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The material frames each topic—such as a flat or hollow Earth, expanding Earth, magnetic explanations, doubts about Moon landings, fabricated dinosaur fossils, and disputed flood or Atlantis narratives—using critical thinking to evaluate evidence. 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PROT HERO  \nThis book is a publication of  \nRed Lightning Books 1320 East 10th Street  \nBloomington, Indiana 47405 USA [redlightningbooks.com](redlightningbooks.com)  \n© 2020 by Donald R. Prothero All rights reserved  \nNo part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper  \nused in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992 .  \nManufactured in the United States of America First printing 2020  \nISBN 978-1-68435-061-2 (hdbk.)  \nISBN 978-1-68435-136-7 (web PDF)  \nThis book is dedicated to the great geologists who trained me and inspired me:  \nHarry Cook Mike Woodburne  \nMike Murphy Lewis Cohen Peter Sadler Paul Robinson Wally Broecker Neil Opdyke  \nDennis Kent  \nBill Ryan Walter Pitman Rich Schweickert  \nLarry DeMott Dewey Moore Bob Dott  \nCONTENTS  \nForeword ix  \nPreface xiii  \nAcknowledgments xv  \n1 Science and Critical Thinking 1  \n2 The Flat Earth 22  \n3 Ptolemy Revisited 41  \n4 The Hollow Earth 60  \n5 Is the Earth Expanding? 73  \n6 Did We Really Land on the Moon? 81  \n7 Magnetic Myths 96  \n8 Earth-Shaking Myths 102  \n9 Quacks and Quakes 109  \n10 Was There a Great Flood? 117  \n11 Are Dinosaurs Faked? 145  \n12 Is the Earth Only Six Thousand Years Old? 152  \n13 Mysteries of Mount Shasta 167  \n14 The Myth of Atlantis 178  \n15 The Mysterious Ley Lines 190  \n16 Crystal Con Artists 201  \n17 Water Witching 216  \n18 Mysterious Earth: Why People Want to Believe Weird Things 228  \nNotes 249  \nFor Further Reading 265  \nIndex 273  \nFOREWORD: ROMANCING THE STONE  \nThe book you hold in your hands by my friend and colleague Donald Prothero is one of the most captivating you will ever read. Once you start in, you won’tbe able to put it down as you will be constantly amazed by what strange ideas people have about our planet. I’ve been studying weird beliefs for over a quarter century, and in reading this book I was still stunned by what some members of my species think about earth, including that it is at the center of the universe, that it is only six thousand years old, that all those dinosaur fossils are faked, that it is a giant magnet, that it is flat, that it is hollow, that it is constantly expanding, that we never visited its moon, that there are mysterious ley lines around it directing the planet’s energies, and that there was once an ancient advanced civilization on it called Atlantis.  \nOn this last claim, on May 16, 2017, I spent nearly four hours on Joe Rogan’s wildly popular podcast debating an alternative archaeologist named Graham Hancock, who believes that long before ancient Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Egypt there existed an even more glorious civilization that was so thoroughly wiped out by a comet strike around twelve thousand years ago that nearly all evidence of its existence vanished, leaving only the faintest of traces that he thinks include a cryptic warning that such a celestial catastrophe could happen to us.  \nHancock has put forth variations on this general theme in numerous well-written and best-selling books, including Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth’s Lost Civilization (1995), The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind (1997), Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization (2002), Magicians of the Gods (2015), and most recently America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization (2019) . I listened to the audio editions of Magicians of the Gods and America Before, both read by the author, whose British accent and breathless revelatory storytelling style is, I confess, compelling. But is it true? I’m skeptical. As I explained in my June 2017 column in Scienti","cbCaikzZa1NejB1U","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaikzZa1NejB1U","pdf",6374618,314,"English","# Foreword\n## Romancing the Stone\n# 1 Science and Critical Thinking\n# 2 The Flat Earth\n# 3 Ptolemy Revisited\n# 4 The Hollow Earth\n# 5 Is the Earth Expanding?\n# 6 Did We Really Land on the Moon?\n# 7 Magnetic Myths\n# 8 Earth-Shaking Myths\n# 9 Quacks and Quakes\n# 10 Was There a Great Flood?\n# 11 Are Dinosaurs Faked?\n# 12 Is the Earth Only Six Thousand Years Old?\n# 13 Mysteries of Mount Shasta\n# 14 The Myth of Atlantis\n# 15 The Mysterious Ley Lines\n# 16 Crystal Con Artists\n# 17 Water Witching\n# 18 Mysterious Earth: Why People Want to Believe Weird Things\n# Notes\n# For Further Reading\n# Index","[{\"question\":\"What is the main purpose of Weird Earth?\",\"answer\":\"The book debunks strange and persistent ideas people have about Earth by applying critical thinking and evidence-based evaluation.\"},{\"question\":\"Which types of claims does the book address?\",\"answer\":\"It covers misconceptions such as a flat or hollow Earth, Earth expanding, magnetic myths, doubts about Moon landings, alleged fake dinosaur fossils, and narratives involving floods, ley lines, and Atlantis.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the foreword set up the book’s skeptical approach?\",\"answer\":\"The foreword contrasts captivating alternative theories with skepticism, including a discussion and debate involving Graham Hancock presented on a popular podcast.\"}]","Weird Earth - Debunking Strange Ideas About Our Planet | PDF",1790031454,484]