Fixedearth.com

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Fixedearth.com is a website owned by a so-called "Non-Moving Earth and Anti-Evolution Foundation". It is primarily the work of one-time teacher and fundie wingnut Marshall Hall (1931–2013), who according to the site was peddling his own peculiar brand of extremist horseshit from 1973 until his death in 2013. His wife, Bonnie Hall, pledged to maintain the site after his death.

The site claims that it is "Exposing the False Science Idol of Evolutionism, and Proving the Truthfulness of the Bible from Creation to Heaven" and says it has uncovered "scientific evidence" confirmed by a literal interpretation of the Bible that the Earth is actually the center of the universe (meaning the Sun and all planets revolve around the earth). Moreover, Hall denied that other stars and exoplanets even exist – he considered the theory that the universe is 15 billion light years across to be a "Kabbalist lie", stating that the universe is not much larger than our own solar system. When faced with the mountain of evidence to the contrary gathered by space telescopes such as Hubble and Kepler, his response was to haughtily claim the telescopes are "phony". For only $400 plus $20 shipping, you can own a copy of his "undisputable evidence" yourself.

Contents

[edit] Style

The site now has been updated with a new, professional look.

[edit] Michelson–Morley

This site argues that the Earth is completely still. It is neither orbiting the Sun, nor rotating on its axis. Its strongest "evidence" for this seems to be the Michelson–Morley experiment -- which set out to discover Luminiferous Ether, and found nothing (to within experimental error). The site proposes that these experiments can be re-interpreted as meaning the Earth is completely unmoving. The Ether was there, but couldn't be detected by the experiment because Michelson and Morley presumed that the Earth was moving relative to the Ether.

Modern astronomy has produced ample data in support of the cosmological principle, which states that there is no special, privileged point of observation in the universe. Conversely, it implies that we can arbitrarily pick any point as the "center" of the universe, since any choice is as good as any other. Because of this, the site is able to quote various astronomers or physicists who aren't crackpots but acknowledge that there is no reason in principle not to treat the Earth in this way. However the author of Fixedearth.com feels the need to explain:

Note: I do not accept this compromise approach. One Model must be a lie, and you can know--as anyone can--which Model that is!

[edit] Satellites

Under the mistaken assumption (perhaps as a result of combing through poorly written patent applications) that satellites are a mixture of prograde and retrograde without differentiation the site argues that their apparent relative motion is in fact their real "absolute" motion. ie geostationary satellites are in fact simply stationary, the GPS satellite are in fact orbiting the Earth exactly once per day (rather than twice) and so on. The rare retrograde (mostly remote sensing or covert military) satellites are therefore assumed to be going much faster than they actually are. No explanation for how this is possible is apparently warranted. The proposed mechanism by which the multi-tonne geostationary satellites remain perched motionless above the Earth is electromagnetic, but apparently implemented by God, so no need to look for any enormous electromagnets in equatorial South America... Gravity is apparently OK for the other satellites though.

[edit] Religion

Written by a lunatic way-beyond-fringe Christian. Over and above any actual evidence for an unmoving Earth (clue: there isn't any), the site relies principally on quote mining the Bible, finding generous "literal" readings of fairy tales written for a different audience over two thousand years ago. It's got a pretty uncompromising position on the Bible that most Christians won't like, arguing that the New Testament is subsidiary, etc. It's also very hostile to Kabbalah, which it sees as a Jewish conspiracy supporting a modern heliocentric view of the universe. Indeed, much of the website – for example, a particularly ugly page minimalizing the Holocaust – displays some very heavily implied anti-Semitism. Although the original author, Marshall Hall, died in 2013, his equally loathsome wife Bonnie pledged to continue spreading his lies and denialism.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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