A Third of Young Millennials Are Confused About This Incontrovertible Fact
By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | April 4, 2018 04:53pm ET
Live Science
Only 66 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. are confident that the world is round, according to a new national survey.
The findings don't necessarily indicate an epidemic of flat-Earthism, as only 4 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old age group said they actually believe the world is flat. Rather, there seem to be a relatively large number in this age group who are willing to entertain doubts: 9 percent said they had always believed the world was round but were recently having doubts, 5 percent said they had always believed the world was flat but were becoming skeptical of that conclusion and 16 percent just weren't sure.
Flat-Earth philosophy has been around since the 19th century, but it has recently blown up online, particularly on YouTube and Twitter. Believers post videos and memes arguing their case for a flat Earth and positing conspiracy theories to explain away everything that makes it clear that the planet is, in fact, a globe.
Flat-Earth believers
It's hard to pin down precisely how many flat-Earthers there are. The first flat-Earth conference in the United States, held last year, drew a crowd of 500, according to its organizers. The new survey, conducted by YouGov, drew respondents from its online panel of 1.8 million residents of the United States. The survey questioned 8,215 adults, and the results were then weighted to represent the demographic makeup of the U.S. population. [7 Ways to Prove the Earth Is Round (Without Launching a Satellite)]
Overall, the results suggest that 84 percent of Americans believe the world is round. Five percent said they always believed the world to be round but have recently become skeptical. Two percent said the world is flat. Another 2 percent said they always thought the world was flat but have recently become skeptical. And 7 percent just weren't sure.
"Young millennials," or those ages 18 to 24, were the most likely to exhibit round-Earth skepticism, with only 66 percent firm in their belief in a spherical world. For comparison, 94 percent of those 55 and older think the world is round, as do 85 percent of 45- to 54-year-olds, 82 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds and 76 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds.
There weren't many differences in flat-Earth beliefs across regions of the country or between genders or people of different political persuasions. People who reported incomes of less than $40,000 a year were slightly less likely to say the world was round than people who made higher incomes (79 percent versus 87 percent in the $40,000 to $80,000 income bracket, and 92 percent in the $80,000 and up income bracket).
The geography of religion
The most predictive demographic factor that explains flat-Earth belief appears to be religion, the YouGov survey suggested. According to the results, 52 percent of those who said the world was flat also called themselves "very religious," a descriptor that only 20 percent of Americans as a whole use for themselves. Another 23 percent of flat-Earth believers called themselves "somewhat religious," while 25 percent said they were either not very religious or not religious at all.
While few polls have focused specifically on flat-Earth beliefs, other national polls have suggested that Americans are shaky on facts generally taught by the time they reach fourth grade. A 1999 Gallup poll found that 18 percent of Americans mistakenly thought the sun revolves around the Earth, rather than the other way around. (Germans and Britons were similarly heliocentrically confused in surveys taken around the same time, according to Gallup.)
Google Trends suggests that interest in the concept of "flat Earth," if not necessarily belief, has been on the rise over the past few years. The search trend for the term in the United States crept upward over 2016 and 2017, with spikes coinciding with particular events. For example, searches for "flat Earth" rose around the time of the August 2017 solar eclipse, which spurred much sparring between flat-Earthers and mainstreamers online.
Original article on Live Science.
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Inside Flat Earth International Conference, where everyone believes Earth isn't round
ABC News | Apr 24
There are a few undisputed truths that most people agree on: The sky is blue, one plus one equals two and Earth is round. But for a group of flat Earth believers that final point is up for debate.
For the attendees of the Flat Earth International Conference, such as Mark Sargent, "Everybody here can agree on absolutely one thing, which is [Earth] is not a globe," he said.
Sargent, who has a large following on YouTube thanks to his series, "Flat Earth Clues," said he denies that he is the "father" of the movement and rather thinks of himself more like a "recruiter."
The flat Earth movement has grown online, with YouTube channels like Sargent's and others including "Globebusters" as well as "ODD TV," a flat Earth rapper with over 100,000 subscribers.
Last November, Sargent and other flat Earth believers gathered at an Embassy Suites hotel in Raleigh, North Carolina, for the Flat Earth International Conference, an educational seminar where individuals and organizations discuss scientific questions about Earth.
Sargent said he thinks there are more people who believe the theory than just those outspoken on the subject.
"You know flat-Earthers," he told ABC News' Eva Pilgrim. "I guarantee it. But you don't know who they are because they are afraid of talking about it."
Conference attendees Amy Nicholson and Kim Gurley both told ABC News they are more reserved in their beliefs.
Gurley, who traveled from Houston, Texas, to attend the conference, said, "I haven't really come out all the way yet." Nicholson said she wrote a book of poetry about her flat Earth journey, but even her best friend told her she "sounds psychotic."
Laini Inivale, who came all the way from New Zealand to be a part of the experience, said he is able to have conversations about the theory back home. "I mix with quite a lot of flat-Earthers in New Zealand."
Other conference attendees told ABC News they believe there is tangible proof behind the idea.
"When it comes to science, there's things you can test right now," Sargent explained, citing fire, water and gravity. "Think about this, for the last 20, 25 generations, this is what we've told people [about Earth.]"
For centuries, scientists have pointed to evidence of a round Earth in everything from the slope of the horizon to the gravitational pull of the Earth. The claims of a flat Earth are at odds with physics and astronomy.
Some flat-Earthers imagine Earth looks like a snow globe with a dome -- round but not a sphere. According to most flat Earth maps, the North Pole is at the center with the ice of Antarctica holding everything in.
Sargent told ABC News he is "pretty sure" that’s what the flat Earth looks like. "I mean there are some details to be worked out, sure. But the basic concept is sound," he said. "Absolutely sound."
Flat-Earthers denounce traditional and iconic "blue marble" images taken from space as fake, including Rob Skiba.
"As soon as you start looking into the pictures of the globe, you start seeing words like 'composite' or 'animation' or you know something that tells you this is not an actual photograph of the earth," Skiba said. "And at that point you're sort of saying, 'Wait a minute.'"
But Mike Massimino, senior adviser for space programs at the Intrepid Museum in New York City, told ABC News the topic is not up for debate. "Looks round folks. It is round," Massimino said.
The former NASA astronaut added that in his own experience looking at the planet from space, Earth looks round. "[It's] my eyewitness account and I looked at it as much as I could. It is round and it is gorgeous. It's beautiful. It looks like a paradise. I felt like I was I was looking into heaven," he continued.
Many flat-Earthers, including Sargent, believe that astronauts are actually actors who are part of a larger conspiracy.
"No astronaut has ever been and this is going to sound wild when I say this, no astronaut has ever been on a top of a pile of liquid explosives launched off in space," Sargent purported. "Oh, the rockets go up, sure, [but] there's nobody in them."
Skiba believes the conspiracy is rooted in deeper religious implications. "The bigger picture many of us have come to believe is hiding God," Skiba said. "To me, that would be the ultimate motivation," he added.
In his YouTube videos and podcasts, Skiba looks at clues from the Bible in the book of Genesis. "It's describing a snow globe basically. When you break down the text of what it represents, there's no way you can get a spinning heliocentric globe out of anything in the Bible," he said.
Skiba said, "I have become skeptical of everything. And I think rightfully so."
Fellow skeptic and conference organizer Robbie Davidson said he thinks many of the flat-Earthers share a common trait, conspiracy. "This might be a little higher on the spectrum, but I think there's a little bit of conspiracy theorists in all of us. I really do," he said.
Many flat-Earthers believe in testing the theory.
Darryle Marble said he conducted his own in-flight experiment using a leveler to test if the plane was flying parallel to a flat Earth.
"If it were a sphere then the surface of the Earth still would have been curving underneath the airplane while it's flying level," he reasoned. "It’s so simple it'll go right over your head," he said adding that people who have flown planes allegedly told him they "haven’t seen any curvature."
Even celebrities like "Nothing on You" rapper B.o.B. are looking for new forms of exploration for the conspiracy theory. B.o.B. launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for research to “try every available experiment and test including but not limited to weather balloons, drones, [and] blimps even."
It's something Sargent and Skiba both think is invaluable to learning more about this theory.
“Go out and test,” Skiba said. “I could tell you something, and then you just look at me like I'm crazy. ... I would say, 'Well, they’re crazy for not testing what they think they believe.'”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/inside-flat-ea ... d=52580041