Flat Earth made me and my students better scientists

I am a professor of physics. Our team recently discovered this whole Flat Earth 'thing' and we took our time to study it further.
As it might not be of much surprise, the claims are completely bogus.

However, we found a fascinating way to use them in classes.

We used many of the claims here from the board and other sources, put them in a document, corrected grammar mistakes and such, and told the students that the document is from a preprint server and they are supposed to go through the material and tell us if there is anything we might have missed.
They had no bias, since they do not know it is from a bogus conspiracy item.

We also told them that, if they find any errors, they are required to correct them in detail.
Since all claims are completely nonsensical from a physics point of view, it requires a lot of effort to 'correct' them in writing (because of the level of absurdity involved).

It is a great experience for everyone involved (and no one gets a bad mark, because the course is not mandatory).


When we talked about our project during a meeting, the psychiatry department got all ears.

They become invested in further exploring the topic of conspiracy 'theories'.

They created a new project, where they analysed the posts made by some of the individuals here on the board who have a LOT of posts already made (without naming names). Our psychiatrists, to make a long story short, recommended that those people seek psychological help.

According to our psychiatrists, who went through thousands of posts here on the board, mental illness is a leading factor in this entire 'Flath Earth' issue.



By the way ... two users were recently banned from the board, because it was suspected they were the same person.
Both were associates of us.

Apparently, in the Flat Earth world, no one has ever heard of shared workspace, which usually means a shared IP address, sometimes by dozens or hundreds of people.

It seems symptomatic for Flat Earth followers, to only see what is exactly in front of them - without any knowledge or understand of anything else it might mean.
Which is ironic, because all evidence that is in front of them, is denied by them.

Fascinating.

Thank you.
It was really entertaining, from an academic point of view.

I feel sorry for your two colleagues. I am not a physicist but I believe in scientific research based on facts rather than speculation and blind faith in one's own views.

Thank you for your dedication to science and humanity.

According to our psychiatrists, who went through thousands of posts here on the board, mental illness is a leading factor in this entire 'Flath Earth' issue.

Mom was a nurse in the prison system for a while.  Sometimes people are just cons and trolls. 

What do you mean by mental illness?  Do actors have a mental illness?  I believe there are a few more innocent flat earthers that are just role playing or playing devils advocates.

Flat earthers are correct to question why one believes what they believe.

Flat earthers are correct to question. 

Problems start to arise when flat earthers take it to the next level.  Where they won’t question themselves, use falsehoods after being repeatedly debunked, and ignore demonstrably evidence the earth is spherical. 

Your colleagues seem like typical psychiatrists. They will probably be awesome prescription dispensers someday. Friends of the pharmaceutical industry.

Our psychiatrists, to make a long story short, recommended that those people seek psychological help.

According to our psychiatrists, who went through thousands of posts here on the board, mental illness is a leading factor in this entire 'Flath Earth' issue.

Well, duh! "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow [Maslow's Hammer] 

And, yes, in more than 10 years following this site, I found that a lot of things I only cursorily understood, I now understand much better after studying them in detail to explain why certain things happen in the real world and why they appear the way they do; for example, the shape of the analemma. The best way to learn is to teach, or at least, to try to coherently explain to others.

I've always thought that the assertion that "sunlight warms, moonlight cools" that comes up from time to time here would be a great hypothesis to test with a controlled experiment for a middle school or high school science project. If anyone asks for a suggestion...

Is davidc saying two people on the flatsarthboard are crazy or two people in his school board are crazy?



I think hes saying the former

Yes, talking about the former.

Specifically one member that has declared themselves a type of expert, dreaming dreams about a world where ‚Flat Earth‘ topics are brought into the real world.
A user who suffers, based on their posts, from severe delusions of grandeur, likely as the result of a dysfunctional understanding of self-importance.

This board is the richest pool of firsthand raw data on these type of psychological issues that our psychiatrists have worked with, in a long time.
Most especially given the sheer amount of tens of thousands of posts.

They also come to the conclusion that it is almost impossible to follow the ‚Flat Earth‘ believe without a fundamental psychological dysfunction or a dramatically disturbed past, shaped by highly emotional trauma.

In other words: A normal person without psychological issues is virtually immune to believing nonsense like ‚Flath Earth‘.


Nonetheless, the nonsense is great for didactic purposes, as stated in the original post.
When something is so absurd, you have to get into the very basic aspects of physics to show why they are absurd.

similarkly, as a conspiracy theorist can never find a turth amongst a sea of neverendingcospiracy - so to can Poe's law never be confirmed unless confirmed...and even then, maybe?