The Plane Truth: Noted Skeptic’s Newly Published (Posthumous) Book About Flat Earth Theories (2015)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 24, 2025Bob Schadewald, creationism, flat earth, history of skepticism, Lois Schadewald, memorial, NCSE, pseudoscience, Robert J Shadewald, skepticism, zetetic astronomy 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on Nov 19, 2015. An archived version is available here.

Explore Bob Schadewald’s final project, a book on the topic of his most specialized area of skeptical expertise: Flat Earth theories.

I’m very pleased to learn that The Plane Truth, the unfinished final work of skeptical scholarship by the late Robert J. Schadewald (1943–2000), has now been prepared for publication and released online for free. You can read the book in its web version here, where you also find the EPUB ebook version available for download.

During his life, Bob Schadewald was the world’s leading skeptical expert on the history of flat-Earth advocacy. The pseudoscientific notion that the Earth is a flat disk may seem as quaint as it is preposterous, but so-called “Zetetic Astronomy” enjoyed a surprisingly strong period of public prominence in the UK and US during the 19th century—attracting attention from debunkers of the period such as Alfred Russel Wallace¹ (see Skeptic Vol. 20, No. 3) and Richard Anthony Proctor, and prompting reflections from later thinkers including George Bernard Shaw and George Orwell. During the 20th century the relative sophistication of Zetetic Astronomy collapsed into muddled conspiracy theories, parody, and ultra-fundamentalist Biblical literalism; nevertheless, flat-Earth advocacy continues to this day. Read more

Is Debating Pseudoscience a Good Idea? Carl Sagan Weighs In (2014)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Skepticblog, Posts March 19, 2025Bill Nye, creationism, debate, Ken Ham, pseudoscience, skepticism 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Feb 3, 2014. An archived version is available here.

Tomorrow, as many of you know, Bill Nye “the Science Guy” will take the stage with Answers in Genesis frontman Ken Ham to debate the topic of evolution. For those of you interested, the event may be watched streaming for free, live at 7 PM Eastern on February 4, 2014.

Are such debates a good idea? As you might gather from the many divergent opinions on Nye’s choice, the answer is far from clear. Too much depends upon the circumstances, format, and participants of the “debate.” Also, it is often argued—and I tend to agree with this argument—that there are figures too cynical to be fruitfully engaged in any format. (My initial gut feeling was that Ham may not be a fair-minded opponent, and that this particular debate may not have been a wise decision for Nye for that reason—though Randy Olson has almost brought me around with this thoughtful post.) Read more

The Value of Vertigo (2010)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Skepticblog, Posts March 3, 2025creationism, evolution, skepticism 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Skepticblog.org on Aug 3, 2010.
An archived version is available here. (Its inspiration, Dr. Ruse, passed away in 2024.)

Abstract portrait of the author against orange spiral background, in reference to artwork for the film Vertigo
In June of 2009, philosopher of biology Michael Ruse took a group of grad students to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Kentucky (and also some mainstream institutions) as part of a course on how museums present science. In a critical description of his visit, Ruse reflected upon “the extent to which the Creationist museum uses modern science to its own ends, melding it in seamlessly with its own Creationist message.” Continental drift, the Big Bang, and even natural selection are all presented as evidence in support of Young Earth cosmology and flood geology.
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