvature.

Zooming on the setting sun will never reveal the sun already obstructed by Earth’s curvature.


When fully zoomed in, the sun appears larger and fills more of the frame. As a result, the frame is dominated by a bright object (the sun). The auto-exposure system will thus compensate by lowering the exposure. The sun will appear in the correct exposure with a clearly defined edge. This is done by sacrificing the appearance of all the other objects, which now appear dark.

On the other hand, the sun appears very small when fully zoomed out and occupies far less of the frame. The picture is dominated by dark objects, like the evening sky and the ocean. The autoexposure system now thinks the photographer wants to take a picture of the entire landscape and compensate by raising the exposure. The sky and ocean appear correctly exposed at the expense of the sun, which now looks too bright. Not only that, the glare around the sun will appear too bright as well, and it can be impossible to distinguish the sun from its glare. Flat-Earthers think the glare is part of the sun and incorrectly assume the sun is larger than it is.

To take a good picture of the sun during sunset, it is sometimes necessary to use manual exposure. The autoexposure system can only guess the intention of the photographer. Sometimes it guesses wrong, like when the intended object is far brighter than its surroundings or vice versa.

According to dictionary.com, these are the meanings of ‘theory’:

a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein’s theory of relativity.
a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
Mathematics. a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.
the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice: music theory.
a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles: conflicting theories of how children best learn to read.
contemplation or speculation: the theory that there is life on other planets.
In the scientific context, ‘theory’ means 1, 3, or 4. In other cases, ‘theory’ might mean 2.

Flat-Earthers assume that because something is called a ‘theory,’ then it is still unproven. For example, when they find the phrase “theory of relativity” and “theory of evolution” in scientific writings, they would incorrectly conclude that relativity and evolution are still unproven. In the scientific context, an unproven supposition is referred to as a ‘hypothesis” not a ‘theory.’