The Flat Earth & Conspiracy Theories

[dizerner]

As I said. Those are opinions of mine. I put them in my comments about conspiracies. It's not important enough to me to explain further. It's fairly low on my agenda food-chain. I hear all sorts of similar rhetoric from people on the board on theological topics. Or YEC. It's fine to be outraged with me. Let's get back to the trinity!


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Lol, no one's outraged at you, just bad logic.

[morbo3000]

Ok.

"Science-denier" and "Anti-vaxxer" are offensive terms.

I need to repeat what I originally said. All of us have huge gaps in our knowledge about important scientific topics. I have not studied every paper. And I haven't developed a working knowledge of the subject. I have debates about the trinity, and authority of scripture to keep up on. Which means, I have to make a judgment call about who and who not to trust on the subject.

The video with Bill Nye and John Oliver is illustrative of the weight of consensus by climate scientists. But it is not substantive.

The video below is substantive. Please pardon the term "denial" in the title. What the video does is examine the position of individual, practicing, climate science researchers, and peer-reviewed papers published on the subject of climate science. In multiple studies, they found that more than 97% of scientists working in the disciplines contributing to studies of our climate, accept that climate change is almost certainly being caused by human activities.

Watch it or not. Agree with it or not. My only perspective is that I have to decide who to trust on the subject. And I find this overwhelmingly compelling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAqR9mLJrcE

[crgfstr1]

I listened to the first 30 seconds and find it ironic the analogy used of the bridge and relying on the bridge builder to know if it is safe. Hmm, I think he is arguing the wrong message. Scientist didn't build the world. Sounds like they are starting to think they did.

The builder of the worlds is God. I would much rather rely on him to tell me what is safe and what we should be doing. Did the Bible say "Be fruitful and multiply until the world population reaches about 7 billion people then you better have figured out some form of birth control cause that is all the earth was built to hold?" Yet this is the message part of the "scientists" who are the "experts" of God's world (and yet don't even believe in him). Does revelation give us any warning on "Global Warming"? If it were something we were supposed to solve don't you think God would have brought it up rather then scientist? Did the bible rather give us warnings not to listen to the council of ungodly men?

God has given us everything that we need to live. Science has given us some conveniences, a lot of problems, and nothing that we need. Now scientist are saying "Give us lots of money. You need us to save you." No I don't. CO2 is what plants need to breath. If there earth wouldn't automatically balance it why didn't God say something about that? Science has produced many carcinogens, poisons, destructive radiation, etc. If there were warming about problems they have caused like actually doing something about Fukushima that would be something worth listening too. Is that what they are suggesting fixing?

[morbo3000]

Found this online today.

A team of researchers have conducted a five-year-long study on a wide range of Facebook users in a quest to find out how misinformation blossoms online. In their paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they note that it may be due to the nature of so-called “echo chambers,” spaces that allow people to amplify their own belief systems without obstruction.

In this sense, echo chambers describe certain areas of the media, particularly the Internet, wherein information or beliefs are reinforced by repetitive transmission inside an enclosed virtual space. These spaces, which also serve to keep contrasting views at bay, may explain why there are so many groups of people online – particularly on Facebook – that steadfastly believe information that is demonstrably nonsensical.

In order to investigate how effective these echo chambers were, 67 public Facebook pages – 32 regarding conspiracy theories and 35 related to science news – were comprehensively analyzed each and every time a post appeared, including how the followers interacted with it, from 2010 to 2014. Conspiracy theory sites include those that reject the overwhelming consensus on contemporary climate change, and those that believe that Jade Helm 15 – a series of military training exercises that occurred across the U.S. last year – were actually interpreted as signs of an impending civil war.



Echo chambers may explain how some people thought routine military exercises last year represented the beginning of a civil war. Przemek Tokar/Shutterstock

A third group consisting of two trolling pages, those that intentionally disseminate sarcastic, false information for potentially humorous effect, was also taken into account. These trolling websites acted as the experiment’s control group.

The researchers found that the way posts are initially distributed are the same for the science and conspiracy theory posts. Within the first two hours, and again after 20 hours of being posted, a post is shared most frequently, regardless of topic or validity – mostly with those that agree with their views.

However, a difference is noted in the long term. Science news is spread relatively quickly across the web, before sharing and discussion of the post drops off. Conversely, conspiracy theories build momentum more slowly before being shared and discussed increasingly for a longer period of time. This also means that conspiracy theories that gradually gain traction can eventually persist online, regardless of their limited factual basis.

Most significantly, however, is that the long-term online behavior of any type of group user both constructs and strengthens their own echo chambers. Individual people, publications or news organizations whose posts you click on or comment on more frequently will appear in your News Feed more often as a result; those you ignore will fade into near-complete obscurity.

This in itself is an echo chamber, one where the information fed back to you is reinforced by your online interactions. Eventually, therefore, a user’s Facebook space may exclusively include information that they believe in, and people that only agree with them.

A claim, whether it is substantiated or not, is given credence in the mind of an individual if the surrounding society deems it acceptable. This is known as confirmation bias, and this study shows that the phenomenon is just as prevalent in online communities as it is in physical ones. In the case of misinformation, this is incredibly dangerous – so much so that the World Economic Forum has declared its online spread, a form of “digital wildfire,” one of the main threats to global society.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/fa ... nformation

[Singalphile]

That is interesting, but are their findings really informative?

"Our findings show that users mostly tend to select and share content according to a specific narrative and to ignore the rest."

"Users tend to aggregate in communities of interest, which causes reinforcement and fosters confirmation bias, segregation, and polarization. This comes at the expense of the quality of the information and leads to proliferation of biased narratives fomented by unsubstantiated rumors, mistrust, and paranoia."

Yeah, that's pretty much everybody. Shouldn't have taken five years to figure that out!

And that was just internet traffic, social media. In real life, the people with the conspiracy theories (or even just a minority opinion) are probably more exposed to competing views actually, I guess.

I don't think it explains why certain people seem to be disposed to accept conspiracy theories - CIA-targeting-inner-city-with-cocaine, 9-11-was-an-inside-job,faked moon landing, the flat-earth, the rich/elite/drug companies-have-the-cures-for-all-disease-but-don't-tell-us-pions (my brother's favorite, I think), and Reptilians (my favorite!).

I don't know what it is. My only theory is that drugs (recreational or otherwise) are messing with people's heads.

[Steelwheels]

I just read through this post because a few weeks ago I was at a local fellowship gathering and met a brother in the Lord that holds to a belief in a flat earth. At first I thought he was joking, but as he continued to elaborate it slowly dawned on me (I can be like that sometimes) that he was dead serious. After listening to him reject what seems obvious to me in nature, and what science has confirmed about nature, he said he believes this on account of scripture and most Christian (like me I guess) have fallen for the "doctrine of demons." Of course all of the verses he cites are from poetic books in the Old Testament and aren't meant to be taken literally. I even mentioned verses about trees clapping their hands or a land flowing with milk and honey. But he is convinced everyone is deceived. So...here's my concern...

First, he is a brother in the Lord that is not handling scripture accurately.
Second, he is a full time evangelist with a global parachurch organization.

Those two conditions seem to require me to say or do something. I realize that there are times we (especially me), as Christians, will say and/or do something foolish in the presence of unbelievers. I pray that when I do, it won't bring injury to the name of Christ. It seems to me that this FE belief will undoubtedly hinder if not do injury to the Gospel message.

Do I ask him to not tell anyone what his sincerely held belief is about the nature of the earth? Or if he must, just don't tell them he's a Christian? Obviously not. It really is just crazy! I wonder why you would believe in the resurrection as historically true when you believe that a conspiracy of this magnitude is possible. He also hold to the Gen. 6 belief of angels having sexual intercourse with women. Ugh! I want to just walk away but the others in this fellowship are precious and I guess he should be too.

So, if anyone on here has experienced this or has any wise counsel, I welcome it.

[morbo3000]

I had a close friend get sucked into the serpent seed doctrine. Once someone gets it in their head that there has been a cover-up of "the truth" and they are on the inside of the real story, it's r e a l l y hard to get them out. A big part of this problem is a phenomenon called "Confirmation bias,"

def: "the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities." - From the wikipedia entry, which I highly recommend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

And this *fabulous* article on how facts backfire:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas ... _backfire/

I think you have to search yourself and ask "what is the problem here that needs to be addressed?" There's all sorts of wacko doctrine out there. And science-denial (others in this thread hate me using that term.) So, why stop it? It's not a rhetorical question.

Answering that question for yourself will help you figure out what to do in the relationship. I can think of some good reasons. I'm happy to keep this dialogue going.

[Jason]

morbo3000,

I think there may be an issue with your methodology, but correct me if I'm mistaken. If you affirm the existence of an intelligent creator, then the methodology you've used in this discussion renders your own views unlikely to be true. The scientific community, by a wide margin, holds that belief in God is nothing more than superstition and a product of Darwinian development. They've even identified the "god part of the brain." This is considered to be settled science. Now I could argue against those points, in favor of theism, but I'd still be holding a minority opinion. Does that, therefore, make theism anti-science?

I'm not arguing that your conclusions about vaccinations or climate change are wrong (I'm fairly ignorant of both subjects). But your methodology seems to be selectively applied. The scientific consensus, which you hold in rather high esteem, invalidates your own theistic views.

[morbo3000]

Hi Jason. Great question.

The scientific community, by a wide margin, holds that belief in God is nothing more than superstition and a product of Darwinian development. They've even identified the "god part of the brain." This is considered to be settled science.

That's actually not true. This Pew Center study on scientists and belief found that about 50% of scientists believe in a god. While that is less than the general population, it is hardly a wide margin. And the "god part of the brain" studies are fascinating, but we are a long ways from drawing conclusions with any degree of certainty. From my perspective, I would hope that God had guided our evolution to develop this part of our brain, so that we could know him.

If you affirm the existence of an intelligent creator, then the methodology you've used in this discussion renders your own views unlikely to be true.

I don't see how belief in divinity contradicts the scientific method. As I pointed out above, at least half of all scientists believe in a god of some sort or another.

[Steelwheels]

Thanks for the reply morbo3000. I think my best approach would be giving examples of employing a consistent hermeneutic. If this brother wants to be literal with the poetic language in the Old Testament then why doesn't he apply that to other passages. Like the trees clapping their hands and a land flowing with milk and honey. Seems to me being able to distinguish between different genres, like historical narrative and poetry is key.

Sorry, I'm not real good at the whole citing quotes thing.

Jason, I'm of the opinion that there is a greater difficulty justifying the scientific method without theism than there is with theism. But I don't know the rules of this forum and that discussion may belong in a different thread.