The turf war over science education recently took a new turn. Marilyn Teed told the Methacton School District, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that it was teaching what could be an outright lie: that Earth is a sphere. She then explained, in all seriousness, her case that Earth is actually flat.
I’m going to defend Teed, but only to a degree.
I won’t defend Teed about the shape of Earth. Earth is obviously spherical. I will spare all of us a review of the evidence. I will defend Teed, however, by pointing out that from the perspective of flat-earthers, her petition for less spherical Earth dogma in science education seems entirely reasonable. Her attempt to revise science education, after all, runs parallel to attempts made by other pseudoscientific communities.