And there are countless of other possibilities someone could mislead or play tricks with data and studies, depending on the level of corruption, etc. If you are looking at a single study and its data your are also trusting that the data is accurate. And many things, in order to verify you would need millions of dollars. You are believing and trusting the people doing the science. And if you can't verify, you are believing that others are doing their work honestly.

For modern science, it could take years of studying until you understand something enough to be able to verify it. It's unrealistic for any given person to verify everything by themselves, so a person would have to trust and believe that the power structures work, and that there's no corruption etc going on. We paid attention to their debating techniques to understand the structure of their arguments and how they make them appear rational. In a recent study, my colleague Tomas Nilsson at Linnaeus University and I analysed hundreds of YouTube videos in which people argue that the Earth is flat. QAnon and the great replacement theory, for example, have proved deadly more than once.īy studying how flat Earthers talk about their beliefs, we can learn how they make their arguments engaging to their audience, and in turn, learn what makes disinformation spread online. Polling shows that there is an overlap between conspiracy theories, some of which can act as gateways for radicalisation. While it is tempting to dismiss “flat Earthers” as mildly amusing, we ignore their arguments at our peril. Polls by YouGov America in 2018 and FDU in 2022 found that as many as 11% of Americans believe the Earth might be flat. New to reddit? Click here! Get flair in /r/science Previous Science AMA'sĪround the world, and against all scientific evidence, a segment of the population believes that Earth’s round shape is either an unproven theory or an elaborate hoax. Repeat or flagrant offenders will be banned.Comments dismissing established findings and fields of science must provide evidence.Criticism of published work should assume basic competence of the researchers and reviewers.Non-professional personal anecdotes will be removed.

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Celebrities in flat earth theory