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Interesting bit to be found at The Conversation:
Speakers recently flew in from around (or perhaps, across?) the earth for a three-day event held in Birmingham: the UK's first ever public Flat Earth Convention. It was well attended, and wasn't just three days of speeches and YouTube clips (though, granted, there was a lot of this). There was also a lot of team-building, networking, debating, workshops – and scientific experiments.
Yes, flat earthers do seem to place a lot of emphasis and priority on scientific methods and, in particular, on observable facts. The weekend in no small part revolved around discussing and debating science, with lots of time spent running, planning, and reporting on the latest set of flat earth experiments and models. Indeed, as one presenter noted early on, flat earthers try to "look for multiple, verifiable evidence" and advised attendees to "always do your own research and accept you might be wrong".
While flat earthers seem to trust and support scientific methods, what they don't trust is scientists, and the established relationships between "power" and "knowledge". This relationship between power and knowledge has long been theorised by sociologists. By exploring this relationship, we can begin to understand why there is a swelling resurgence of flat earthers.
Interestingly enough, the author delves into philosophy, particularly the work of Michel Foucault, who, for those not familiar with him, traced the relations between knowledge and power, especially in The Archaeology of Knowledge.
In the 21st century, we are witnessing another important shift in both power and knowledge due to factors that include the increased public platforms afforded by social media. Knowledge is no longer centrally controlled and – as has been pointed out in the wake of Brexit – the age of the expert may be passing. Now, everybody has the power to create and share content. When Michael Gove, a leading proponent of Brexit, proclaimed: "I think the people of this country have had enough of experts", it would seem that he, in many ways, meant it.
Ah, that explains so much beyond Brexit! Alternative Knowledge!
And for those who will never read the entire article, bit of the take-away:
In many ways, a public meeting of flat earthers is a product and sign of our time; a reflection of our increasing distrust in scientific institutions, and the moves by power-holding institutions towards populism and emotions. In much the same way that Foucault reflected on what social outcasts could reveal about our social systems, there is a lot flat earthers can reveal to us about the current changing relationship between power and knowledge. And judging by the success of this UK event – and the large conventions planned in Canada and America this year – it seems the flat earth is going to be around for a while yet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 06 2018, @03:53AM (2 children)
And yet lots of "rigorous scientists" and "science-respecting intelligent people" have strong religious belifs in supernatural phenomena, with no empirical basis or because they believe empiricism doesn't always have "the answers" or is flawed in some way. Granted, the number of atheist scientists is growing, but studies seem to show it's not the majority.
And what causes them to deny scientific evidence and believe in odd stuff? Traditional power structures and religious authority.
Similarly, a large number of intelligent people seem prone to believing in conspiracy theories, contra obvious or clear evidence.
Lots of intelligent and indeed "scientific" people believe all sorts of BS. If you need a "screw loose" for a scientist to take some things "on faith" or believe in a conspiracy (As many Flat-Earthers do), then I think you'd be surprised how many respectable intelligent people ( and general advocates of science) have a "screw loose."
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday May 06 2018, @01:14PM (1 child)
There are are people who grow up in, or adopt positions in, animist societies, and Hindu societies, and Muslim societies, and Christian societies, etc., environments in which the tenets of their beliefs seem as assured and assumed as any proven scientific belief. Your conclusion seems to involve my saying you need a screw loose to adopt the beliefs of your prevailing culture (I didn't, and you don't).
Most flatearthers, by contrast, like any conspiracy theorists, seek out an explanation for something that's unique, that's distinctive--that sets them apart from their prevailing culture, not makes them a more integral part of it--and settle on the inexplicable and bizarre to fill that role. It's that aspect of it that I was describing with the perhaps inexact but nevertheless apt "loose screw" metaphor.
It might not surprise me all that much, I don't think. More intelligent can imply more able to follow the byzantine twistings and turnings of a given conspiracy theory, at least.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 06 2018, @07:47PM
I basically agree with most of what you said, and I take your point that there's a distinction between adopting the beliefs of one's prevailing culture vs. going in search of some sort of "hidden knowledge" or conspiracy theory that contradicts the mainstream.
But I still think it's possible for people with scientific mindsets to convince themselves to believe in weird things. Examples you gave like phlogiston or aether theories were actually created by scientists even though they were weird, but they were attempts to fill in gaps in knowledge at the time. There are plenty of scientists even recently who have become intrigued by the possibilities of paranomal phenomena and have been taken in by various charlatans even in what they thought were "controlled" experiments. And every year or two, there's some credentialed scientist trying pedal another version of perpetual motion or cold fusion or whatever, which almost always turns out to be a load of crap -- but they convinced themselves otherwise.
I don't know much about the Flat Earther crowd, but my sense is a lot of them (at least those who present at conferences) are reasonably intelligent people with a "conspiracy theory" mindset. They actually do believe vaguely in "science," but their skepticism has led them to be skeptical of major things in the scientific establishment. They find alternative explanations for things that don't fit their theories and focus on small bits of data that seem to support their theories. Scientists actually have to be careful not to do this as well, because confirmation bias is a real problem (hence all the recent studies showing the number of scientific findings that are not repeatable).
Anyhow, the difference between arguing with someone with a good scientific empirical perspective vs. a conspiracy theorist is that they both believe in data in a way -- but conspiracy theorists are perhaps an order of magnitude worse in the "confirmation bias" department. They also distrust authority, so telling them no mainstream scientists acknowledge their theory (or phlogiston or whatever) isn't going to convince them of anything.