FE Meme
William Shatner Said Earth Is Flat?
#298: William Shatner said he was taught in science class that Earth is flat, so celebrity testimony backs flat-Earth teaching.
The Meme
Quote card with garbled attribution to William Shatner dated 4-15-2017 claiming science class taught a flat Earth.
Why It Spreads
A named Star Trek captain on a clean quote card looks like insider testimony rather than a meme template. Fans who already distrust institutions share it as a gotcha about classroom science without checking whether Shatner ever said the line on the record.
What It Gets Wrong
The card attributes a flat-Earth classroom story to William Shatner with a specific 2017 date, but no verified interview, transcript, or primary source backs the wording shown in the meme layout. Quote cards are share templates, not geodesy instruments. Eratosthenes-style shadow geometry C ≈ (360°/θ) × D, lunar eclipse shadows, and southern-star field rotation still predict a spheroid when replicated openly. TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Does Not Matter and TestTheGlobe's Two-Stick Shadow Experiment walk through the observations and predictions this image skips.
The Debunk
A misattributed celebrity quote card is not a curvature measurement; open shadow-angle and eclipse tests still predict a near-spherical Earth. Treating a meme attribution as classroom evidence is inconsistent with verifiable sources. Use TestTheGlobe's Eratosthenes Earth Size to compare the meme's claim with a measurable prediction.
- TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Does Not Matter: the Shatner quote card is a share template with no linked primary source, not a repeatable measurement.
- TestTheGlobe's Two-Stick Shadow Experiment: noon shadow angles between cities still yield C ≈ (360°/θ) × D near 40000 km without citing any celebrity panel.
- The meme's dated attribution does not match a documented Shatner statement in open archives, so the card is a fake-quote graphic, not testimony.
- TestTheGlobe's Eratosthenes Earth Size: anyone can replicate the geometry the quote card skips using two sticks and a shared UTC instant.