They believed the earth is flat and the center of the universe.

A remnant of the ignorant dark ages, when people knew nothing about how the world works. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.” When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. My answer to him was, 'John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time. (There is very little that is new to me I wish my correspondents would realize this.) This particular theme was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. 'If I am the wisest man,' said Socrates, 'it is because I alone know that I know nothing.' The implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.Īlas, none of this was new to me.

The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern 'knowledge' is that it is wrong.

“The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong.

The earth is flat