Flat Earthers: it’s not funny anymore

I remember in the early days of the Flat Earth internet frenzy, people were still wondering if this is a joke that some trolls perhaps have taken too far. To our horror today, we have discovered that it wasn’t trolls after all. These are people that actually believe that the Earth is flat, they have books, conferences, youtube channels, wikis, facebook pages and whole communities discussing this. These are people that have thrown away all scientific progress in the past 2 Millenia. They have decided to carry the mental burden of believing that Gravity is a lie, that light traveling in straight lines is a lie, that Galilean relativity is a lie. And that every government, pilot, ship captain, geologian, astronomer is in on the conspiracy. And they would rather accept this (and a much longer list) than to accept the Earth’s true shape.

The Impact & State Today

Only 66% of Millenials firmly believe that the Earth is round. While 2% think that the Earth is flat. — source. This means that if you ask a 100 millennials if the Earth is round, 32 of them will give you a “Hmm” before responding that they are not sure and there is possibly some ongoing “debate” around it. Science today has a lot of ongoing debates. But the shape of the earth isn’t one of them.

When the debate was settled

Around 350 BC, Aristotle declared that the Earth is a sphere after travelling to Egypt and noticing how the stars constellations were different. And it only took until 240 BC for Eratosthenes to measure the circumference of the Earth using shadows with great accuracy relative to tools at his disposal for the time. If a Flat Earther argued with Eratosthenes then, he would have given them a few counter arguments to settle the debate. If you ask a scientist today to prove that the Earth is round, they can comfortably fill a book for you with proofs.

The problem & The Solution

The problem is that we didn’t empower people with enough knowledge about how the scientific process works to be able to evaluate scientific claims.

Obviously schools would be the best place to start with fixing this problem. I am not asking for 6th graders to take an “anti-conspiracy theories” class that dissects every single conspiracy theory and debunks all of their claims. You would probably need more than a lifetime and thousands of books to study and debunk every conspiracy theory that exists. Although, that might be a fun and useful exercise for students to take from time to time.

The deeper problem we have is the lack of education about the scientific method, how scientific research works, how papers get reviewed. What are the checks and balances in the process, why scientists have an incentive to keep their work as accurate as possible.

Saving the Other Side

Some scientists and science communicators outright refuse to talk about or debunk Flat Earth. For them, the Flat Earth theory is a frivolous argument and they worry about “Feeding the trolls”.

However, not every Flat Earther is a crazy conspiracy theorist that is beyond all hope. We need to understand that there is a spectrum. For some skeptical people, who might lack a scientific background, the Flat Earth is an appealing alternative. Let’s focus on this subset of people and give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s restore their trust in the scientific community by showing them more direct evidence that the Earth is round. The answer is not mocking, ridiculing and turning up our noses at them.

Direct evidence

We can fill a book with proof that the Earth is round. But, if you look at the Flat Earth wiki, you will find a similar amount of “sciency-looking” proofs with a lot of math and complicated diagrams that are hard to follow for the layman. For someone without a lot of science education or without motivation to follow complex lines of reasoning, it can be very hard to tell the difference between a correct scientific theory that has been rigorously tested thousands of times versus a crackpot theory.

It’s the simplicity of a static flat Earth that appeals to people. When we look around, the earth appears flat. No curvature in sight, no apparent movement. How do you explain to someone intuitively that the Earth is a massive sphere that is rotating incredibly fast yet we can’t feel it? How do you explain conservation of momentum and Galilean relativity, topics that are mostly built mathematically and taken as core principles?