Hellerick projection of Earth sphere as flat/
/CC BY-SA 4.0 )
Various parties are looking for someone to blame:
I am still stunned that there are seemingly average people walking around today with the firm belief that the world is actually flat. The numbers, while still small, are also surprisingly high. In a recent survey only 84% of those surveyed were confident that the Earth is “round”. The rest expressed some doubt, were confident the Earth is flat, or were unsure. For those 18-24 only 66% were confident the world is round. (The survey was presented as a dichotomy between round and flat – it’s hard to say if this had any effect on the responses, but we’ll put that aside.) Belief in a flat Earth correlated with being young, religious, and poor.
Steven Novella, “What Drives the Flat-Earthers?” at Neurologica
It correlates more with living in a culture where there is an academic war on science waged by old, rich, naturalists for their own advancement. Ditto the war on math.
Put another way: Getting answers right is no longer considered a plus; it’s a suspect quality. So then, people believe what they want.
Most of Novella’s piece has to do with people who seriously espouse a flat earth as opposed to people who check the box and go back to their Twitter feed, surely the vast majority. It won’t be fun when those people have responsible positions, imparting their knowledge of the world.
Note: In the same spirit, they accept a multiverse where everything is true. Spares thinking.
See also: Historian: Darwinists Kept The “Flat Earth” Myth Going, To Attack Opponents Of Their Views
and
Surely The Flight From Intellectual Curiosity Relates To Flat Earth Beliefs Among Millennials
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