Shadowing Practice: Flat Earthers vs Scientists: Can We Trust Science? | Middle Ground - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hey guys, welcome back to Middle Ground.
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Before we jump in, we've got a huge announcement.
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A lot of folks have been asking for this for years.
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We're finally giving you the first ever Jubilee podcast called Radical Empathy.
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That's right, we are really proud and excited to share it with you guys.
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It actually features an interview with somebody in this episode.
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So stick around until the end and we'll tell you more about it.
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For now, enjoy the episode.
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The one on my right, Sphere.
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If you think that is the shape of the Earth, point to it now.
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If you think the other model is the shape of the Earth, we're going to end up.
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Three, two, one, zero.
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All engines running.
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Liftoff.
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We have a liftoff.
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32 minutes past the hour.
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Liftoff on Apollo 11.
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One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
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What do you think the shape of the Earth is?
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Um, I don't think.
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I know for a fact it's a globe.
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The earth is flat.
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It's like we have this picture of reality that's a big puzzle piece, and then one of those pieces just wasn't fitting.
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I'm always open to having a discussion with someone who is holding a wrong belief like this.
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Are you willing to change your mind?
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I'm not.
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The evidence is so much.
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Nobody wants to be a flat earther, but if you showed me incontrovertible evidence, I would definitely go back.
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Who wants to ridicule?
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where are you going to be getting the discussion with the other side of them?
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I'd like to tear them to pieces.
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I'm Jim Underdown, executive director of the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles and the chair of the CFI Investigations Group.
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I'm Spencer Marks, one of the senior members of the CFI investigations group, science advocate.
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I'm Alina Yeri, I'm a theoretical physicist and I'm with the University of Erwine.
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I'm Wendell Walton, I'm a chief learning officer for Young Startup.
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I'm Shelley Lewis, I'm a graduate of West Point, critical thinker and jumped out of airplanes.
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My name is Dan Glattman, I work as Dan the Waterman in the drinking water filtration industry and I'm a truth seeker.
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I get my flat earth on the left and my low earth on the right.
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Only step forward if this is true for you.
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I believe the earth was created by a higher power.
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Well, I've been a Christian for 30 years, so the Bible is a flat earth book.
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You have to take it literally.
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Like, for example, in Isaiah, when it talks about how the earth is like a clay wax seal that's stamped with upturned edges,
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that's just not some fancy story.
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That's a simile.
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It is like.
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Right.
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Absolutely.
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And in Isaiah, it talks about, too, and I'm a Christian, he who sits upon the circle of the earth.
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There's a difference between a circle and a ball.
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Well, exactly.
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If you look at the original Hebrew, it means disk.
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There's over 200 scriptures in the Bible that point to a flat earth.
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So this notion that you need God or some higher power to create the earth or the universe
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is very old and was initially posited by people of a pre-scientific age.
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Since then, we have learned quite a bit about the universe coming into existence, when that happened.
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Modern humans don't get their cosmology, they don't get their physics, they don't get their knowledge of the universe from the Bible or any ancient text.
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It's sort of like the God of the gaps.
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People used to believe that lightning was God's wrath and throwing these lightning bolts, but once we understood it was a natural process,
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God shrank a little bit more because now we couldn't attribute those lightning bolts to God.
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We had to attribute that to the real science.
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The other thing, the point about the Bible specifically for me, is why is that one particular text the correct one?
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You choose to believe that, and that's fine, but there's so many other writings and so many other books, so why weren't they correct?
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Why is just the Bible correct?
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Well, what you'll find in a lot of these ancient religions is they're all flat-earth religions.
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All their cosmology goes back to being a flat earth with an enclosed system.
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So it's not just the Bible that teaches this.
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It's many different religious books.
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So one problem I have is to trying to explain phenomena happen in nature by holy books.
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Those are religious books.
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Those are not books of science.
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and it is wrong to infer or deduct scientific readings out of those books.
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My name is Wendell.
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I am a logical, biblically-based, and scientific flat earther.
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I didn't start out, and no one starts out as a flat earther, but I had a lot of questions.
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So I actually got to the point where I had to go out and put my own eyeballs on it.
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So we went out to an observation at Salton Sea and things just didn't add up down there.
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So we've gone back probably a dozen times and I can guarantee you that there is no curvature over distance.
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The internet has played an important role in confirming my view of this topic.
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That's the problem.
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We have the advantage of information today that's outside of channels 2, 4 and 7 and the few networks that are corporately owned.
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It's pretty easy to say YouTube isn't research, but when you spend enough time you're picking up quite a bit.
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And with the discussion groups, panels, we've gone against opposition, we've opposed ourselves.
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surprisingly enough, Flat Earth is its own worst enemy.
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So it's not that easy for us to come to consensus, and we find that consensus is orchestrated and not actually scientific in any way.
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You know, my grandfather used to tell me growing up, never believe anything you read in the newspaper, right?
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He told that to me.
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Now, with the age of the Internet, it's like, you know, how much of this misinformation are you getting there?
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And when you have, like, eyewitnesses taking video of something, But you do have to take everything with a grain of salt.
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That's why, because of my multimedia background, I knew that all that stuff could be faked.
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Take it into Photoshop, take it into After Effects.
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Okay, this is at the core of the issue of why there are so many flat earth believers out there right now.
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The problem is, the information from someone who decides to start a website or produce a YouTube video is not reliable.
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When I have a toothache, I go to a dentist.
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My car breaks down, I go to a mechanic.
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When you have questions about cosmology, you should go to an astrophysicist, you should go to a physicist,
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you should go to people who have spent years and years studying these ideas.
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Not some six-minute YouTube video.
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There is a percentage of people that if they saw a YouTube video
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that was not within their scientific chops to refute on the face of it, would believe anything out there.
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One of the things I will say is NASA.gov has their own documents out there that we get to vet, which is through the Freedom of Information Act.
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And would you agree that NASA documents, if they're on display, that we should be able to go and research inside there?
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NASA is not proving that the Earth is flat.
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Well, they say it in 14 other documents.
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You should read what NASA says, and you should listen to what NASA says.
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I would love to see your NASA evidence that the Earth is flat.
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It's only their contradictory issues that bring us here.
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We're all familiar with the Earthrise photo, right?
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The Earth is rising over the moon.
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We're all familiar with it.
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It's NASA, you can go out to the NASA site, you can download the original, right?
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I already know what you're gonna ask.
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So, you bring up the luminance on it and you can see where it's cut out and pasted there.
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They're showing us doctored images that are clearly doctored.
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The blue marble is a very famous image from 1972.
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When you talk to the artist from NASA, his name is Robert Simmons, he talks about exactly how it was created from data and it's not a photograph whatsoever.
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He added clouds, Let me explain.
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He added a highlight of the sun.
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If you take, you know, on your phone, most phones have that panoramic image.
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When you do that, you're taking a series of pictures and the phone cleverly stitches that together.
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I'm just saying how it's presented.
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It's presented as a real photograph.
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So when NASA takes real photos and they either clean them up for color
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or they stitch them together so it's one large image, it doesn't mean they're CGI.
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You're talking about composites.
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I'm what you call a globe denier.
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You could even get me into a virtual construct if I can't find the borders myself.
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It appears to me to be a stationary plane as opposed to the vastness of infinity of space.
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I would find it to be an ice plane where we have a localized sun and our environment thrives there.
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You know, these particular people have misled us on television.
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This is a brilliant opportunity to speak.
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We've been suppressed, censored by mainstream media.
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Alternative media is just a thing of beauty for me.
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I view the other side as uneducated.
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I'm running.
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I'm running for this.
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Well, they certainly think they're educated.
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And they're following quite a bit of the university system, what we call scientism.
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Right, scientism.
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Obviously is the belief in what's written,
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where we tend to be exploring in the field with physical properties, not theories of any kind.
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We're using actual measurements that are calculated not by our guidelines, but the guidelines of science as we know it.
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I can only hope they're uneducated as opposed to disingenuous.
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Well, that's the other thing too, Because we know that on a large scale the government has been disingenuous and they're pushing a narrative, right?
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So it's hard for us.
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I mean, I'm sure that you've met people too.
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It's like, look, are you just, you haven't looked into it yet?
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Or are you a shill?
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Are you part of a disinformation campaign?
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I don't think you guys are uneducated.
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I think you're wrongly educated.
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I think the problem with what I've seen in the Flat Earth Crowd is that it's not that they're undereducated,
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but they, instead of looking at evidence and letting the evidence guide to where the ultimate conclusion is,
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they start with a conclusion and then they try to cherry pick evidence to support their pre-drawn conclusion.
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They cast away all the bits of evidence that actually is contrary to their beliefs.
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I think that you're very well educated as well as you are, Jim.
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Certainly Ali is.
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He's probably the best education of all of us.
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Exactly, and he paid for it too.
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But more and more professionals are coming on board.
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They're starting to question their reality.
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So the thing of it is, is once you start to really look, take a hard look at the evidence, and you are unafraid of just standing for the truth,
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wherever that may lead you, then people end up becoming flat earthers.
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What are we going to get in the discussion?
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I'm hoping to be able to tell our side of the story from the inside out.
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So many times, flat earthers are depicted from the outside in,
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and I want to be able to share with others empirical data that proves the earth is not what we've been told.
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I have changed my mind at some point about this topic.
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So when I was 12 years old, I went to space camp and I met Alan B.
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Shepard.
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Oh, nice.
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Yep, yep.
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And I wanted to be an astronaut and I wanted to be the first woman to walk the moon.
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So for me, I'm a Glober.
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I went into this completely wanting it to be true.
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And my husband told me he saw this thing about the fake moon landing.
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And I was like, you're absolutely crazy.
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no way that the moon landings are fake.
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And then in 2010, my husband was killed.
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And so I never really developed that until around 2014 when flat earth kind of came back up.
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And that little voice inside my head said, remember the fake moon landings?
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Remember when that was brought to my attention?
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And then I started really critically analyzing that.
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And I would say, you know, just looking at that evidence, if they can lie about the moon landings, they can certainly lie about pictures and satellites and other things.
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And so I started going down that rabbit hole of studying.
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So that was my influence from my husband.
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How many lies does it take to make a liar, right?
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Being ridiculed for being inquisitive is pretty tough on us.
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I wouldn't say that I've changed my mind because my mind isn't set.
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NASA is solely designed to change my mind.
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It is, from its inception, from its discovery, has been a television program,
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it's been a space program to sell us on something that they've yet to actually show us.
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Show me a globe spinning with clouds and a moon.
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Show me home, and I think I could shut up quite...
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Easily, I think I could shut up.
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The timing of your conversions is interesting to me.
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Twenty years ago, the flat earth world was tiny and insignificant.
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Enter the advent of the internet,
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YouTube, online discussion groups, all these new available places where you could find information about everything.
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This is true that the evidence as you looked were not robust evidence.
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And the sources you used, they were not reliable sources again.
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But my problem is that, and I like you guys that you are very skeptical, but at the same time you are not skeptical about your belief system.
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That should have come first.
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You think that that's my foundation for why I believe the Earth is flat.
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And I'm telling you, you're wrong.
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I have evidence that proves it's flat.
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What type of evidence here?
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What proves it's not a ball?
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What type of evidence?
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We're being misled.
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We're being deliberately misled by mainstream media.
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What's your evidence?
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We see too far.
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We see too far.
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We should not be able to see.
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I live in Dana Point.
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Okay.
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I can see San Clemente Island, which is 60 miles away. So what?
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What do you mean, so what?
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Oh, I'm on the beach.
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It's 11,000 feet tall.
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I'm on the beach.
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What do you mean by so what?
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I'm on the beach.
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Can you see a ship which is going?
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Oh yeah, let's talk about the ship that goes over the curvature of the Earth.
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I love that.
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So, science has said that when I see a ship go out of my field of view, it's going over the curvature of the Earth, correct?
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Yes.
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But then I bring my P900 up, and guess what?
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I can zoom it back in.
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Not all of the time.
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So is it going over the curvature of the Earth or not?
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No, you can't.
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Absolutely.
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Oh, not all the time?
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No, you can't.
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No, no, you don't see all the ship.
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The bottom part of the ship is hidden by the curvature.
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Yes.
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At that distance, you shouldn't see the top of it either. At all.
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If the Earth were truly flat, there would be really hardly any limit.
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You'd be able to stand at the top of the Empire State Building and look towards Chicago, a mere thousand miles away, and see the lights of Chicago at night.
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No, because you have an atmosphere of disturbance.
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Very thick.
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I've been into astronomy since I was 10.
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It's faulty logic.
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It's completely faulty logic.
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One of the big things I do is investigate extraordinary claims like flat eartherism or ESP or all sorts of different things.
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The earth is undoubtedly a globe and not flat.
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This is well supported by gobs of science.
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Scientific consensus is possible.
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Scientific consensus is possible.
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What is the question?
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I don't understand the question.
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Scientific consensus is possible.
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Possible?
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Anything is possible.
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I mean, anything is possible.
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I've got a tremendous issue with consensus and peer review.
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I've been spending a lot of time arguing with people that argue the other side.
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And I found that, surprisingly, consensus always wins.
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It was shocking to me that the group with the majority has an incredible advantage.
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as scientists, flat earthers, truthers, punks, we're at an incredible disadvantage.
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Let's talk about scientific consensus for a second.
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You're never going to get 100% of anyone.
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There is scientific consensus on a global earth, there's scientific consensus on evolution, a lot of big issues.
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Use the word theory.
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Do you know what a theory in science is an extremely...
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And a fact is a fact.
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Don't mistake this word theory.
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In science, it's not conjecture, it's not...
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It's an explanation.
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By definition, it's an explanation.
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It's a...
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Well, let's talk about a fact.
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Show me a fact, then.
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Why aren't all facts theories?
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In science, the word theory is the highest level that you can give something because it's so well supported.
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What about a fact?
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That is a fact.
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It's...
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It's not a fact you would call it a fact.
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Do you know why?
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Because in science there's always room for improvement.
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There's always room to find better, to tweak and find better information.
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So that is how science works.
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It gets better refined over time as opposed to flat earth theory which never gets refined.
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It simply is what it is.
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New ideas have limited access to media and limited exposure.
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Until we're in university curriculums we will continue to appear uneducated.
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Well that's not true.
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In the history of science we had many occasions that the idea was not welcomed by the society.
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Einstein was one of them.
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Galileo.
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Galileo was one of them.
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But if your theory is an authentic one,
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and it can go through this hardship of scientific method, eventually we'll win.
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I used to believe that science was after the truth, right?
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we all just want to know what the truth is.
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Science has been trying so hard to divorce itself from the idea of a creator, when God's intent was to create science to lead you to him.
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You know, sometimes things seem supernatural that we are able to explain later through, you know, science.
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Okay, I understand.
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But there are other things as well that are supernatural, that go beyond the natural,
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that we can always explain through believing in a creator, right?
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This is my big issue with science, scientific approach and non-scientific approach.
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You are absolutely right.
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In science, we are after the truth.
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And we are hoping by each day we're getting closer and closer to the truth.
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We never get there.
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Never.
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Well, I know that's true for you.
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And I know that's the science.
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That's that's you guys.
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You think you do have the truth.
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Now let's look at the evidences.
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As you were mentioning, you do have the conclusion.
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Let's find the evidence.
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Science doesn't work that way.
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That's not true.
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That is not true.
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Well, you are saying you are referring to Jesus, whom many billions of people do not believe, including myself.
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And many more billions do. So what?
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So who's right?
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Of course I can.
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When you say that we start with a conclusion and then try to match everything to make it work, that to me is complete dishonesty.
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That is not true at all.
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That is what you are doing right now.
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No, you're not.
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You're making that assumption.
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No. Which I think science says a lot of.
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So do you make assumptions or not?
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Does science make assumptions?
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Does science make assumptions?
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No, of course.
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Sure, we do make assumptions based on things that are well supported and proven and reproven.
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We don't have to.
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Show me how you isolate gravity.
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If gravity is an assumption, show me the scientific method how you isolate gravity.
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We've done the actual.
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After places, you can cool off.
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Yeah, sure. And reset.
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I just want to check in.
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How are you guys doing?
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How is this discussion going?
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I kind of feel like I want to develop some of this stuff a little bit more.
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It feels high level, but I feel like there's so much that I haven't really even touched base on.
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Well, I mean, I certainly didn't think that anybody on either side was going to flip.
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Well, there's still time.
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There is still time.
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I have hope for you, Wendell. And Shelley.
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I don't know about Dan.
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I have hope for you, too.
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But, you know, it's certainly, I'm glad it's a civil discussion, certainly.
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Oh, yeah.
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Put your water to the side, and then do another round.
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Hey, one more side.
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Good.
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He flipped!
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Wendell, welcome aboard.
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Walk on.
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The greatest moment in television history right there.
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Good day.
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All right.
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NASA is trustworthy.
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So, I mean, obviously any organization can be wrong with certain things, and they may have individuals that lie or deceive or something.
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But as a general organization, they're looking for the truth.
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Yeah.
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The idea that NASA and the government is lying to us about the shape of the Earth
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is the height of conspiracy theories.
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In order for this to be true,
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the literally hundreds of thousands of people who at some point over the last 50 or 60 years
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would have to be somewhat complicit in this, and nobody spills the beans at all,
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is on the face of it completely unbelievable.
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The private does not know what the general is doing.
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There's compartmentalization happening all the time. Of course.
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So it wouldn't be that far-fetched.
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Has the government ever lied to us is really the question at stake.
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We all agree on that.
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Yeah.
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But now we have a nasa.gov, right?
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And we, oh, absolutely, they're not lying about anything.
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They're completely transparent.
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Everything is true.
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We'd be foolish to think that's true.
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There's a difference here.
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I'm sorry.
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This is a fallacy here.
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Not a fallacy.
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I'm sure it is.
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Go ahead.
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You were talking about a government.
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Now you're talking about an agency of the government.
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NASA.gov.
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But this agency is scrutinized by thousands and thousands of scientists around the globe.
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So you are dealing with smart people, believe me.
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You are dealing with smart people.
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I don't deny that.
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So it is very hard to do that, once or twice, maybe.
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Not for the whole time.
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Raise your hand if you think we went to the moon.
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What is the proof?
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Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of moon rocks and dust.
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And we have distributed those freely to PhD scientists around the world.
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And not one of those geologists have said, what is this?
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They've proven to be fake.
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And also collected on the ice in Antarctica and in the Arctic as well.
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Those are collected.
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You don't have to go to the moon to get moon rocks.
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As a matter of fact, all US Air Force photography prior to 1958 shows a flat Earth.
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Only NASA shows a sphere.
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That's not true.
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That's absolutely true, Jim.
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I wouldn't lie to you.
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NASA's lying to you, my friend.
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Not myself.
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We have a laser retro reflector on the moon.
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That we're using now.
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We still use to this day.
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It's sitting there.
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You can find to the inch how far away the moon is.
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No pictures of home.
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That only is there.
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By the way, my question to you is why?
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Why would all these honest, hardworking people perpetuate this massive fraud?
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Why would they do this?
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What's the benefit of it?
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Okay, the benefit of it.
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They make $52 million a day.
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Follow the money.
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No, the little guy.
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Follow the money.
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The little guy...
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That's what, then when you say all, okay?
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But it didn't start out that way.
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And NASA was not founded to prove that Earth was a globe.
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It had nothing to do with the way they were founded.
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Well, if you go and study it, then...
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Are you sure?
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Yeah, positive.
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Really?
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Yes.
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Somebody has to be a voice for reason, and somebody has to be a voice for truth.
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It would be a fantasy to believe that I would change anybody's mind from the other three.
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However, if there's somebody sitting on the fence and this is the first introduction to this debate, perhaps they'll hear the reasonable voice and say,
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that makes more sense than having this pizza-shaped earth.
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I can put myself in the mindset of the other side.
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I used to be a ball earther.
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Everything you say right now is completely what I used to agree to.
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So I completely understand where you're coming from.
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For me, I think the correct way to do any kind of investigation
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or to examine things is by literally putting yourself in that mindset of the other person.
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So I do do that.
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I disagree with your position, but I completely understand from your perspective what you're saying.
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The trouble I have understanding your perspective is in the modern world, unless you live in a cave somewhere,
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you have to believe in science implicitly.
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I met a flat earther, a young woman who said, I don't trust anything that science does.
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And that's a problem because human beings can't replicate the whole body of science every single generation.
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At some point, you have to trust what's already been discovered and proven and move on to the next thing.
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Otherwise, we're not going to advance at all.
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I mean, when you turn that key ignition in your car, you expect the car to start out.
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And not blow up.
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blow up because science puts you in that position.
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So it's really hard to understand how people
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would know in their hearts that science achieves wonderful things and then just jumping ship when it comes to this other issue.
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We're not drawing conclusions.
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We understand the mechanisms that made that car work.
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There is no theories and no disputed conclusions involved there.
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It's not a good analogy.
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Can I admit a great compromise that we have to experience being against the grain people
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is we have to literally sit in a group and decide whether or not we can afford to have an opinion.
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And that's tough.
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I actually, I agree with you there because we're the same thing.
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I mean, I think skeptics go through this and atheists go through this.
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I don't believe in God.
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When I'm around religious people, I take a chance socially when I tell them I'm an atheist.
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So I know it takes some courage to follow your beliefs, and I appreciate that.
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But I think I've done a lot of research in that venue too.
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And it's not something I choose to believe in.
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It's something I have to believe in based on the evidence.
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See, what I get from you guys is that seeing is believing.
482
So how come you believe in God or Jesus?
483
You haven't seen neither of them, right?
484
I've seen evidence, though.
485
Well, exactly.
486
So we are looking for evidence.
487
There are many, many other evidences for Earth not being flat.
488
My point is that these experiments clearly show that the Earth is globe.
489
And you don't need to go outside the globe to see its globe.
490
It's a conclusion.
491
It's a few radical...
492
You told me you want the evidence.
493
If you're saying that you look only to see something, then I dispute your belief system in God and Jesus,
494
or Yehovah, or Buddha, or Zoroastra, or anyone.
495
You keep going back to religion as because it's coming from there.
496
You tell you do
497
Coated Bible That is not the only reason I know what the shape of the earth is
498
and you can't that's fallacy It's not fallacy actually it is not fallacy It is a balancing.
499
You just muted your pencil.
500
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
501
I'm a theoretical physicist.
502
What I'm doing is the combination of string theory and cosmology, so we try to understand what happened during the Big Bang,
503
after the Big Bang, or even before the Big Bang.
504
What are you hoping to get from the discussion today?
505
Well, I hope I would be able, particularly to the young generation, to convince them that first they should think critically
506
and don't believe anything they shouldn't take anything for granted look at the evidences
507
and examine those evidences and throw away those claims
508
that are not evidence-based science not to put it down but when you're talking about rocket science
509
This is very difficult for the majority of people to understand, and it's designed that way.
510
And so in a lot of ways hiding behind rocket science is similar to religion.
511
If you look at the Catholic Church back in the days, only we can interpret the Bible.
512
You have to listen to what we say.
513
So in a lot of ways we're getting that same notion from science
514
that says only we can interpret what these numbers are.
515
You just need to trust us trust us.
516
But then when we actually do go and test some of their equations and they don't work, does that beg the question for us to go and test ourselves?
517
Absolutely.
518
I would say, you know, one great thing about science is its predictability.
519
Let's for some moment, for a short moment, assume that your model, this flat earth model is correct.
520
I don't know what does it buy for us.
521
What does it predict for us?
522
So my question for you guys would be next time bring me something from your theory,
523
your model, that you can predict something which the globe-Earth model cannot predict.
524
Then I would change my mind.
525
I would just say that don't believe anything that I've said.
526
You've got to do your own research.
527
And I think what you'll find is that you'll see that a puzzle piece doesn't fit.
528
And the only way you're going to do that is if you put your own eyeballs on it.
529
I don't blame people for being skeptical.
530
I'm skeptical about a lot of different things.
531
I applaud that instinct in you.
532
But you have to go beyond just not believing in something.
533
Ask the hard questions.
534
Ask what qualifies a YouTuber, a book author, anywhere else you're getting this information.
535
What qualifies them to make wide-ranging comments about the shape of the earth.
536
Look, anybody who can overturn Einstein or some major theory is gonna be eventually
537
written in the halls of science for the rest of their lives.
538
But they have to come up with the goods.
539
They have to show good science-based evidence that what they say is true,
540
and they have to withstand the test of time and peer review and the rigors of the scientific method.
541
All right, thank you.
542
I'm all with you.
543
Ollie, it was nice to meet you.
544
I'll get ahead to you.
545
You're almost a neighbor.
546
Good to meet you.
547
Very nice to meet you.
548
Thank you.
549
Hey, I want to get you a copy of my novel.
550
Oh, if you can.
551
Yeah, definitely.
552
Thank you guys for watching this episode of Middle Ground.
553
That's right.
554
We know that one of the biggest requests we get is we just want longer episodes.
555
We want to know more about these stories.
556
We want to hear more about the Middle Ground.
557
So, we created a podcast called Radical Empathy, where we can do just that.
558
Shelly from this episode actually sat down with me
559
and we had a conversation about her beliefs
560
and how she came to be a flat earther It's amazing you have to listen to it, but don't just take our word for it.
561
We're gonna play you a little sample right now All right,
562
listen This is John Regalado sitting with Shelly Lewis and we are here to talk about beliefs,
563
okay, I Have studied that the earth is flat mm-hmm and have come to the conclusion that I agree with that
564
This episode is amazing.
565
This is our first one ever and you can find it anywhere.
566
You can find it on Spotify, Apple, Stitcher, wherever you listen to podcasts.
567
But if you love it, please let us know in the comments there and also give it five stars because if you guys love it, we're going to do even more.
568
This is just a big test.
569
Yeah, we'd love to do a whole season of these for you guys.
570
So thank you so much for supporting us.
571
We want to keep making new things for you and until next time.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Flat Earthers vs Scientists: Can We Trust Science?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: earth, science, flat, evidence. This video has 571 sentences and 5555 words to shadow. The speech runs for 34:23. The speaker talks at a natural 162 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| consensus noun | /kənˈsɛnsəs/ | A process of decision-making that seeks widespread agreement among group members. |
| earther noun | A supporter of a particular theory about the Earth. | |
| assumption noun | /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/ | The act of assuming, or taking to or upon oneself; the act of taking up or adopting. |
| curvature noun | /ˈkɜɹ.və.tʃəɹ/ | The shape of something curved. |
| fallacy noun | /ˈfæl.ə.si/ | Deceptive or false appearance; that which misleads the eye or the mind. |
| cosmology noun | /kɑzˈmɑləd͡ʒi/ | The study of the physical universe, its structure, dynamics, origin and evolution, and fate. |
| uneducated adjective | /ʌnˈɛd͡ʒəkeɪtɪd/ | Not educated. |
| skeptical adjective | /ˈskɛptɪkəl/ | Having, or expressing doubt; questioning. |
| liftoff noun | The point in the launch of a rocket or an aircraft where it leaves contact with the ground. | |
| mislead verb | /mɪsˈliːd/ | To lead astray, in a false direction. |
| physicist noun | /ˈfɪzɪsɪst/ | A person whose occupation specializes in the science of physics, especially at a professional level. |
| educate verb | /ˈɛd͡ʒ.əˌkeɪt/ | To instruct or train. |
| predict verb | /pɹɪˈdɪkt/ | To make a prediction: to forecast, foretell, or estimate a future event on the basis of knowledge and reasoning; to prophesy a future event on the basis of… |
| disingenuous adjective | /ˌdɪ.sɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/ | Not honourable; unworthy of honour. |
| eyeball noun | /ˈaɪ.bɔl/ | The ball of the eye. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| start out verb | To emerge suddenly; to jump out. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| blow up verb | To explode or be destroyed by explosion. | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| going over noun | An inspection, examination, review, or investigation. | |
| shut up | /ʃʌt ʌp/ | Stop talking (usually in the form of making annoying, irrelevant, or false comments, during a period of peace and quiet, or when one is not allowed to talk)… |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Are you willing to change your mind?
- It's like, look, are you just, you haven't looked into it yet?
- Are you part of a disinformation campaign?
- What are we going to get in the discussion?
- Remember when that was brought to my attention?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to believe · used to tell · used to be |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been asking · I've been spending · has been trying |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've been · have learned · we've gone |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was created · is orchestrated · could be faked |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 163 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: theoretical /ˌθi.əˈɹɛt.ɪ.kəl/, authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/, notion /ˈnoʊʃən/, foolish /ˈfuː.lɪʃ/, socially /ˈsoʊʃəli/, equation /ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/
- Long words — get the stress right: cosmology /kɑzˈmɑləd͡ʒi/, uneducated /ʌnˈɛd͡ʒəkeɪtɪd/, disingenuous /ˌdɪ.sɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/, critically /ˈkɹɪt.ɪ.kə.li/, supernatural /ˌsu.pəɹˈnæ.tʃə.ɹəl/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like consensus, earther, assumption.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.