Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
December 12, 2018
The Salton Sea Flat Earth Test: When Skeptics Meet Deniers 
Wikipedia — The Flammarion engraving (1888) depicts a traveler who arrives at the edge of a flat Earth and sticks his head through the firmament.
Back in the 1970s when organized science-based skepticism was just getting on its feet, someone such as The Amazing Randi or Joe Nickell could just investigate and solve mysteries such as spoon bending, Bigfoot, crop circles, or the Roswell crash and share the information in Skeptical Inquirer magazine or with Johnny Carson. With a little care and attention, most wacky claims were debunked and the conclusions disseminated.
Today, skeptics fight not only false assertions and misinterpretation of facts but also a fundamental distrust of science and a deep-seated paranoia about reputable institutions lying to the entire culture. As formidable as these issues are alone, they become exponentially worse because the spreaders of all this bad information have at their fingertips massive reach. Such is the case with flat earthers.
On Sunday, June 10, 2018, about a dozen pro-science skeptics from the Independent Investigations Group (IIG) at the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles met a similar-sized group of flat earthers to demonstrate the curvature of the earth across the Salton Sea, a troubled body of salty water 160 miles southeast of Los Angeles, whose water level is going down and salinity is going up. There is also toxic dust from nearby agriculture that is polluting the air in the area. National Geographic Explorer was there to video the encounter.
Though flat-earther models vary significantly, many believe water, like the rest of the planet, is flat. Assuming clear enough air and a powerful enough telescope, they believe a person standing near the water on one shore can see someone standing on another shore miles away. In fact, Earth’s curve makes an av
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Them All!
