Why people believe the Earth is flat and we should listen to anti-vaxxers

The internet, as we are all patently aware by this point, is awash with some incredible nonsense. In recent years, some of that nonsense has managed to gain a disturbing amount of traction: the anti-vaxxer movement, a religious belief in alternative medicine, the flat Earth theory, and even astrology have all experienced a tremendous surge of interest and support in online spheres.

Inevitably, this means that these belief systems have become all the more apparent in our real-world social interactions and sometimes it takes the good grace of social intelligence to resignedly agree with co-workers that perhaps a tumultuous month is, in fact, largely due to Pisces Season.

As a science journalist, the insistent misconceptions of the scientific method and self-important fear-mongering of pseudoscience proponents can be absolutely infuriating. People who communicate science are, for the most part, ethical people who believe that the dissemination of absolute truth (or, as close as we can possibly get to it) is the skeleton upon which a functioning, right-thinking society can thrive.

To have a hefty chunk of that skeleton dismantled by an eight-minute YouTube video of one guy with a spirit level on an airplane trying to prove the Earth is flat is a disheartening experience (yes, this was a real thing and yes, he is an extremely handsome conspiracy theorist, which makes the whole enterprise frankly even more annoying).

I understand why scientifically minded people experience profound frustration at the nonsense, particularly when we’re forced to consider the public health implications of the anti-vaxxer movement which has been blamed as the root cause for recent outbreaks of measles in the US, a viral infection which can prove devastating for babies and young children. Misinformation can cause immense suffering and we should do our utmost to dispel the lies.

All of this being said, I’ve also come to believe that in trying to navigate these issues, a great deal of science communication has become smug, prodding and lost its sense of empathy.

Too many people in scientific spheres seem to revel in dismissing flat-Earthers and anti-vaxxers as garden variety nut-jobs and losers. It may be cathartic – but it’s not productive. Even the relatively compassionate flat-Earther documentary hosted on Netflix, Behind the Curve, couldn’t help itself when it came to making fun of its main subject, Mark Sargent, an internationally renowned proponent for the movement.

At one point in the documentary, flat-Earth commentator Nathan Thomson remarks on the misperceptions of his community. Thomson understands what the rest of the world thinks – that they’re “total idiots and they live in their mum’s basement and they believe whatever anyone tells them”.

He asserts however that he has “met hundreds of flat-Earthers and none of them are living in their mum’s basement”. The screen cuts to Sargent, distinguished star of flat-Earth Youtube, who we know despite not necessarily living in his mother’s basement – rather just in her home – certainly operates out of it and, as the audience of this absurd, ill-informed circus, we’re supposed to laugh and feel good about ourselves for knowing and being better.

What is obvious, however, is that a middle-aged man like Sargent living with his mother isn’t a hilarious sidenote to his flat-Earth narrative, it’s a driving force.

It’s interesting that for a scientific community so perennially pleased with itself, we all seem to be making the same fundamental attribution error by ignoring the notion that belief in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories is propelled by external pressures of fear, confusion and disempowerment. Instead we seem too often satisfied with pinning the nonsense on some bizarrely flourishing individual idiocy.

There are existential, epistemic and social reasons that appear to drive people to conspiratorial belief, and in a seemingly chaotic post-truth world where loneliness has become a major health concern, are we really shocked that these untruths are thriving?

Personally, I occasionally find the news cycle so overwhelmed by political and societal madness that I’d rather like to put on a tin foil hat and relax on my sofa with the idea that things are only bad right now because the lizard people are doing a poor job of running the show.

When we feel so fundamentally disenfranchised, it’s comforting to concoct a fictional universe that systemically denies you the right cards. It gives you something to fight against and makes you self-deterministic.

It provides an “us and them” narrative that allows you to conceive of yourself as a little David raging against a rather haughty, intellectual establishment Goliath.

This is what worries me about journalists writing columns or tweets sneering at the supposed stupidity of the pseudoscientists and con spiracy theorists – it only serves to enforce this “us and them” worldview.

When really, we all understand what it means to be scared in 2019, and while we’re sure as hell not required to respect pseudoscience, we should at the very least be able to understand how the fear can make a person’s belief system so awry.

• Elfy Scott is a journalist and writer based in Sydney

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*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Guardian can be found here ***