My friends posit that the truth is defined by popular opinion. (Eg. If "truth" is redefined by the majority of people, then we could call anything true)
I suggest that the truth is true, even if no one believes it. (Eg. the world never was flat, even though a lot of people believed it to be)

My friends posit that the truth is defined by popular opinion. (Eg. If "truth" is redefined by the majority of people, then we could call anything true)

I suggest that the truth is true, even if no one believes it. (Eg. the world never was flat, even though a lot of people believed it to be)

Also, take the example that you used: the world is not flat, but hundreds of years ago, it was a "fact" that it WAS flat.

The Myth of the Flat Earth or Flat Earth mythology refers to the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical. During the early Middle Ages, many scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was essentially dead. Flat-Earth models were in fact held at earlier (pre-medieval) times, before the spherical model became commonly accepted in Hellenistic astronomy.

According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of “flat earth darkness” among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology." David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers also write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."

In 1945 the Historical Association listed "Columbus and the Flat Earth Conception" second of twenty in its first-published pamphlet on common errors in history.[4]

For instance, the Historical Association said that the #2 biggest myth in history is that many Europeans believed the Earth was flat, and historians Stephen Jay Gould and Ronald Numbers said that this was never believed by Christian scholars of Europe

Now professor at Harvard University and curator of its Museum of Comparative Zoology, Gould attended Antioch College, then returned to Manhattan, for graduate work in paleontology at Columbia University. For his doctoral thesis he investigated variation and evolution in an obscure Burmudian land snail, anchoring his later theorizing in intense scrutiny of a single group of organisms, as Darwin had done with Barnacles.

Stephen Jay Gould is not a historian.

Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was a prominent American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the latter years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University near his home in SoHo.

Gould began his higher education at Antioch College, graduating with an undergraduate degree in geology in 1963. During this time, he also studied abroad at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. After completing his graduate work at Columbia University in 1967 under the guidance of Norman Newell, he was immediately hired by Harvard University where he worked until the end of his life (1967–2002). In 1973, Harvard promoted him to Professor of Geology and Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the institution's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and in 1982, Harvard awarded him with the title of Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology. In 1983, he was awarded fellowship into the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where he later served as president (1999–2001). The AAAS news release cited his "numerous contributions to both scientific progress and the public understanding of science." He also served as president of the Paleontological Society (1985–1986) and the Society for the Study of Evolution (1990–1991). In 1989, Gould was elected into the body of the National Academy of Sciences. Through 1996–2002 Gould was Vincent Astor Visiting Research Professor of Biology at New York University. In 2001, the American Humanist Association named him the Humanist of the Year for his lifetime of work. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal, along with 12 other recipients. Until 2008, this medal had been awarded every 50 years by the Linnean Society of London. Begining in 2009, it will be an annual award.

As you're a teacher, I'd thought you'd appreciate being taught something that would avoid your students learning inacurate information.

Various cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including ancient Babylon, Egypt, pre-Classical Greece and pre-17th century China. The modern belief that especially medieval Christianity believed in a flat earth has been referred to as The Myth of the Flat Earth.[1] In 1945, it was listed by the Historical Association (of Britain) as the second of 20 in a pamphlet on common errors in history.[2] Recent scholarship finds that since about the 3rd century BC, virtually no educated person in Western civilization has believed in a flat Earth.[1][3] In China, belief in a flat earth was dominant until the arrival of the Jesuits in the seventeenth century.

It is amusing and annoying that you assume my ignorance on such matters.

But if we are using wikipedia as a source (which I DO NOT allow my students to use), read the source you just cited:

Various cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including ancient Babylon, Egypt, pre-Classical Greece and pre-17th century China. The modern belief that especially medieval Christianity believed in a flat earth has been referred to as The Myth of the Flat Earth.[1] In 1945, it was listed by the Historical Association (of Britain) as the second of 20 in a pamphlet on common errors in history.[2] Recent scholarship finds that since about the 3rd century BC, virtually no educated person in Western civilization has believed in a flat Earth.[1][3] In China, belief in a flat earth was dominant until the arrival of the Jesuits in the seventeenth century.

Also, take the example that you used: the world is not flat, but hundreds of years ago, it was a "fact" that it WAS flat.

Thank you.

and all attempts to push on a rope are futile.

I don't assume anything.

I still don't see why it is annoying, unless you don't like finding out that you don't know everything. I only found this out on POF.

But if we are using wikipedia as a source (which I DO NOT allow my students to use), read the source you just cited:

That's entirely a correct approach to take in high school teaching methods, [. . .] but not that which is in the wider world. I imagine that your country has a national curriculum as well, which would mean that using any source from the internet would be entirely contradictory to the national curriculum.

I acknowledge that some countries did believe in a Flat Earth, and I thank you for pointing that out to me. However, that makes it a "fact" held by those societies. [. . .] It is a FACT that SOME societies believed the Earth was flat. But it was NOT a FACT hundreds of years ago. It was a FACT of some societies.

If not, then since in 1776, people in England believed that America belonged to the Crown, then we could say that that in 1776, it was a FACT that America belonged to the Crown. I doubt you would teach your students that, just that it was a FACT to English people. I would therefore suggest that you teach your students in the same way as you would want them to learn about America.

FYI, if being informed really annoys you, just state so, and I'll avoid informing you about anything in future. I'd rather you live without the benefits of knowledge than have me upset you.