How many people knew that Earth is spherical in different ages?

Question

For the umpteenth time, I'm reading in some book (no intention to pillory the authors here) that, say, 500 years ago people believed in a flat Earth, since, in the author's opinion, there is no apparent evidence of it being spherical. This is of course false, especially speaking about 500 years ago, when people built globes, circumnavigated Earth and so on. But it was, more or less, common-ish knowledge well before that: Dante describes how he and Virgil rotated their posture around the center of Earth, Aristotle wrote about it, ancient Greeks in general observed masts before hulls and measured the radius of Earth, and so on.

My question is: assuming that that author referred not to humanity as a whole but to the “average” person, would they be right? Is it possible to estimate which fraction of humanity knew about Earth being spherical in different ages?

500 years ago people believed in a flat Earth, since, in the author's opinion --- Are you sure the author isn't talking about the general population (for example, what 90% of the population believed) rather than a relatively small percentage of the population who were more enlightened and educated? Given only what you've said, the author could have been spot-on. On the other hand, I think "spherical" intended as a natural language word seems appropriate here for the context. — Dave L Renfro, Jun 28 '21 at 14:52
@DaveLRenfro: Yes, that's what I meant by “assuming that that author referred not to humanity as a whole but to the ‘average’ person, would they be right?”. Understanding whether that is a meaningful interpretation is part of the point of my question, since I don't know if that percentage was actually 80%, or rather 20% or 99%. — DaG, Jun 28 '21 at 14:56
OK, guilty -- it seems I didn't read your entire question before making my comment! — Dave L Renfro, Jun 28 '21 at 14:58
What is humanity as a whole and what is the average person? Isnt humanity as a whole a collection of average persons? — Deschele Schilder, Jul 12 '21 at 17:01
The question may be completely meaningless because most people didn't ever need to have a belief of any sort in the shape of the earth. In an era where many people never travelled beyond the town they were born in why would anyone even bother to think about the shape of the planet beyond that? — matt_black, Aug 23 '22 at 12:57
@matt_black: It might well be as you say, but on the other hand, in an era (the present one) where many people never travel beyond the planet they were born in, many people are nevertheless interested in, and know something about, what is beyond. I'm not saying at all that the same held in past centuries (probably it didn't), but only that your argument isn't exactly bulletproof. — DaG, Aug 23 '22 at 13:14
@dag In the modern world the majority of people have some education. Which tends to inculcate some degree of curiosity. In the more ancient world, few were educated at all. Those who were curious might have sought knowledge and, if the did, would have picked up the views of the educated. But the rest, I suspect, would not have been curious enough to speculate about the shape of the planet or, even, the existence of the planet beyond their immediate neighbourhood. — matt_black, Aug 23 '22 at 13:25

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 29 '21 at 07:11

In Medieval European and Muslim societies the educated believed in a spherical Earth, and there were very few geographical works which took biblical descriptins of a flat Earth seriously.

However, it is of course uncertain how much that knowledge penetrated to the lesser educated members of society.

As far as I know, nobody in the Americas, not even in the most advanced civilizations, believed in a spherical Earth until the coming of Europeans.

I lack knowledge of whether the educated elite people in African societies, except for Muslim and Christian societies, believed in a spherical Earth.

I lack knowledge of whether south Asians believed in a spherical Earth.

In East Asia, apparently there was no knowledge of a spherical Earth until Jesuit missionaries introduced the concept at the Ming dynasty court about 1600.

In recent centuries education has spread so that at the present almost every child gets some education. And in recent centuries Europeans travelled everywhere and colonised most of the world and had big influences on uncolonized countries, which included spreading modern technological and scientific knowledge.

So if I had to guess, I might guess that in the year 1800 a minority of the world's population knew of a spheriodal Earth, and in the year 2000 the vast majority of the world population know of a spherical Earth.

And see answers at: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/54196/when-did-the-spherical-shape-of-the-earth-become-common-knowledge[1]

How many people knew that Earth is spherical in different ages?

1 Answers1