And when people distrust everything, they can be convinced of almost anything.Įspecially the need for a charismatic leader to save them from all those imaginary threats. And all of them are keeping truth squads like PolitiFact, Snopes, and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker extremely busy these days.įlat-earthers say they’re just being skeptical, pushing back against scientific “elites.” In fact, such skepticism is the latest front in a new, intensely political war against truth.Ĭonspiracy mongers like the flat-earthers are undermining our faith not just in science, but also in history, democracy, the military, the justice system, the major news organizations, everything.
As you know, the web has become a swamp of conspiracy theories, half-truths and outright falsehoods - some just plausible enough to get your attention, most simply bonkers. But the flat-earth movement was squashed flat as a tortilla with the rise of modern science and satellite launches. The notion made a brief comeback in the 19th century, largely as a disapproving reaction to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The idea that our world is a rather large pancake has, of course, been around for ages, even though ancient Greek scholars and medieval mariners knew better. It has research groups, conferences, websites, social media pages and armies of followers (91,000 for Flat Earth Research alone.) And it’s not a joke.
But the experience led me to a shocking discovery: The flat-earth movement is thriving.
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