Flat Earth Distinction

Who and what do we trust? It's something I run up against in discussions, debates and in my own mind. It's the other side of the tiresome "do your own research" argument. Here's why I'm getting tired of this argument.

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Don't get me wrong here: it's good to do your own research. The best evidence for or against the truth of any assertion, proposition or hypothesis comes from your own senses. So, for example, I'm typing away on my keyboard right now, and I verify what I've just typed on the screen in front of me. Therefore three things are true: I exist, the keyboard exists and the screen exists. I can hear my wive speaking on the phone with her sister right now, so I'm pretty sure they exist as well. I also believe that Japan exists, even though I've never been there, and don't know anyone from Japan personally. But I'm a big fan of anime, have grown up watching many Japanese movies and spent much of my youth practicing karate and judo. Visiting Japan is high up on my list of things I want to do sometime, and I'm pretty sure that if I go there, the airplane won't get lost in some void of nothingness, but that it'll actually land in a place that exists.

Let's take it a step further and say that I also believe the moon exists and that it's a real tangible heavenly object and not a shape cut out from a black dome surrounding the planet. Here's a quote from the 1986 film Highlander: "Why does the sun come up? Hmm? Or are the stars just pin holes in the curtain of night, who knows? What I do know is that because you were born different, men will fear you... try to drive you away, like the people of your village." Well, I think I know why the sun comes up and that the stars aren't pin holes in the curtain of night, but other suns. What I'm getting at here is that the world, the universe is a complex and vast place, and that at some point I, as an individual, have reached the limit of what I can confirm with just my own senses. At some point I have to trust something or someone else to give me truthful information.

So, who do I trust? Well, not the Bible or any other dogmatic belief system. And not some random geezer on the internet (I wouldn't trust me if I were you ;-)). Although it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what or who I trust to inform my thoughts, ideas, philosophy and ideology, I can say this: I trust science and scientists the most. And that goes for all kinds of science including the "hard" sciences and social sciences like the humanities and history. I trust logical argumentation. I even trust science over my own senses sometimes, for stars do look like pin holes in the curtain of night, and the sun does seem to rise up, when we all know it's the planet that revolves and that the stars are suns.

Or do we? This is the point I'm trying to make here. In discussions on topics that the hivemind of the internet has deemed "hot", I see and meet people who believe the strangest things. Some even believe that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around (or above the disc that is) the earth. Some believe that the Democratic Party in America is a Satanist bunch of baby-killers. Some believe that Trump has won the 2020 general elections. Other (oftentimes the same) people believe that COVID-19 is a hoax or a conspiracy or a clever ploy from Big Pharma to boost sales. What I often find is that these people are from the same club and that they all, almost without exception, accuse people who don't share their crazy beliefs of being mindless sheep. "Do your own research!", they shout, as if their own research amounts to anything more that quoting websites that confirm their crazy beliefs. Sure, they'll sometimes find a rogue scientist backing their story, immediately classifying the bulk of scientists that reject their story as being part of some grand conspiracy. They do not trust academia because they've fallen for the wild accusations from prominent "thought-leaders" like Jordan Peterson that the academics have been taken over by "neo-Marxists" and "Marxist-nihilists".

I believe much of this is caused by the human need for explanations and reasons and their propensity for confirmation-bias. That in times of much uncertainty this need grows, and we are living in times of much uncertainty. Existential uncertainty even. And we're not only looking for answers; we're often willing to accept the simplest of answers. The sun revolving around the earth, the earth being flat, and the stars being pin holes in the curtain of night are, in many ways, the simplest explanations for what we see with our own eyes, which is the reason why we've been able to hang on to these beliefs for so long. But this flat earth delusion is still useful in discussions with people who argue for any other crazy idea, as long as they don't believe the earth is flat. When they say "do your own research", and when they accuse you of being a gullible sheep who blindly accepts anything the mainstream media or mainstream science tells you, ask them if they believe the earth is flat. Ask them if they believe their own eyes when they see the sun come up, or if they believe they live on a spinning ball. If they believe the latter, they're just as gullible as you or me. That's what I've called, for myself, the "flat earth distinction". It's using the flat earth to show these eager researchers that we're all handing over our own agency to the collective wisdom of experts. To show that anecdotal evidence from one acquaintance or rogue scientist isn't confirmation of truth. That personal experience or one's own senses isn't a sure path towards truth.

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