Carl Sagan — "The notion that the pre-Copernican Earth was flat is a common misconception."
The notion that the pre-Copernican Earth was flat is a common misconception.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Carl Sagan
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle…"
"The price we pay for the suppression of doubt is that we can never be sure of anything."
"I don't want to believe. I want to know."
"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide …"
"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingl…"
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
The quote corrects a widespread historical error: people before Copernicus did not generally believe Earth was flat. Ancient Greek scholars, including Eratosthenes, had calculated Earth's circumference centuries earlier. Medieval educated society accepted its spherical shape. The 'flat Earth Middle Ages' story is itself a fabrication, likely invented in the 19th century to portray religious thinkers as ignorant. Sagan insists that history must be understood accurately, not distorted to serve convenient cultural narratives.
Relevance to Carl Sagan
Sagan dedicated his career to dismantling myths and correcting scientific misinformation. His landmark series Cosmos (1980) and The Demon-Haunted World (1995) both emphasized critical thinking and historical accuracy. He understood that misrepresenting how past civilizations viewed nature distorts public perception of science itself. Defending genuine astronomical history was deeply personal; he revered Eratosthenes' achievement and refused to let it be erased by a convenient story casting all pre-modern people as ignorant.
The era
During Sagan's lifetime, a narrative of inevitable conflict between science and religion portrayed the medieval church as enforcing flat-Earth ignorance. This framing dominated popular textbooks through the 1960s–80s. Historians like Jeffrey Burton Russell were actively debunking the myth in the late 1980s–90s. Simultaneously, the space age reshaped how the public understood Earth's place in the cosmos, making historical accuracy about humanity's prior conceptions of Earth's shape especially culturally resonant.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].