Quote:
Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile
There was once 'broad scientific consensus' that; the earth was flat; that asbestos was harmless & that saturated fat caused heart disease.
We don't live in an age of science, we live in an age of big business and politics.
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As I understand it, it was never widely accepted that the earth was flat among the educated, at least in recorded history. The Greeks measured its size well before Christ, and one of the reasons Christopher Columbus had difficulty in getting funding for finding another route to India was that the size of the world was known, and therefore it was known that crossing the Atlantic would take longer (nevermind that nobody knew if there would be any landmass in the way).