Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?
I find these people particularly interesting, not because of the absurdity of their belief, but because of the <i>certainty</i> they have in their belief and how difficult it is to convince them otherwise.<p>The article points out that &quot;many Americans&quot; hold some kind of wacky belief and strongly resist attempts to challenge it: vaccines cause autism, global warming isn&#x27;t real, the moon landing was faked, the earth is 6,000 years old, dinosaurs drowned in the Great Flood, ghosts are real, etc...<p>So rather than the Flat Earthers being anomalies, I actually think they represent the general public quite well; it&#x27;s just that their crazy belief is different from mine or yours.<p>What I am really curious about is: what would it take to successfully convince one of these people that they are wrong?  Because if you solve this problem, then you solve the problem in its generality, and you can apply the technique to the vast number of people who still believe the earth was <i>literally</i> created in 7 days.<p>My best guess?  Ask them, &quot;What would it take to convince you otherwise?&quot;  The problem isn&#x27;t that most people are incapable of learning the truth — it&#x27;s that they don&#x27;t <i>want</i> to learn the truth.  Take for instance someone who believes dinosaur bones were planted in the earth by the devil.  I have a hard time imagining that if you handheld them and took them step-by-step through the scientific method (e.g., starting with archaeological sites), that by the end of a year&#x27;s worth of research, they would still disagree with the mainstream scientific view.<p>And that&#x27;s the cool thing about science: you don&#x27;t have to take anyone&#x27;s word for it!  You can check what people are saying all by yourself.  Go out there with ice core machines, thermometers, and satellites, and trace through the same steps that the climate experts have taken.  After years of following their own work for yourself, there&#x27;s no way you <i>couldn&#x27;t</i> believe in global warming.<p>I think what it really comes down to is that most people would rather live with a comforting or reassuring lie than an uncomfortable truth, and even given the opportunity and resources for discovering the truth themselves, they would prefer not to.