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From: George Huxtable (no email)
Date: Mon Nov 03 2003 - 12:37:59 EST
There's a nice flat-Earth story told by my favourite traveller, Joshua Slocum.
In South Africa in 1897, by which time his circumnavigation was largely
completed, a group of three Boer geographers tried to convince him that the
Earth was flat. Even his Mercator charts of his voyage (being flat also)
failed to convince them. Later, he was introduced to President Kruger of
Transvaal who, it turned out, shared those same views, and when Slocum
explained his voyage, dismissed it as simply impossible.
A remarkable example of minds closed to the facts by an awful combination
of racial, intellectual, and religious bigotry, in my view.
I would hope that few flat-Earthers now remain since publication of
photographs of the Earth from space. But there exist many other matters, in
which facts and arguments are dismissed by unreceptive intolerance.
Of course, my own reasoned rejection of an argument is on a much higher
plane than the bigotry and intolerance of others. I think.
George.
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contact George Huxtable by email at , by phone at
01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy
Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
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