# Neil Degrasse Tyson disproves flat earth **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2025, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501 "2025-09-29T22:56:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/21 "2025-10-02T12:38:23Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > QED This is assuming that the person wants to be reasonable. You can’t win an argument with a flat Earther. They refuse logic. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/22 "2025-10-03T02:01:45Z")
No mention of Erasthones? He hired a guy to pace out (a professional besmatist - my word of the day) the distance between Alexandria and Syene (Aswsan) and arrived at a measure about or less than 2% off. A good deal of that likely has to do with the earth being fat and elliptical in the middle, but it probably wasn’t till Kepler that elliptical orbits and “not everything is (circle/spherical) round but nothing is flat” became the going thought and everything made sense. ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_Maven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_maven/32/3272_2.png) [@Steven\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Maven)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/23 "2025-10-03T15:37:34Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > You can’t win an argument with a flat Earther. They refuse logic. You can’t use reason to convince anyone out of an argument that they didn’t use reason to get into. —Neil deGrasse Tyson ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/24 "2025-10-03T15:40:32Z")
Eratosthenes did not prove a round Earth. You can assume a flat Earth and using his measure and trig get a height for the Sun (IIRC about 3600 miles). BUT if you were to change the distance between the rods, you would get a different height for the Sun and it is **that** that would disprove the flat Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/25 "2025-10-03T17:37:11Z")
99% flat earthers are internet trolls, and the other 1% want to be included in anything enough to believe anything. So ‘disproving’ an Internet joke, even a dumb one only a few seem to be in on, keeps it going. Thanks Neil. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/26 "2025-10-03T19:08:54Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > 99% flat earthers are internet trolls, and the other 1% want to be included in anything enough to believe anything. This being FQ and all, I’m sure you have a cite for this. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2025, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/27 "2025-10-04T16:54:29Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The alternative would be that the shadows are caused by mountain ranges, hills, etc. But then you would need a sun that’s lower to Earth than most hills. It would basically need to be practically rolling on the surface. Another demonstration is that near sunset you can see the sun reflected from the bottom of an airplane’s wings. But, hell, sunset is impossible on a flat earth. They say it happens because the sun gets far away, but can’t explain why the sun is still as big during sunset as it is at noon - bigger due to refraction, actually. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Flat Earth mode: They’re all CGI because one NASA guy mentioned they stitch together individual photos in Photoshop to give the full image. Especially the ones done before CGI was invented. > [@filmore](#): > > I read someone say a good way to put some cracks in the flat-earther’s belief system is to ask why the edges of the Earth aren’t monetized. If the Earth really was flat, it would be an awesome place to visit. There would be cruises that went to the edge and resorts where you could stay with an edge view. NASA’s penguins keep everyone away. And a lot of them don’t believe in edges. You see, beyond the ice wall there are all kinds of lost civilizations, like Lemuria. I’ve seen there maps - reminds me of bad 1920s lost civilization novels. > [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > For both versions, point out that the only way to get from a city near the Equator on the left-most edge of the map to a city near the Equator on the right-most edge of the map is to travel across the entire planet, a distance of approximately 24,000 miles. Then look up the flying time between those 2 cities. It will be only a few hours. Their explanation - tail winds. Both ways. Oy. > [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Now we seem to have gained the full on conspiracy theorists/nutters. That becomes religion. Almost all the flat earthers I’ve heard are fundamentalist Christians, who believe the Bible says the earth is flat and so it must be so. The reverse is not true. I watched a video where the creationist group Answers in Genesis made fun of flat earthers. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/28 "2025-10-15T13:28:38Z")
Even among fundamentalist Christians, the number of true flat earth believers is vanishingly small. The number of them is wildly exaggerated because of the plethora of “look at these dumbass hillbillies” quasi-documentaries available online. These videos are popular because the average person can look down these willfully ignorant people. Most evangelicals accept that the earth is round. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/29 "2025-10-16T05:44:45Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Most evangelicals accept that the earth is round. Religious leaders seem to object to scientific discoveries that make them seem less important. As God’s second in command on earth, the larger his universe, the smaller the earth. If earth has existed for billions of years an individual is a smaller part than if it has only been around 10,000. You will often hear ‘My grandfather was not a monkey.’. A round earth has knowable limits. with a flat earth, it is difficult to know how far it really is to the edge. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/30 "2025-10-16T22:25:40Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > You can’t use reason to convince anyone out of an argument that they didn’t use reason to get into. > > —Neil deGrasse Tyson You can’t win an argument with a slave who refuses to acknowledge their shackles. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/31 "2025-10-17T11:28:33Z")
Their argument is as easy to refute as giving them a pair of binoculars and suggesting they look at the moon… Because flat earth, at least in its modern incarnation, seems to also claim that the moon (and other celestial bodies) are just blobs of light and not solid. For the minority that believe the moon is solid, a telescope showing moons orbiting jupiter would do it, though that’s slightly more set up. Most of the big names in flat earth, like Dubay, Weiss, Oakley are grifters, pure and simple. Hence why they turned down the trip to antarctica. But there are true believers too, and even though there are a million ways their beliefs could be refuted in an instant, it doesn’t matter if they don’t want to hear it. They want to continue to feel special, continue logging on to bitchute or whatever and being told that they’re right. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/32 "2025-10-17T12:18:47Z")
Consider me an enthusiast. If the flat earth therory is right, what is on the other side? (Googles a little bit - does my own research… realises, ah, fuck, it is Australia) I was promised a giant turtle, and instead I got a continent infested with animals trying to kill me! ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/33 "2025-10-17T14:19:12Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > I was promised a giant turtle, and instead I got a continent infested with animals trying to kill me! Well, it’s turtles all the way down. But they are trying to kill you, so that still holds. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2025, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/34 "2025-10-18T16:31:04Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Most of the big names in flat earth, like Dubay, Weiss, Oakley are grifters, pure and simple. Hence why they turned down the trip to antarctica. I just saw a video from Dubay where he claimed that nuclear weapons don’t exist, and the footage of bomb tests with the buildings blown up were all faked, the mushroom cloud created by lots of high explosives. He didn’t go into what happened in Hiroshima or Nagasaki or where the Bikini atoll went. The accusation of grifterhood seems accurate. He no doubt makes more off flat earth than as a yoga instructor. > [@scudsucker](#): > > Consider me an enthusiast. If the flat earth therory is right, what is on the other side? There is no other side. Many of these people think the land beyond the ice wall goes on forever. With infinite resources the evil powers that be are keeping from us. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2025, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501/35 "2025-10-18T17:11:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > the mushroom cloud created by lots of high explosives. To be fair to the idiot, mushroom clouds are easy to recreate. A bottle-top full of burning wax, when adding a few drops of water, will create a metre high mushroom cloud. (Look, it was boarding school, we got bored) But a mushroom cloud is in no way indicative of the explosives. Stupidity, apparently mushrooms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-flat-earth/1023501.md?page=1)