The Rise Of Pseudo-Science (flat-earth example)

Introduction

When I was growing up, science was all about truth. It was about proving things by experimental observation. We started off our adventures at school proving relatively simple things like how Hooke's law applies to weights on springs, building on from there, and soon find that you have to rely other peoples work. You accept they are true because their hypothesis has been scrutinised by other scientists and that their experimental evidence successfully reproduced.

It's called “scientific method”, someone has an idea, finds a way to prove it, publishes to their peers and they check it. (It's worked well for hundreds of years)

But our world is changing and with the rise of the internet anyone can publish. It doesn't have to be true, it doesn't have to be checked, and even if it's later proven to be wrong it's unlikely to get taken down. Alongside that we've had a growing movement of conspiracy theorists who are taking advantage of the ease of spreading their ideas.

The all-seeing-eye

People feel increasingly distrustful of their governments and their lack of control in life. But why do people fall for bad science when there's plenty of evidence to the contrary if they choose to go looking for it?

There's also something called "confirmation bias", we are more likely to trust evidence that supports what we believe, and discard what contradicts it. This means once somebody starts to believe in those sorts of ideas it's almost impossible to argue with them.

The dunning-kruger effect chart shows that as we get a small amount of knowledge we can become very sure of our beliefs, but then if we continue to research, we see the bigger picture and the limits of our original ideas. (that's the dip in the curve)

So Why Use/Abuse Science?

It’s more and more common for scientific principles to be selectively used in an attempt to prove a conspiracy or false belief because of material readily available on the internet. They tend to be from less educated people who can’t be bothered to look completely into an observed phenomena because what they see at the surface supports their ideas

Let me give you a couple of flat-earther examples so you see what I mean.

Flat Earth Example 1

In the first example we’ll use google earth to prove the earth is flat.

1. Take a location by the sea and make a note of it's altitude using Google Earth.
2. Take another location hundreds of miles away (also by the sea), and note that altitude.
3. Using the distance between these points and the Earth Curvature table, see what the height drop would be.

Earth Curvature Table

The theory is that for a two points three hundred miles apart there should be a 11 mile drop, but Google Earth shows them to be at the same altitude.

This is of course utter rubbish, because altitude is height above sea level and we picked two points right by the sea.

Example 2

In the second example we’ll take a satellite image showing the transition of the moon across the earth. The distances involved, and the lens focal length make the moon appear to be quite close to the earth and to be around a third of its size.

The transit of the moon

Now look at this photo taken from lunar orbit during one of NASA's Apollo missions. The moon appears huge (it's close to the camera) and the earth looks small (it's far away).

Lunar orbit showing the earth

"Ahah", say the conspiracy theorists, if that picture really was take from the moon then the earth would fill the sky. "Just look at that first picture!"

It's at times like this that I am reminded of this clip from Father Ted..

It's simple really.