MCToon Live 762 - Prof Phil Bell QEs Book
Overview
MCToon Live episode 762 (watch · alternate link) features Prof. Phil Bell presenting a detailed critique of the gravity chapter in Welcome to Flat Earth, the toilet-paper "book" co-authored by John Stunja (QE) and Adam Meakin.
On the livestream, MCToon walks through Prof. Bell's slide decks covering the chapter's science writing, rubric scores, logical fallacies, and individual claims that gravity does not exist.
Source video
Prof. Phil Bell slide decks
Prof. Bell prepared four PDF presentations for this episode:
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| A Brief History of Gravity | Prof. Phil Bell's illustrated timeline of gravity from Aristotle through Einstein — the science the chapter was supposed to engage with. |
| A Science Writing & Language Critique | Literary and science-writing critique of the gravity chapter in Welcome to Flat Earth — diction, tone, voice, mechanics. |
| Gravity Rubric Scores | Six-criterion rubric scoring the gravity chapter (terminology, structure, evidence, tone, argumentation, literary maturity). Total: 4/30. |
| Gravity Critique — Claims | Claim-by-claim analysis of the flat-Earth gravity chapter, naming fallacies and weighing each against the evidence. |
Summary
Science writing verdict
Prof. Bell judges the gravity chapter as poor science writing and immature literature — editorialising, citation-stacked, imprecise, sarcastic, and tonally unstable. Loaded terms ("parlour trick," "bastardisation," "linguistic puppeteers") recruit the reader instead of informing them.
Rubric scores
On a six-criterion rubric (scale 0–5 each):
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Use of Scientific Terminology | Low (1/5) |
| Structure & Logical Progression | Low (1/5) |
| Use of Evidence | Very Low (0/5) |
| Tone & Objectivity | Very Low (0/5) |
| Argumentation Quality | Very Low (0/5) |
| Literary Maturity | Low (1/5) |
| Total | 4 / 30 |
Evidence is actively misrepresented (e.g. Newton's 1692 letter recast as "renouncing" gravity; physicists quoted out of context). Tone is ridiculing and polemical throughout.
Claims analysis
The central rhetorical trick is equivocation — swapping three meanings of "gravity":
- The phenomenon — things fall, planets orbit (observed, measured)
- A force — Newton's model
- Curved spacetime — Einstein's model
The chapter attacks models 2 and 3, then announces phenomenon 1 was never real. Recurring moves include quote-mining, treating refinement as refutation ("superseded = debunked"), private redefinitions, genetic fallacy, and ignoring modern evidence (GPS, spacecraft, LIGO, tides, free-fall measurements).
A Brief History of Gravity
Prof. Bell's companion deck traces two thousand years of gravity science — Aristotle, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Cavendish, Einstein, and modern proofs — providing the historical context the flat-Earth chapter fails to engage with honestly.
Related pages
- Quantum Eraser — John Stunja / QE
- Book Welcome to Flat Earth — the book under review
- MCToon — host