Recently, a number of prominent sports stars as well as flat-Earth-believing organizations have been gaining a huge spike in media attention in what can only be described as a renaissance of the flat Earth movement.
The explanation for the start of this development is quite simple: Several former and current NBA players came out recently as the Earth is flat. In other words, they believe that it is impossible to travel from the North to South poles by going around the Earth due to an impassable ice wall surrounding Antarctica.
Their reasoning looks totally sound, though. In fact, retired star NBA player Shaquille O’Neal stated in late March, “When I’m in my bus and I drive from Florida to California, which I do every summer, it seems to be flat. When I’m in my plane, and we’re getting ready to land, and I open up the window, and I’m looking at all the land that we’re flying over, it seems to be flat.”
While O’Neal might seem like an isolated case, the sheer number of NBA players who agree with the outrageous claim of flat Earth is quite surprising. In fact, Warriors’ Draymond Green, Nuggets’ Wilson Chandler and Cavaliers’ Kyrie Irving have made similar statements speaking in support of the idea that the Earth is not shaped like a basketball.
Unfortunately, these flat-Earthers are flat out wrong — like the namesake item for their favorite sport, the Earth is in fact spherical.
In fact, well-known astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has formulated a response to Irving’s tweets.
“If he wants to think Earth is flat, go right ahead – as long as he continues to play basketball and not become head of any space agencies,” Tyson said on Twitter. “My point is if you have certain limitations of understanding of the natural world, stay away from jobs that require that.”
Tyson’s passive-aggressive comments are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the backlash these players have received for their comments.
Saying that “we just care that when Kyrie has the ball that the ball is round and not flat,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich took a stab at the player and his scientific inaccuracies on an improvised interview with MTV.
With all these flat-Earthers appearing out of the woodwork recently, it begs the question: Is ball really life?